Date: 2023-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

Veracity of Failure

The Race to Mars

Craig Martelle, Scott Sakatch

Craig Martelle, Inc

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction.

The characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

Veracity of Failure (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright © 2023 by Craig Martelle

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Craig Martelle

Version 1.0

Cover by Vivid Covers, Inc

Editing by Mia with LKJ Books (lkjbooks.com)

Published by Craig Martelle, Inc

PO Box 10235, Fairbanks, AK 99710

Contents

Dedication
The Lead Players
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Author Notes - Craig Martelle

Dedication

Always to my wife, who loves me even though I work every day writing stories.

Beta Readers and Proofreaders - with my deepest gratitude for checking readability, typos, and of course, the science!

James Caplan

Kelly O’Donnell

John Ashmore

Mike Robbins

Brian Roberts

Dave Willmarth

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The Lead Players

Philip Barnhart – StarSeeker

Salima Patel – Engineering Team Lead (Chief of Staff)

Johnna Smythe – Beyond, Inc.

Gideon Wagner - Chief Engineer and President

Preston Smythe - CEO (Johnna’s husband)

Al Peroni – One World

Ennis Wright – President and Chief of Staff

Connie Peroni – Al Peroni’s wife

Matt Cummings – second engineer, answers to Ennis Wright

U.S. Government

Patrick Sloane - President

General Arlen Becker – Chief of Space Force

Space and Science Subcommittee

Senator Harry Kane – Chair (Missouri)

1

Somewhere between Mauritius Island and Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean

Mars showed on the widescreen with an allure that belied the extremes of the red planet. The view cut to the President of the United States. “Life is not welcome here,” he intoned, “but that is exactly where we must go. As John F. Kennedy once said, we must do this, not because it is easy, but because it is hard!” The small crowd on the White House’s South Lawn cheered. “I’m asking Congress to support our vision, and through trial and contest, we will persevere. We will put humanity on Mars, as the first step in our reach to the stars.”

Anyone who saw the trio of motor yachts anchored side-by-side likely would have been impressed by the sight. The one in the middle was a fifty-meter, three-level Viudes with a pair of VIP guest rooms, a palatial master suite on the lower decks, and an expansive main deck that sported a pitch-n-putt course as well as a ten-person cold spa. The two on either side of it were somewhat smaller: a sleek, brawny Leudin 1 with a blunt bow that made it look like some futuristic military craft, and an older Horizon 94, less than thirty meters long and reminiscent of the hundreds of generic cruisers that lined the ports along the French Riviera in the summer months.

Still, they were far from the level of what the media dubbed “superyachts,” those ludicrously ostentatious vessels with helipads and swimming pools and fully equipped fitness centers, manned by full-time crews that included everything from a captain to a kitchen staff to a personal shopper. In fact, these three yachts didn’t even belong to the guests currently aboard them; they were chartered from three different sources, out of Port Louis in Mauritius, by three different shell corporations. Each shell corporation belonged to one of the three guests now sitting in the sun on the main deck of the Viudes in the middle.

The skeleton crew of a dozen locals, divided equally between the three vessels, had been paid twice their usual fee in U.S. cash, along with a hefty cash bribe to a marina official who signed off on the yachts sailing without a full complement. None of them spoke fluent English, preferring the local Creole dialect. There were nine others aboard the Viudes: six security people—two for each of the guests—and the guests’ respective chiefs of staff. All of them were hand-picked, well qualified for their jobs, and had signed ironclad non-disclosure agreements years ago, the kind that ensured they would lose everything if they ever repeated what they heard or saw to anyone.

The round trip was scheduled to last twenty-four hours—eight hours to reach the rendezvous point, eight hours anchored, and another eight hours back to Port Louis. Meals had been prepared ahead of time and stored in the galley of the Viudes. The trio and their entourages had arrived in Port Louis via private jet on three different days over the course of a week—one from Singapore, another from Cape Town, and the third from Dubai. All ground transportation had been via private cars with mirrored-glass windows. The routes and rendezvous point had been meticulously planned to avoid the ferry traffic between Mauritius Island and Rodrigues Island.

There was no agenda for the meeting, nor would there be any record of it, electronic or otherwise. It had been arranged entirely by the chiefs of staff via secure phone lines. Every detail came directly from the top and ended at the second rung of the corporate ladder. In total, only twenty-four people knew about the gathering, and only a dozen of those had an inkling as to what was actually going on. Only three of them knew the entire nature of what was to be discussed.

But the nature of the meeting, and its attendees, demanded such secrecy. After all, there was potential for disaster if anyone discovered that a single yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean was playing host to the owners of a combined fortune of some $500 billion, or roughly the equivalent wealth of the poorest third of the entire human race.

The champagne was exquisite, a 1959 Dom Perignon that Philip Barnhart had picked up personally from a world-renowned sommelier in Dubai specifically for this meeting. He waited for one of the crew members to open it, then waved him away to the lowest deck with the rest of the locals. The middle deck was occupied by the three chiefs of staff where they were well out of earshot.

Barnhart poured a flute for himself and Johnna Smythe. She took hers in a well-manicured hand and nodded her thanks. At fifty-eight, she was still striking, if a bit leathery from decades in the Australian Outback’s sun. With a silver pixie cut and a sunny smile, she was dressed in a flowing summer pantsuit that fluttered in the breeze sweeping across the main deck of the Viudes.

Barnhart waved the bottle in the direction of the third member of the trio, Alvito Peroni, who simply shook his head. Barnhart knew he would refuse, but it was proper manners to offer. Peroni was a Yuengling man, which was why there was a silver bucket of gold-labeled bottles on ice sitting on the elegant glass-topped table. It hadn’t been easy to find the so-called King of Pennsylvania Beers in this part of the world, but Barnhart was nothing if not resourceful. Ironically, Peroni’s namesake beer was available at just about every liquor store in Port Louis.

Peroni plucked a sweating bottle from the ice and twisted the cap. Any American who didn’t know who he was might have mistaken him for just another first-generation Long Island Italian, in his guayabera shirt and cargo shorts. The thinning hair on his head and the curls peeking out under his collar were still an inky black at sixty, though a paunch had begun to creep over his waistband. He looked like someone whose closest association to a main deck was barbecuing on the one behind his split-level house in Oyster Bay Cove.

Anyone who believed that would be dead wrong. Their physical well-being was nothing compared to their financial health. They were the richest people in the world, the envy of nearly two hundred governments with a lower GNP than the companies under the control of the assembled group.

Barnhart himself was in excellent shape, but he was more than a decade younger than his companions. In his tailored shirt and slacks, he looked perfectly at home on the sea with his golden hair gleaming in the sun. He raised his glass, and Smythe followed suit. Peroni tilted the neck of his beer.

Their drinks came together with a faint clink, and they each took a sip. Smythe closed her eyes, savoring the champagne, while Peroni fixed Barnhart with an impatient look.

“Let’s cut the shit. What are we doing here?” With his Long Island twang, Peroni could easily have been an extra on The Sopranos. “Ennis said your girl wouldn’t give him any details, just that it was important and top secret.”

“She kept Gideon in the dark, too,” said Smythe. “Why the cloak and dagger? I mean, it’s fun and all, but this trip’s eaten up a week of my life. And to be honest, Phil-o, I don’t trust ya.” She grinned. “No offense.”

Barnhart bristled inwardly. First, Salima Patel, his chief of staff, was far more than his girl, she was an MIT-trained polymath with near-genius intellect. Second, Peroni’s right-hand man, Ennis Wright, was a pedant with no imagination. Finally, Smythe’s head honcho, Gideon Wagner, was a duplicitous snake whom Barnhart wouldn’t trust with his lunch order, let alone a secret like this one.

All of this went through his head, but none of it showed on his face. Instead, he answered Smythe with a chuckle and a shake of his head. “The feeling is mutual,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t think people like us should trust each other. It could be dangerous if we did.”

“We wouldn’t be here right now if we didn’t trust each other at least a little,” Peroni pointed out.

“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” Barnhart said, still grinning. “You two are here because your curiosity wouldn’t let you pass it up. And, let’s face it, neither of you could stomach the thought of the other being in on something that you weren’t.”

Peroni’s expression soured, but Smythe beamed and raised her glass. “You got our numbers, mate!” She laughed. “I always told Al you were a genius.”

Barnhart’s observation was hardly a stroke of genius. He may have topped the list of the world’s wealthiest this year, but he knew better than most that the rankings went up and down with every tremor in the markets. Smythe would never catch him, he was sure, but Peroni very well could. In any case, the three of them hadn’t gotten where they were by letting their rivals eat their lunch. Indeed, that was the basis of the meeting.

He motioned for his companions to take a seat in one of the sumptuous armchairs circling the table. “Salima didn’t offer your people any details because she doesn’t have any details to give,” he said. “The information I’m about to share is as privileged as privileged gets.”

“Then get to the point,” Peroni said testily. “We’re wasting daylight, and Johnna and I have better things to do than sit here sweating.”

“Speak for yourself,” Smythe said, raising her face to the blazing sun.

Barnhart settled back into his chair and crossed his legs, savoring the moment. “All right,” he replied. “Here it is. I have it on good authority that NASA as we know it will cease to exist within the next year, quite possibly as early as eight months.”

He sat back and savored the stunned look that Smythe and Peroni exchanged. The trio’s mutual passion for space was no secret—they each had significant investment in various exploration and exploitation projects. Barnhart had the deepest overall footprint with his StarSeeker empire, but Smythe’s Beyond, Inc. had him beat in sheer percentage of personal fortune involved. Peroni, meanwhile, was focused on practical industrial applications with his One World.

None of that was a secret. But what the world didn’t know was just how passionate the three were about reaching the stars, or how much of their personal wealth they were willing to devote to that goal. Outside of themselves and the three people on the deck beneath them, no one knew that they were united in the goal of tearing down the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to make way for the progress of a free market. They’d discussed it in hushed corners at a number of cocktail parties and charity functions over the years, when they would step away from the crowd to talk about subjects only people like themselves could truly understand.

“Bullshit,” Peroni breathed, scowling now. “How do you know this?”

“That’s not important,” Barnhart said. He had no intention of ever answering that question. “What’s important is that it’s true, and that the three of us recognize this for the historic opportunity it is. China is a new player, hoping to fill the void left by NASA’s departure, but they are far behind us. That being said, China could mobilize millions if they chose to make the effort.”

Peroni and Smythe sat in silence for a time, chewing over what they’d just heard. Barnhart waited patiently, knowing that they would ultimately come to the conclusion that he had no reason to lie to them.

“All right, James Bond,” Smythe said finally, pouring herself another glass of champagne. “I know you well enough to know you’re not gonna give up your sources—you love this cloak-and-dagger shite too much—but you are going to give us the details.”

Barnhart grinned. “Indeed I am,” he said. “President Sloane is currently gathering data to populate an executive order that will absorb NASA into the United States Space Force.”

Peroni snorted. “SPACECOM? Reagan’s Star Wars pet project that became the Space Force in 2019? They have no lift assets. All they do is watch the sky.”

Barnhart said, “As SpaceCom, it was just a means of coordinating the various U.S. military space command sections and as Space Force, it’s not much more.”

“So why cut NASA?” asked Smythe. “And why now?”

This was the part Barnhart had been waiting for. He loved the idea of knowing something his rivals didn’t. It fed the same part of his ego that had driven him to amass an obscene amount of wealth. More than anything else in his life, Philip Barnhart loved to be the one on top, to win, in whatever form that might take.

“There’s a perfect storm brewing,” he said, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. “Patrick Sloane is a maverick, the first true independent to ever occupy the Oval Office. He’s got bipartisan support in Congress that we haven’t seen in generations, at least on the key issues where we need it.”

“I’d show him some bipartisan support,” Smythe purred. “He’s dead spunk, that one.”

Peroni ignored her and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers over his belly. Barnhart held back a sneer at the man’s total lack of refinement.

“What issues are you talking about?” asked Peroni.

“Inflation, obviously,” Barnhart said. “It’s higher than it’s been in decades. Both parties are talking about cutting government spending to keep taxes from skyrocketing. There’s also unprecedented support for NATO, thanks to Russia’s recent shenanigans in Eastern Europe. Polling shows the American public’s top priorities are cutting government spending and increasing its military presence.”

Smythe nodded thoughtfully. “So when Sloane points out that NASA costs twenty-five billion a year and there’s no real-world military application to what they produce…”

“Bingo,” Barnhart said. “Polling also shows the public sees NASA as inefficient and bloated.” He shrugged and held his hands out, palms up. “I’m not saying it is, but we all know it’s not aligned with our personal interests, and it’s years behind our desired timeline.”

Peroni frowned. “And how exactly did Sloane come to this conclusion?”

“That’s not important,” Barnhart said, poker face firmly in place. “What’s important is that the time is now. Sloane’s approval numbers are higher than any president’s in history at the two-year mark of their first term. Plus, we’re going into midterms in November, and no prominent members of either party have the balls to speak out in favor of keeping NASA with all the challenges America faces right now.”

“The perceived challenges,” Peroni said. “What does Sloane think about the Chinese filling the void?”

“Perception is reality,” Smythe replied, finishing off her second glass of champagne.

“Exactly.” Barnhart grinned widely, unable to contain his delight. “It’s a win-win, according to the polls: cut wasteful spending and keep space exploration, while bolstering the military. People won’t care that there will be billions in government contracts for private suppliers like us. They just love simple solutions.” He paused. “And a whole lot of them love us, too, more than they love the Chinese.”

Peroni considered that for a while. The late afternoon sun had begun its descent into the west, casting a faint orange glow over the surface of the Indian Ocean, and the breeze was beginning to cool. The Viudes was doing an excellent job of keeping an even keel, and keeping the guests from dwelling on the fact that they were several hundred kilometers from land, in the middle of the open sea.

Finally, he said, “This will be a whole new ball game.”

“Full of opportunities,” Smythe added. She was sitting forward in her chair now, too, and Barnhart could see the fire in her eyes. “Ripe for the picking.”

Now you get it. His grin widened and he lowered his voice, as if someone could possibly be listening this far in the middle of nowhere. “Indeed,” he said. “And we’re not just talking about money. If we play this right, the three of us could literally change the course of human history. More, we can accelerate it.” Barnhart played the president’s announcement on the screen over the bar.

When it was over, Peroni’s eyes narrowed. “Assuming you’re right—”

“I am right,” Barnhart said, keeping his anger in check.

“Whatever. This is privileged information. Martha Stewart spent five months in prison for less. What if someone finds out, and some politician decides to make a name for themselves by coming after us?” Peroni continued to look skeptical.

“Martha Stewart spent time in prison for lying under oath and pissing off the wrong people. I have zero intention of ever getting questioned by the FBI,” Barnhart replied.

“I’m not an American,” Smythe stated.

“Half your business is there.” Peroni stabbed an accusing finger in her direction.

Barnhart motioned to the ocean around them. “Hence the James Bond measures, as Johnna pointed out. No one is going to find out, Al.”

The three exchanged a silent look. Far in the distance, a humpback whale breached the surface and splashed back beneath the waves, totally ignored by the billionaires. With the champagne gone, Smythe reached over to the bucket and pulled out a beer.

“There’s only one glaring question, then,” she said.

Barnhart grinned. “Why did I let you in on it?”

“You’re not seriously proposing a partnership,” Peroni scoffed. “You know that’s a non-starter.”

“Not a partnership as such. More of a mutually beneficial rivalry.”

“Intriguing,” said Smythe, a twinkle of excitement in her eyes.

They’re on the line, Barnhart thought with immense satisfaction. Time to reel them in.

“Evolution is survival of the fittest,” he said. “But how can anything evolve when it’s already the fittest?”

Understanding was beginning to dawn on Peroni’s face. “You mean us.”

“We’ve discussed this before,” Barnhart said. “NASA’s downfall is its lack of urgency. If we want to do great things in the aftermath of its collapse, we need to do them quickly and effectively. To do that, we need to be ready right out of the gate. We need to accelerate evolution. And how do we do that?”

Smythe grinned, prompting twin fans of crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. “Fierce competition,” she said.

“Driving each other to do better.” Peroni nodded. “Learning not just from our own mistakes but from each other’s.”

Barnhart tapped the tip of his nose. “Exactly. There is veracity in failure, my friends. If we temper our egos with that knowledge, we’ll be unstoppable.”

They were silent again for a time, watching the blazing tangerine hue of sunset begin its descent from the sky. The faint disc of the waxing gibbous moon hung overhead, waiting for nightfall to ignite it. The stars weren’t visible yet, but they were already blazing in the minds of the three sitting on the deck of the Viudes.

Peroni finally broke the silence. “And what’s the prize?”

Barnhart grinned. “I thought that was obvious.”

“It is,” said Smythe, her eyes narrowing. “But I’d feel more comfortable if it was said out loud.”

“All right, then,” Barnhart said. He hoped his grin didn’t look as wolfish as it felt. “The prize, my friends, is Mars itself. Whoever owns it owns the future of mankind. Do we dare leave that to the governments?”

2

Mogadishu, Federal Republic of Somalia

In a small, windowless room in the bowels of an abandoned building, two men sat in plain wooden chairs, listening to an audio recording. The sound quality was less than optimal, and the voices were watery and trembling. Still the listeners could make out what they were saying. The recording would never hold up in court as a means of identifying the speakers, but that didn’t matter. It would never leave this room, and only a handful of people other than the two men would ever know it existed.

There were a number of reasons for that, not the least of which was the fact the sound file had been captured using a laser microphone. It had been activated on a satellite that didn’t officially exist, trained toward the deck of a certain Viudes yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean, some three thousand kilometers away. Specifically, the laser had been aimed at a glass-top table, which proved to be an excellent source of vibration for the laser to read and transform into audible sound. The only minor interference had come from the infrequent rattling of ice nearby.

When the recording was finished, the younger man looked at the older man and raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you were expecting?” he asked.

The older man said nothing. Instead, he rose from his chair and headed to the door.

“I want that file securely erased by the time I’m out of the building,” he said curtly. “And you will maintain complete silence on it, even if the director herself asks about it. Is that understood?”

The younger man, who a week earlier had received the number of an account in Grand Cayman with a balance of fifty-thousand U.S. dollars, nodded. He watched the heavy door swing closed behind the older man, then quickly flipped him the bird before starting the process of scrubbing the file from the server.

Of course, he couldn’t delete the activity log on the laser mic itself, but the man hadn’t asked about that, and he hadn’t offered the information. He was too busy thinking about how to spend his newfound wealth.

The erasure process took several minutes, followed by several more to shut down the system. The basement was part of a listening station that had never been on the books, one used by a number of operatives in the Somalian theater of operations over the space of some thirty years. The technology had changed and evolved over the years, but the room itself had stayed the same—dusty and dank, with the faint odor of rotting wood and stale air. The young man had been down here only a handful of times since being assigned to Mogadishu, and this was by far the strangest experience he’d had in the room.

The people he’d recorded seemed to be discussing nothing of importance. He was trained to listen to the quality of such recordings, not the content, but he still picked up on the fact that they were talking about space. Something about Mars. Whatever it was, and whoever they were, the man couldn’t fathom why they were worth the resources of a laser mic focused narrowly to continue capturing the vibrations despite the gentle rocking of the yacht. Secondary lasers predicted the motion and refocused the laser a hundred times a second. It was a marvel of technology.

There were real enemies who needed to be tracked, real threats to assess. Three people fantasizing about outer space seemed like an utter waste of time and resources.

He would have dismissed it as brass being brass, except for two things: the older man wasn’t actually brass, and, of course, he himself was now $50,000 richer. While it wasn’t the first work he’d done for private contractors—it was officially frowned upon, of course, but everyone did it anyway to make up for the meager pay—it was by far the most lucrative. Making more than half a year’s salary in a single afternoon was nothing to sneeze at, and the job sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with U.S. national security, so who gave a shit what it was about?

He gathered up his backpack and set the encryption on the door lock before cranking the old toggle switch to kill the lone bulb hanging from the ceiling. Then he climbed the stairs to the bombed-out main floor and headed into the labyrinth of alleys that would eventually lead him to his apartment in the Shibis District, near the Saudi embassy. As always, the punishing heat hit him like a fist after the cool dankness of the basement. He strode past the usual crowd of Somali nationals, going about their days as best they could in the middle of a protracted civil war. There were vendors and beggars, all looking for enough money to get them through one more day.

When he reached the corner that would take him to the taxi stand he used when he was in the area, a beggar rose up shakily from the dusty street and slowly shuffled toward him. A nearby taxi driver yelled at the beggar to get lost and stop bothering the customers. The man ignored the driver and reached into the front pocket of his khakis, withdrawing a crumpled U.S. five-dollar bill. Hell, he had fifty large in untaxable cash in a numbered account; he could afford to be generous.

He handed the bill to the beggar, who accepted it with a trembling left hand. A moment later, his right hand emerged from behind his back, and the man had just enough time to see the glint of sunlight off the edge of a wide blade before it sliced across his throat. He dropped to his knees, his hands clutching at the huge gash now flooding the ground with his lifeblood.

The last thought that went through his mind before the final curtain of darkness fell over it was how someone could possibly own Mars.

3

Philip Barnhart gazed out at the Las Vegas Strip through a bank of windows that comprised the eastern wall of his penthouse suite on the sixtieth floor of the Ares Hotel. A few short hours ago, the view from the top floor consisted of a symphony of colored lights that blazed every night of the year in Sin City, luring throngs of tourists from one night spot to another in their frantic pursuit of a good time. Now it was simply a blazing sun rising into a clear, cobalt-blue sky.

That was exactly the view Barnhart wanted to see as he sipped his coffee and scrolled through the morning news. The lights of Vegas held no interest for him, even though the Ares, which he owned, made plenty of money from them. They were simply pieces of cheese in a rat maze, a distraction for people who couldn’t comprehend the potential of the human race. A clear sky, on the other hand, meant perfect conditions for the rocket launch scheduled three hours from now, which would be a key step in fulfilling mankind’s destiny. Barnhart was determined to pull humanity away from its base instincts and into the future, even if it had to be dragged kicking and screaming.

His mobile’s alarm chimed precisely at 8 a.m. A fraction of a second later, a text message appeared on the screen:

should be there any second

Salima was nothing if not punctual and efficient, though Barnhart could have done without her younger generation habit of eschewing capitalization and punctuation.

Sure enough, the muted thumping of helicopter rotors reached his ears a few seconds later. It was a testament to the quality of the suite’s soundproofing that he barely heard it, even though the chopper—a custom-built AS365 Dauphin—was landing on its roof. Barnhart drained his coffee and strode toward the private elevator, giving himself a quick once-over in its mirrored doors. His look had been carefully crafted: untucked denim shirt under a casual blazer, with flat-front khakis and suede ankle boots. Along with his practiced grin, it gave Barnhart an air of approachability carefully designed to put people at ease around him. It was as much a tool as the Dauphin on the roof, or the experimental rocket engine about to be tested some three hundred miles away in the Black Rock Desert.

As he trotted across the roof toward the helicopter, buttoning his jacket against the wind of the rotors, he grinned. This was as close to a childhood Christmas morning as the richest human alive could possibly experience.

There was little more than dun-colored desert scrub to look at for the two-hour flight to Black Rock, so Barnhart spent the time catching up on work that just couldn’t wait. His heart may have been in outer space with StarSeeker, but the rest of his business empire didn’t run itself. He wanted all of that out of the way before he arrived so he could truly revel in the moment.

Finally, he caught sight of Star Peak in the distance, where they would bank to the west toward StarSeeker’s observation site, known as the Hangar. A few minutes later, they were over the company’s private highway that branched off I-80 about a hundred miles northeast of Reno. At the end of the road was the massive Quonset-style outbuilding, filled with StarSeeker employees, technology, and enormous screens, where they monitored the company’s launches.

The asphalt parking pad that spread out in front of the Hangar was chock-a-block with cars, vans, limousines, and luxury buses. At least a dozen small groups milled about, most in business dress, some carrying video and audio equipment. Barnhart beamed. Salima had delivered on her promise of a true media frenzy. Crews from all the major cable news channels were there, and a Big 3 network affiliate in Reno was even broadcasting its morning show live from the Hangar, counting down to the 10:30 liftoff. There were also reporters from national online and print sources, but they would have to take a backseat to their television cousins. Live coverage, and the instant gratification that came with it, was the order of the day.

The crowd stopped to watch while the Dauphin landed near the entrance to the Hangar. Barnhart grinned at the camera operators jockeying for position a dozen yards away while he emerged from the chopper. There was even some spontaneous applause from a few people as Salima met up with him on the tarmac. Her suit was so blue, she practically disappeared against the late morning sky.

“Did I do good, boss?” she asked with a cheeky grin.

“Well, I was kind of hoping you’d get Tom Brokaw to come out of retirement,” he replied. “But I suppose this will do.”

“Our head of PR doesn’t even know who that is,” she said, pointing to the young blond man who was wrangling reporters nearby.

“You’re the one who hired him.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Because you told me to! You specifically said, ‘I like the looks of that Chris Butler kid.’”

“And I hired you because you told me you wouldn’t just blindly follow my orders.”

Salima refused the bait and flashed a grin at the group of middle-aged politicians directly ahead of them. Two were the senators from Nevada, but Barnhart was far more interested in the other six. They comprised the Senate Space and Science Subcommittee, including the chairman, a burly fellow from Missouri named Harry Kane. They and a number of Senate staff had spent the previous night in luxury suites at the Atlantis in Reno, courtesy of Barnhart’s personal Amex, with catered food, spa privileges, and transportation to the Hangar this morning.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Barnhart said amiably. “Thank you so much for coming. I trust the accommodations in Reno were up to par?”

Kane extended a hand, and the two men shook. “You know they were, Philip. We’d expect nothing less from you.” He paused, frowning. “Wait a minute, that came out wrong…”

“Good thing none of those reporters are over here with a hot mic,” Salima said in a stage whisper, sparking a round of nervous laughter from the suits. The head of a space company footing the bill for the people who made decisions about space was an ethical gray area. If anyone called them on it, Barnhart’s legal team had a defense ready: the sheer size and diversity of his business by definition made him a lobbyist for dozens of industries, not just space, and a man with his vast fortune had a right to give away his money once in a while.

Besides, he knew for a fact his rivals would do the exact same thing.

Salima’s phone pinged. “Chris says to be ready for live interviews in ten,” she said. Then, she excused herself and headed into the Hangar, leaving Barnhart with the senators. They made small talk for a few minutes, discussing the launch, until Kane suddenly leaned in close to Barnhart’s ear.

“Don’t look now,” he said quietly. “But I’d swear that’s your competition over there with my old buddy Arlen.”

Barnhart glanced in the indicated direction. Sure enough, there was General Arlen Becker. Even in quasi-retirement and civilian clothes, the newly minted Chief of Operations for the United States Space Force still looked every inch a Marine. He’d landed the job after two terms in the Senate, where he’d served on the same subcommittee that Kane now chaired.

Becker was flanked by none other than Johnna Smythe and Al Peroni. As always, Smythe looked breezy and carefree while Peroni looked constipated and crabby. Ennis Wright, head of operations for Peroni’s One World corporation, appeared almost as uncomfortable in a suit as his boss as he chatted with Gideon Wagner, Smythe’s chief engineer and right-hand man at Beyond, Inc. Seeing Wagner raised Barnhart’s hackles, but he didn’t let it show.

“I was wondering when they’d get here,” he said wryly.

Kane frowned. “Wait, you invited them?”

“My Gulfstream brought Al and Johnna in from Los Angeles this morning. How else am I supposed to savor my victory if I can’t see their faces?”

He excused himself and strode over to the newcomers, holding his arms out in a welcoming gesture. Smythe greeted him with a hug before he shook hands with Becker and Peroni.

“Welcome to the Hangar,” he said. “So glad you could make it. Johnna, you look lovely, as always.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Peroni said with a grin that looked as genuine as a house cat’s invitation to pet its belly.

Smythe slapped his shoulder lightly. “Jealousy isn’t a good look on you, Al,” she cajoled. “Just because Phil-o beat us to the launchpad doesn’t mean we can’t all be friends.”

“Obviously, I’m the outlier here,” Becker said, “but I agree completely. President Sloane is committed to American progress in space. The who and how don’t matter so much to him.”

“Of course he’s committed to progress,” said Peroni. “I mean, he wouldn’t have shuttered NASA if that weren’t the case, now would he?”

Good old Al, artless as always, Barnhart thought with an inward sigh. “Please give the president my best when you see him next,” he said to Becker, hoping to change the subject.

“Will do.” The general’s eyes narrowed. “By the way, he wanted me to tell you he didn’t miss the fact that you scheduled the launch of a prototype rocket engine on the six-month anniversary of his executive order.”

“Is that today?” Barnhart put on a mask of surprise while Smythe and Peroni shared a covert glance. What was Becker implying? Did he and Sloane suspect that things at StarSeeker were moving too fast? “I can assure you, General, that wasn’t my intent. It’s just a coincidence.”

Becker held his gaze for a few seconds before grinning. “I’m just messing with you, Philip. I overheard one of the reporters mention it while I was walking over. I have to keep you folks on your toes somehow, and I obviously can’t match you in resources. Uncle Sam is my accountant, after all.”

“Good one,” Barnhart chuckled. “I really do believe we’re all in this together, General. And I’m not just talking about the four of us; I mean the entire human race.”

“Hear, hear,” said Smythe. She elbowed Peroni.

“What?” he muttered. “Oh sure, of course.”

A text from Salima told Barnhart it was time to meet the media. “Got to go,” he said. “There’s a special section in the Hangar for you and your staff to view the launch. I’ll meet you there. Please let Salima know if you need anything.”

“You know the media will try to get the three of us to stir the pot,” Smythe warned. “If they ask questions, I’m gonna answer.”

“Me, too,” Peroni confirmed.

Becker shrugged. “I’d lose my job if I tried to ditch the media just as quickly as if I told them something. It’s a fine line I walk.”

Barnhart gave them a wide grin. “I would expect nothing less from any of you,” he said. “Try not to be too glowing in your praise. I don’t want my head to swell.”

Twenty-five minutes later, the interviews were done, and Barnhart was in his seat at the center of the Hangar’s main observation deck, a disc-shaped concrete patio set into the side of the building. Half-inside and half-open-air, with a huge retractable door, it allowed senior staff and VIPs to watch rocket launches both in the sky and on the bank of monitors inside the building.

Salima Patel sat in the armchair to his right. Next to her was Clay Newton, StarSeeker’s chief engineer. Becker, Peroni, and Smythe sat together about a dozen yards away, near the Senate subcommittee members. Chris Butler was seated with the media on a platform set up in the parking lot.

Barnhart smiled to himself. All was right with the world.

The countdown continued uninterrupted to zero. Water pumped into the area beneath the rocket to offset the heat and make impressive steam upon which the rocket would ride away from the launch gantry and then power itself to the upper atmosphere and beyond.

The billowing steam and smoke covered half the rocket as it lumbered skyward. It emerged into the sunlight and climbed, faster and faster, glistening in the late morning sun. Then, the rocket exploded in a fantastic blossom of fury.

4

The explosion happened seventeen seconds after launch, a number that would be seared into Salima Patel’s brain for the rest of her life. It didn’t even have the decency to be spectacular. One moment, the rocket was climbing at 0.65 kilometers-per-second, and the next, it was a ball of orange fire. A moment later, there was a cloud of white smoke where the rocket—all $135 million of it—had been.

Adrenaline hit her like a live wire. Her pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out the nearby VIPs as they pointed at the sky and then at her, talking behind their hands. To her right, Clay Newton, her chief engineer, was rising from his seat, his gaze fixed on the debris raining down on the desert floor from some four miles up. To her left, Philip Barnhart’s smile had transformed into a stony grimace.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a perfect launch, the successful test of StarSeeker’s new second-stage booster system. It would set the new standard for reaching orbit. It would cement the company’s lead in the race for Mars and prove to her boss that he’d made the right choice in hiring her, despite her age.

The phone in her hand rang, startling her. It was Chris Butler. Barnhart shot her a look as she answered.

“Salima!” Butler’s voice was strained and low. “The networks all want someone on camera right now!”

She drew in a shaky breath, let it out again. You knew this was a possibility, she reminded herself.

“I’ll send Clay over right now,” she said, hanging up without another word.

Newton finally looked down from the skies and peered at her over his glasses. He was barely forty, but his mannerisms and shock of wild hair made him seem like an old hippie professor.

“I don’t have any answers, Sal,” he said. “We ran a hundred simulations over the last three months. The engine test went off without a hitch. All modal testing showed a clean, gimbaling system that was nominal. Conditions today couldn’t have been more perfect. Whatever happened will take weeks, if not months, to—”

“Just get over to the tower.” Her voice was terse, but she worked to keep it from showing on her face. She was keenly aware of the watchful eye of several key senators, not to mention her boss’s two main competitors and her own rivals, Wagner and Wright.

And, of course, Barnhart himself.

The billionaire appeared beside her. Salima opened her mouth to speak, but Barnhart cut her off with a look that left no doubt who was in charge. He leaned in close and kept his voice low, but the words hit Salima like a slap. “I’m taking point on this. Tell Butler to get a camera crew over here to me. I’ll do that one interview and that’s it; they can share it with the rest of the networks. You two will stay two steps behind me with rosy smiles tattooed on your faces until I say otherwise. Neither of you will comment on this to the media. As far as everyone here is concerned, this is business as usual.” His eyes blazed. “Is that clear?”

Salima swallowed hard. “Of course.” She immediately texted Butler. Clay simply nodded.

When Barnhart turned around to face the VIPs, he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. She and Clay followed him as he strolled across the observation deck toward the special guests. He spread his arms wide and shrugged, flashing his signature grin.

“Well, that was a bummer,” he said. “Might as well call up the caterers and have them bring lunch early.”

Salima did her best to look calm, while Clay stuffed his hands in the pockets of his chinos and kept pace. Unlike her, he was still more engineer than executive, and she could tell by his expression that his thoughts were consumed with figuring out the cause of the explosion. That was good, since it would keep him occupied—and quiet—around the VIPs. The last thing she wanted was someone speculating on what had happened around outsiders. Controlling the narrative was key in the information age. That was one of the first lessons she’d learned from Barnhart.

“Rotten luck,” said Smythe, looking genuinely sympathetic. The senators milled about awkwardly behind her.

Peroni cleared his throat and nodded. “Happens to the best of us.”

“I’ll confab with the president as soon as possible,” Becker said gravely. “If there’s anything you need in terms of resources, just say the word.”

Barnhart gave them all a bemused look. “What are you all on about?” he chuckled. “Is this a wake? I call it the veracity of learning. You may think of it as the veracity of failure. Truth comes from knowing. Soon, we will know more than we did before this launch. More knowledge is better. Truth is the way forward, and one tends to learn more from a so-called failure than success.”

Harry Kane stepped away from his fellow senators and sidled up to him. “Look, Phil,” he said quietly, “everyone has to deal with failure occasionally. Yes, this is a significant one, but I’m sure it’s nothing that StarSeeker can’t overcome.”

“Failure?” Barnhart glanced around at the others, shaking his head. “There’s no such thing as failure, my friends.”

Smythe and Peroni exchanged a look, but Salima was too caught up in her boss’s act to notice it. If she hadn’t been on the receiving end of a stinging rebuke from him just minutes earlier, she would have believed that Barnhart was completely unfazed by the loss of a $135-million rocket and the public humiliation of it happening on live television.

At that moment, a pair of men carrying a shoulder cam and boom mic trotted up the stairs to the observation deck. Behind them, Salima recognized the young brunette being escorted by Chris Butler as a reporter from one of the cable networks. The crew would no doubt be followed by a half-dozen more in the next few minutes.

The woman barely seemed to notice the senators or Arlen Becker, making her way directly toward the trio of billionaires. In a matter of moments, Barnhart was literally back in the spotlight, this time for all the wrong reasons. But his smile never faltered.

“Mr. Barnhart,” the reporter began. “Obviously, this is the worst-case scenario right now—”

“It’s far from that, Kelsey,” he said evenly.

The woman looked surprised that he’d remembered her name. “I, uh, I don’t understand.”

“It’s like I was just saying to my friends here.” Barnhart gestured to the VIPs. “The great Nelson Mandela once said, ‘I never lose; I either win or I learn.’ Who am I to argue with him? I made my considerable fortune by surrounding myself with people who, like him, are much smarter than me.”

This time, he motioned to Salima and Clay. It was all she could do not to blush.

“This was a learning opportunity for StarSeeker,” he continued. “Humanity has always progressed as a result of trial and error. It’s the very nature of scientific advancement. And with something as critically important as the race for Mars, frankly, we can use all the learning opportunities we can get. Wouldn’t you agree, Kelsey?”

Salima let out a low whistle. Barnhart was playing the woman like a fiddle, making his case as expertly as an ace trial lawyer delivering final arguments. And any car salesman on Earth could tell you the simple truth that everyone’s favorite sound is their own name.

The reporter nodded. “So what would you say you learned here today?”

“I learned not to invite every single member of the news media to StarSeeker launches,” he said with a wink, and she giggled. “Seriously, though, it will take a long time to sift through what’s left of that rocket and determine what went wrong. And it’s possible that we’ll never know exactly what happened. What we absolutely do know is that we’ll go over every last detail of today’s launch with a fine-tooth comb and increase the number of simulations in future as we proceed to the next launch.” He shrugged again. “There’s really not much more to say about it right now.”

“But what about—”

Barnhart raised a hand, cutting her off. “I’m sorry, Kelsey, but time is money, and I have less of both now than I did when I got up this morning. If you’ll excuse me, I promise I’ll keep all of you posted as we learn more.” He gestured to Smythe and Peroni. “Besides, I’m sure Johnna and Al here can provide you with some sound bites in my absence. They both have their own big events coming up in the next couple of months.”

With that, he trotted down the stairs and out the Hangar door, no doubt headed for his helicopter. Salima glanced over to the other billionaires, shocked that her boss had just handed them an opportunity to throw him to the wolves. Other media crews were climbing up to the observation deck now, at first looking for Barnhart before realizing their competitors were talking to Smythe and Peroni. Chris Butler sidled up next to Salima, looking baffled.

“What the hell happened?” he hissed. “Where’s the boss?”

“The rocket blew up,” she snapped. “And the boss is wherever he wants to be. Tell your reporter buddies that he won’t make a statement until he’s ready, and neither will anyone else. We’re not going to speculate. That’s a waste of time. We’re scientists. We’re going to study this, methodically.”

Butler puffed out a breath. “They’re not going to like that. They have a twenty-four-hour news cycle to fill, Salima.”

She rounded on him. “And the richest man on Earth is spending billions to get the human race to Mars! Which one do you think he cares more about?”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he said, hands up in surrender.

“The boss already did your job before you got here. Do yourself a favor, Chris. Never second guess Philip Barnhart. Believe me, whatever thought might enter your head, he already had it an hour ago. Now go flash those big white teeth of yours and earn your pay. Calm the media. Stay tuned for more. Official statement coming. Blah, blah, blah.”

Butler stalked off without another word, blood rising in his cheeks. Salima felt a twinge of regret. She was harder on him than she needed to be, and it was a direct result of her anger at herself. The day that was supposed to be the foundation of a TED Talk on pursuing your dreams had turned into a total debacle. Worse, she had let down the man who put all his faith in her.

And just when Salima thought she’d hit bottom, she saw Gideon Wagner and Ennis Wright heading her way. She took a deep breath, desperately trying to keep the inner turmoil from showing on her face. It was the first time she’d been in the same place at the same time as her Beyond, Inc. and One World counterparts since that mysterious summit meeting in the Indian Ocean almost a year earlier.

Stay cool, she told herself. Follow the boss’s example.

“Gentlemen,” she said evenly. “Come for your pound of flesh? There’s a sale today.”

Gideon frowned. “Why would you say that?” he asked, his German accent still noticeable after twenty years in America. “A loss for one of us is a loss for all of us.”

Salima glared at him for a few moments until a smile took its place.

He continued, “Sorry,” he chuckled drily, “I really thought I could pull that off. I rather hate Phillip Barnhart.”

Asshole. She turned to Ennis Wright and sighed. “Go ahead, might as well get it out of your system, too.”

“There’s nothing funny about this,” he said, shooting Gideon a look. “I’m sure Newton here would agree with me.”

Salima had almost forgotten her chief engineer was still standing behind her, brooding. He hadn’t spoken since Barnhart chewed on them earlier, and he didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation now.

“Clay,” she said.

“Eh?” He blinked. “Sorry, what?”

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Maybe the person in charge of your rockets should spend a little less time in his own head and little more time actually working on the equipment itself.”

“Shut up,” Ennis said. Gideon scowled, but Peroni’s right-hand man was focused on Clay. “What’s going on in your head, Newton? You’ve got some idea of what went wrong, I can see it in your eyes. Game recognizes game, and all that shit.”

“Remember what we talked about earlier, Clay,” Salima warned.

He arched an eyebrow. “You mean remember Barnhart’s orders. I’m not going to hand over proprietary information to the competition, Salima. You should know me better than that.”

Clay’s words stung, but he was right. She did know better. Unlike herself and Chris Butler, Clay had been hired for his fierce engineering intellect, not his wit and charm. He was a scientist, not a businessman, and the complete opposite of a politician.

“You are right,” she said. “Go ahead and answer.”

He was silent for a moment, obviously chewing over something. Finally, he said, “Look, we’re all engineers here.”

Gideon gave Salima a sidelong look. “Some more than others” Gideon’s voice was unusually smug.

“Who took your job after Philip fired your ass?” she shot back, fuming.

“You know damned well I quit.”

“Enough!” Ennis snapped. “Go ahead, Newton.”

Clay nodded. “We all know the process that goes into getting these pigs into the air and keeping them there. Years of research and development, months of testing and planning, hoping for ideal conditions. Simulation after simulation after simulation, until they invade your goddamn dreams. I know I lost sleep on this project, more times than I care to remember.”

“So what?” Gideon groused.

“We all know risk is hard-wired into every single step we take. Even with all that preparation, we go into each launch knowing it could fail.”

“Of course,” Ennis said. “We’ve been here before. We lost One World’s heavy cargo test rocket last year. Not long after that, Wagner barely got Beyond’s prototype plane back from her maiden flight in one piece. But they’re statistical anomalies, just like this one. We’ve had dozens of launches that went off without a hitch.”

“Over a hundred in StarSeeker’s case,” Clay said. “The only real difference with today’s launch was visibility. Your recent failures took place more or less out of the spotlight; this one happened with the whole world watching in real time.”

Gideon snorted. “Yes, thanks to Barnhart’s colossal ego.”

“What’s your point, Clay?” Salima was growing exasperated with the conversation. There were a million things she needed to do.

“My point is that the odds don’t add up here. Think of it this way: say you own a restaurant and you serve hundreds of customers a day without incident. Then one day, you hear the food critic for the New York Times is coming to try your speciality. Everything goes great, until the critic suddenly vomits his meal all over the table and falls to the floor. Then his bowels let go on the carpet. He has a few spasms, and finally kicks the bucket. Salmonella poisoning.”

Ennis frowned. “It’s improbable, but certainly not impossible.”

“Not impossible, no,” Clay said, “but you spent days preparing for it. You deliberately chose only the freshest ingredients from your best vendors, you had the head chef make the dish himself wearing rubber gloves, you took every last precaution to ensure it turned out perfectly. Again, if you’re looking at it purely as a scientist, you’d focus on the fact it’s statistically possible that your ingredients were tainted, or that the chef’s attention somehow lapsed, or that some other factor was involved.”

“What other way would you look at it?” Ennis asked, annoyed.

Understanding finally dawned on Salima. “Like a detective,” she said. “If someone died from eating the food at your restaurant, the police would show up as a matter of course. And a detective would take a completely different tack from a scientist.”

“Exactly,” Clay said. “CSI would put the food under a microscope, but a detective would ask why someone might want the critic dead.”

Gideon and Ennis seemed to consider that for several moments. As much as Salima wanted to dwell on it herself, she saw that several of the VIPs, including Harry Kane, had already headed down the stairs to the Hangar’s floor on their way to the big door. The media had begun to disengage from Smythe and Peroni, and a few of them were already packing up. With no Philip Barnhart to pester, there wasn’t much of a story at the moment. Under other circumstances, she would have panicked that they were all leaving so soon. As it was, she was grateful—until she saw Arlen Becker headed her way.

“You’re suggesting some kind of sabotage?” Ennis asked Clay.

Gideon glowered. “A little early for that, don’t you think? And why tell us? Are we suspects?”

“General!” Salima called loudly. “How can I help you?”

The hint worked. Clay, Gideon, and Ennis immediately clammed up and turned to face Becker, faces stoic. Argument? What argument? Salima may not have agreed with her counterparts on anything else, but they all understood that you didn’t talk shop around the government.

Particularly around someone as sharp as Arlen Becker.

“Salima.” He nodded. “Gentlemen. It’s good to see such camaraderie among rivals like yourselves on a day like today.”

If you only knew, Salima thought grimly.

“I won’t keep you folks,” Becker continued. “Salima, I just wanted to make sure you and Dr. Newton know you can call on Space Force resources at any time. Alicia Foster has orders to prioritize any and all of your needs until further notice. Just call her office and you’ll get right through.”

“Thank you, sir, we appreciate it.” Salima knew and respected Foster, a civilian who was the general’s chief tech officer, but there was no way in hell there would be any consultation with her, or anyone else in the Space Force. Barnhart was adamant on that.

“Any idea what went wrong?” asked Becker. “The president will likely want an update.”

Salima felt a twinge of panic at the thought of Gideon opening his mouth, but Clay stepped in almost immediately. “Like Philip said, we’re not going to speculate.”

“But you can be sure Philip will pass along any findings as soon as we have them,” Salima added quickly. It was a lie, and she was sure Becker knew it, but it was part of the bureaucracy game. As long as he knew it was a lie, then the truth was there. They wouldn’t call Becker first with the results, but protocol had been served.

“Of course,” said the general. He glanced at his watch. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to Beale for a transport back to D.C. tonight.”

Just then, Salima heard a helicopter starting up. She looked out the open wall to see the shiny new MH-139A Grey Wolf that Becker had arrived in on the tarmac outside the Hangar.

She shook his hand. “Safe travels, sir.”

“Thank you.” Becker turned to the men. “I wish it had been under better circumstances, but it was still a pleasure catching up with you all. Keep up the good work.”

For one crazy instant, Salima thought about saluting, but he saved her the embarrassment by simply nodding. He left without another word, leaving the four of them on the observation deck. The only people left in the Hangar now were StarSeeker employees, all of them focused on finding out what the hell had gone wrong with the rocket.

“A good politician always knows when to make an exit,” Gideon observed. “So I’ll follow suit and find Johnna before I give in to the temptation to go a few rounds with Newton here.”

“Look, I didn’t—” Clay protested.

“Don’t give him the satisfaction, man,” Ennis said wearily, shaking his head. “I’ll get him out of your hair so you can get to work. And if you do need help, go ahead and call me. We all know you won’t be taking Becker up on his offer.”

He placed his palm on Gideon’s back and half-pushed him toward the stairs. After they were out of the Hangar, Salima took a deep breath. The muscles in her neck felt like high-tension cables. It wasn’t even noon yet, but she knew it was going to be the worst day of her career, and that she wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.

Finally, she turned to Clay. He usually looked like half his brain was consumed with differential equations, but right then, he just seemed confused.

“Do you honestly believe this could be sabotage?” she asked.

Clay shrugged. “I’m not a detective,” he sighed. “I just pulled that out of my ass to shut Wagner up. Clutching at straws, you know? Because if this turns out to be our fault…” He shook his head.

Salima’s stomach sank. She understood exactly what he was talking about. Philip Barnhart was many things—generous, brilliant, visionary—but there was one thing he was most definitely not.

Forgiving.

5

Frank Sheehan couldn’t sleep.

That wasn’t unusual for him. Ever since his wife died of breast cancer three years ago, Frank had become an insomniac. He usually nodded off in his recliner sometime during the nightly news and slept soundly for a few hours. Then he’d wake up around 2 a.m., get undressed, and fall into bed, where his eyes would inevitably spring open. After an hour or so of tossing and turning, he’d get up again and spend the rest of the night whiling away the hours until dawn. Then he’d climb behind the wheel of his Subaru for the half-hour commute from his home in California City to the Beyond, Inc. testing facility a dozen miles outside of the Mojave Air and Space Port.

It was five hundred miles to the StarSeeker facility north of Reno, as the crow flies. One always had to keep an eye on the competition, but that was someone else’s job, not Frank’s.

Technically, he didn’t start work—he was Beyond’s team lead for fluid dynamics—until 8:30, but most days, he was there at least an hour early. At sixty-nine, Frank wanted to make sure his younger colleagues knew he still had the right stuff to work on rocket engines.

Tonight had been different, though. An engine test was scheduled for 11 a.m., and engine test days meant all hands on deck. Everyone was expected to be at the top of their game, regardless of position. So when he awoke in his chair, he decided he might as well head in to work early.

It wasn’t the first time he’d burned off a sleepless night at work. As usual, the parking lot was all but deserted when he arrived around 3:30 a.m., so he got a prime spot near the entrance to the main building. It was one of six structures that, along with the test stand itself and its sprawling support equipment field, comprised the Beyond, Inc. compound.

He checked in at the front desk and shot the shit with the overnight security duo for a few minutes, then ambled over to the building that housed his office. After a half-hour going over his unique part of the intricate tapestry of technical work that went into engine tests, he got restless and decided to go for a stroll. The cool desert air made him pull up the collar on his windbreaker as he walked through the compound proper, past the enormous water tanks and pumps, and finally to the test stand itself.

In the moonlight, the stand’s silhouette looked to Frank like the skeleton of an abandoned building, created by an ancient civilization.

He reached the base and climbed the main stairs from the floor up to the second-level gangway. A quartet of exhaust nozzles sat on the platform under the stand itself, looking like upside-down funnels in the dark. Thanks in no small part to his work on the engine’s fuel flow, they would soon transform into miniature suns for a brief time. He took a moment to gaze down at them and be proud of that. Not bad, old man, he thought. Not bad at all.

That was when he saw a figure on the gangway half-hidden in the shadows.

Frank’s heart pounded mercilessly. The figure crouched on the metal floor, no more than thirty feet away. There was a smaller shape on the decking next to him, a bag or box of something a thrill seeker was stealing from the facility.

“You there!” The words were out of Frank’s mouth before he knew he was speaking. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”

The figure hesitated before slowly standing up. Suddenly, a white glow came out of nowhere. It was the business end of a small flashlight. In its glow, Frank caught a glimpse of a familiar face. He relaxed somewhat.

“Awfully early to be at work, don’t you think?” he asked the man and then added, “I’m an insomniac. What’s your excuse?”

When the man didn’t respond, Frank looked down at the lump on the floor. It was indeed a backpack, as he suspected, open in the front. The flashlight gave off enough light that he could see a large plastic case inside with the word Firepower on the cover. It was a portable plasma torch kit.

That set off another mule kick, and Frank felt heat rise in his cheeks. “Why the hell are you here welding in the dark?” he demanded. “Who ordered this?”

“Look, Frank,” the man said in a papery voice. “I don’t… I was just…”

Frank reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his cell phone. “I’m calling security,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know what kind of fuckery you’re up to, but I’m not going to stand by while you do it.”

What happened next seemed unreal to Frank, as if he was watching it through a VR headset. The shadow darted forward suddenly, closing the gap between them in less time than Frank could react, and grabbed for Frank’s phone.

“Bastard,” Frank grunted as he struggled to keep his grip on the cell. A wiry arm wrapped around his throat from behind, pulling him backward and cutting off his air. The cell disappeared from his hand, followed by a cracking noise as his attacker smashed it against the railing.

In desperation, the older man flailed around, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. Electric panic began to rise inside him as he realized he was in a fight for his life, but then his hand struck something hard. It was the torch kit! He snatched it with his waning strength and swung it upward, where it connected with his attacker’s skull.

But the glancing blow only seemed to anger the younger man. Frank’s head felt like a balloon close to popping as the forearm tightened around his throat. Consciousness began to drift away even as his body was being tossed around like a dog’s chew toy. Mercifully, the last thing he felt before he blacked out was the cold steel of the low railing against his back. Then weightlessness.

Frank Sheehan dropped twenty feet before bouncing off the fuel pump at the top of the engine. After the sickening crack of impact, he slid down the heat exchanger, struck the turbine exhaust manifold pipe, and rolled over the nozzle extension. He fell another forty feet to the concrete floor below.

He would never have trouble sleeping again.

The cold night breeze slipped under Richie Powell’s loose hoodie, hitting the trickle of sweat running down his spine. He barely noticed as he crept along the chain-link fence that ran parallel to the test stand. He was used to the temperature extremes here in the Mojave Desert after three years of working as a maintenance technician at the Beyond, Inc. engine testing facility. Besides, his heart was pounding like a trip hammer in his chest. He was quickly learning that adrenaline allowed you to ignore a lot of signals from your body, as long as you could put up with the coppery taste in your mouth.

He checked his watch again: 4:03 a.m. The engine test was scheduled for just under six-and-a-half hours from now. Richie would be back in his cheap Palm Springs motel by then. He’d registered three days ago, the first day of his annual vacation, then spent two days lounging at the outdoor pool and eating at the on-site diner, making sure he was caught on security video as often as possible. Just a guy from California City, soaking up the sun and kicking back in the Desert Playground. Then, around 1:30 a.m., he grabbed a small backpack, left his room, and walked to an old Jeep Cherokee parked in an alley a few blocks away. The key was in a magnetic box tucked inside the front wheel well, just as his contact had told him it would be. Richie donned a pair of surgical gloves before climbing behind the wheel, as per his contact’s instructions, then headed northeast on CA-111 toward Mojave.

Driving two and a half hours in the dark gave him a lot of time to think, and think he did. About the assignment itself and about what was waiting for him when it was done. There had been two packs in the motel room when he checked in, stashed in the ancient box spring under the equally ancient mattress. One, filled with the tools he’d need for the job, was currently sitting on the passenger seat of the Jeep. The other, containing $25,000 in used, non-sequential twenty- and fifty-dollar bills, was back in the box spring. The anonymous contact, with whom he’d communicated solely by encrypted messaging app, said that when the job was done, Richie would find another $50,000 in a dumpster in the alcove next to where he’d picked up the Cherokee.

When he arrived at the testing facility compound, about a dozen miles from the Mojave Air and Space Port, he’d bypassed the employee parking lot. It would be all but empty at this hour, but there were still cameras at the entrance and on a few light standards, not to mention the ones over the entrances to the half-dozen low buildings that comprised the Beyond, Inc. complex. There was also a security person inside, monitoring them.

Instead, he put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and drove about a half-mile on the hardpan outside the fence, parking next to a rise that overlooked the testing pit from about a hundred yards away. It was the perfect spot to leave the vehicle because it was hidden from view and would be easy to get back to when the job was done. He shouldered the pack of tools from the passenger seat and crested the hill. Moonlight and the distant glow of the metal halide lamps in the compound allowed him to make his way in the pre-dawn darkness.

Now, as he reached the chain-link fence, Richie tossed the pack over and gripped the mesh with both hands. It felt strange under the surgical gloves. Next, he wedged the toe of his sneaker into an opening and vaulted himself over, landing silently on the tarmac. Lucky for him, Beyond wasn’t obsessed with security out here in the middle of nowhere, so there was no razor wire or electricity to contend with. And why would they be obsessed? In the test site’s eight-year history, no one had ever done anything like what Richie was about to do, at least not as far as he knew.

The fact that what he was about to do was crazy probably had something to do with that.

The silhouette of the test stand loomed in the moonlight like some bizarre skeleton. It was a latticework of iron supports and gangways over a concrete pit, meant to hold a rocket engine in place while it generated an unimaginable amount of thrust and force to send thousands of tons into the sky at incredible speed. It had to withstand temperatures that could vaporize iron, while the noise generated could be heard as far away as Bakersfield. But right now, it was silent as the grave in the desert night air.

There would be no rocket attached to the engines during today’s test, which made Richie’s task easier. The test stand grew taller and more ominous as he trotted toward it. A quartet of thrusters sat on the platform under the stand itself, looking like upside-down funnels. When he reached the base, he ducked under the stairs that led up to the first platform and crouched down. He took out the plasma cutting torch that had taken up most of the space in his pack. The contact had given him specific instructions on what to do with it, some of which Richie understood, some of which he didn’t. Richie was a maintenance tech, after all, not an engineer.

But the job was straightforward enough: find a particular seam along the skin of the third high-pressure fuel duct—the contact had sent a schematic showing exactly where to find it—and use the torch to score it. Richie could do that. The result would be a tiny fault that wouldn’t be visible to anyone who wasn’t within a few inches of the seam. What would happen during the test, he didn’t know, and frankly, didn’t care. No one would be anywhere near the engine, so no one would get hurt. And Richie had no love for Beyond, Inc. and its crazy Aussie billionaire owner. Johnna Smythe flew on private jets and lived in a 35,000-square-foot mansion while Richie made twenty-three bucks an hour and lived in a bachelor’s suite in California City. The seventy-five grand in cash he made tonight was the equivalent of three years net pay; to Smythe, that was the cost of one cocktail party.

He took a penlight from the bag and crept along the gangway, looking for his target. With luck, he would be out of here in under ten minutes and back in Palm Springs in time for breakfast.

Then a blinding whiteness struck his eyes, shrinking his pupils to pinholes, and his heart kicked like a mule inside his chest.

“You there!” a watery voice called from behind the light. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Richie’s throat dried up. The trickle of adrenaline he’d felt earlier was now a torrent, making it difficult to keep his balance. He straightened up, desperately trying to come up with a way out of this. He had to bolt, to get away, but the man with the light was between him and his escape route!

“Powell?” the voice asked, closer now. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Somewhere in his racing mind, Richie realized that he recognized the voice. It was Frank Sheehan, the old bugger in charge of fluid dynamics. The two had crossed paths dozens of times since Richie was hired on at Beyond. What was he doing here in the middle of the night?

“Hey, Frank,” he croaked, raising his hand to fend off the glare. “I, uh, I’m doing some last-minute maintenance checks.”

Sheehan mercifully turned the flashlight toward the floor. Now that his pupils were expanding, Richie realized with alarm that the man was only a few feet away from him.

“In the pre-dawn dark?” Sheehan scoffed.

“You’re here in the dark,” Richie countered. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

“I’m a seventy-year-old widowed insomniac, boy. I literally have nothing better to do on test day than come in early. You, on the other hand, are a young man.” He paused. “Wait a minute… Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

Another jolt of adrenaline. Of course Sheehan would know that. He supervised the head of the maintenance department, which meant all vacation requests had to have his sign-off. At that moment, Richie’s hand suddenly let go of the torch and it dropped to the metal floor with a loud clank. A moment later, it was surrounded by the flashlight’s corona. Richie stupidly noted that it was a Firepower brand. His contact had good taste in sabotage equipment.

Suddenly, the light was in his eyes again. “You’re welding, in the dark, while you’re on vacation,” Sheehan said, sounding angry now. A glowing rectangle emerged from the darkness, and Richie realized the old man had a cellphone in his hand. Then Sheehan knelt and grabbed the torch kit by its handle. “I’m calling security. I don’t know what kind of fuckery you’re up to, but I’m not going to stand by while you do it.”

What happened next seemed to take place outside of Richie’s body, as if he was watching it in a VR headset. He grabbed Sheehan by the arms and shook him, hard, then yanked the cell away and smashed it against the metal railing.

“You little bastard—” Sheehan began, but Richie pulled him into a headlock and closed off his airway. The old man struggled and flailed against him, trying to hit him with the torch kit. Finally, with a mighty effort, Richie heaved Sheehan up and to his left, hoping to drop him onto his back on the gangway floor.

Instead, he tossed the old man over the low railing.

Richie watched in horror as Sheehan fell to the concrete floor of the pit. Even in Richie’s addled state of mind, he knew the old man couldn’t possibly have survived. He swallowed hard, staring stupidly into the darkness.

Then he ran. He stumbled his way off the platform and away from the test stand, sprinting as hard as he ever had in high school track. He reached the fence not even remembering how he got there and vaulted over it. When he landed, the pack dropped from his shoulder to the ground. Richie didn’t even remember grabbing it before he ran. He dashed to the Jeep, frantically trying to work his gloved hand into his jeans pocket for the key. After what seemed like an eternity, he retrieved it and started the car, ripping off into the night back the way he came.

The next two-and-a-half hours were spent in a stupor as he drove back to Palm Springs. Richie was utterly certain that blue-and-red lights would show up in the Cherokee’s rear-view mirror at any moment, that he would be pulled over by state troopers who would arrest him and charge him with murder. At some point, he finally realized that he was driving into the rising sun and that the traffic around him on CA-111 had increased. It was morning. That was when he started to think he might actually get away with this.

He continued on autopilot into the city before finally coming to a stop in the alley where he’d found the Jeep. He parked, noting vaguely that the gas gauge showed just a hair above empty. Three hundred miles was apparently the maximum range for a Cherokee of this vintage.

He scanned the alley—deserted at this hour—before climbing into the blue dumpster. After twenty seconds of rummaging, he found the second pack under a black garbage bag. The bag’s contents had spilled over onto the nylon, dousing it with a mix of coffee, cigarette ash, and moldering fruit, but the cash inside was untouched. Richie hoisted the pack onto his shoulder and replaced it under the garbage with the pack that had held the torch kit earlier. Finally, he dropped the Jeep’s key into the morass, where it quickly slipped out of sight.

He thought about his anonymous benefactor as he walked the handful of blocks back to the shitty motel. The guy—or gal, Richie had no way of knowing—had made good on their deal without checking on whether Richie had actually finished the job. Then again, there was no way anyone could know what had happened at this point, so his contact had no choice but to act on faith. They wouldn’t learn that he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain until the engine test went off without a hitch.

What would happen then? Who was he dealing with? Richie had no idea. The world of industrial sabotage was new to him. Was he working for businesspeople or criminals? Most importantly, what would they do to him after the test? He could give back the money—he had every dollar of it—but he was still a potential witness.

And a killer, said a voice inside his head. Don’t forget that part.

He swayed on his feet and sat down hard on a concrete planter at the opening to the motel parking lot. I killed Frank Sheehan. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him, but he managed to make it the fifty yards back to his suite. Once inside, he pulled off his clothes and showered, then dressed and packed his suitcase. Finally, he retrieved the other pack from under the bed and loaded all three bags into the trunk of his Toyota.

After checking out, he climbed behind the wheel and called up a GPS app on his cell, making sure to put it in airplane mode first. He used the motel’s wi-fi to find the closest border crossing, took a screenshot of the route, and shut off his phone. He gassed up and grabbed some junk food for the road, paying cash. He’d have to get used to that now. No tapping the old Visa for Richie Powell in the foreseeable future, no sir.

When Frank Sheehan’s body was discovered some three hours later, Richie was sitting in a taqueria in Mexicali, thinking about how it was barely 10:30 in the morning and it had already been the longest day of his life.

“I don’t understand why this has to delay the test,” Gideon Wagner griped, arms crossed defiantly over his chest. “Just get the goddamn thing out of there and we can move on.”

Detective Deputy Ash Creighton looked up from his notebook. He had a severe haircut and the disposition to match. “Sir,” he said evenly, “that ‘thing’ is a human body, and you don’t just ‘get it out of there’ in these circumstances. There’s procedure that has to be followed.”

“There’s a twenty-million dollar engine test on hold right now.” Gideon said it slowly and deliberately, as if talking to a dull-witted child. “It took months to prepare for this. We already wasted two hours waiting for you to get here.” The heels of his boots clanged as he paced the slotted metal of the test stand’s main floor.

Meanwhile, Johnna Smythe stood calmly against the railing next to her husband, Preston. At thirty-seven, he was twenty years her junior and technically the CEO of Beyond, Inc., even though he was completely unqualified for the job. His resume consisted of several years in Australian minor league soccer, a single losing season with the Queensland Reds, and a brief gig as the spokesmodel for a failed sports drink before he met his wife.

“Calm yer farm, Giddy,” Johnna warned. “These folks have a job to do. Let ’em do it.” She turned to Preston, who was scrolling through his phone, and elbowed him. “Pay attention, for God’s sake. A man’s dead.”

Creighton and his partner, Detective Deputy Sunny Alvarez, had been called in from the Kern County Sheriff’s Department investigation division in Bakersfield soon after the body was discovered. Joe Trinh, Beyond’s security chief, had reached out directly, bypassing Gideon and the command center in the process. Trinh was sure he would catch hell from the chief engineer the minute the others were out of earshot, but he’d be damned if he got in the way of the police, test day or no test day.

“So no one saw anything prior to eight a.m.?” Creighton asked Trinh.

He shook his head. “Earl Jackson—he’s the propulsion lead—discovered the body when he arrived for the final pre-test inspection. He called me and I came over here to the stand, then went down into the pit to confirm. I called the sheriff’s office immediately after that. No one else had been at the stand prior to Earl’s arrival.”

“Except this Mr. Sheehan, of course.” Creighton peered over the railing. “You’re sure of the ID? Body’s face down.”

“I didn’t touch him, if that’s what you mean,” said Trinh, bristling. “Obviously, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it’s a pretty safe bet it’s Frank. He checked in with the overnight crew around three-thirty a.m., and whoever is down there has a similar build and hair color. I called his cell, and it went straight to voicemail.”

“That’s normal? People coming to work in the middle of the night?”

Trinh shrugged. “Frank suffered from insomnia.”

Creighton grunted and watched as his partner emerged from the top of the ladder that led out of the pit.

“Got a pic.” Deputy Alvarez held out her mobile in a gloved hand, showing Creighton, Trinh, and Gideon an image of a face. It was swollen and discolored but still recognizable. “Can you confirm this is Frank Sheehan?”

“Yes,” Gideon said immediately. “Can we move him now?”

“That’s enough!” Johnna snapped, stalking toward them. “Christ, Gideon, get it through yer head, the test isn’t happening today!”

“The conditions are perfect,” he countered. “With all due respect, Johnna, you’re just here for moral support. This is my show.”

“This is my show until I say otherwise,” said Creighton, clearly annoyed. “The body will be removed only after the technical investigations crew is done with the scene. They should be here within the hour.”

Gideon glowered at the cop. “What’s to investigate? Sheehan was an old man. He probably had a heart attack and fell over the railing, or maybe he was tired and lost his footing. It was the middle of the night, and he was wandering around in the dark. Whatever the case, there’s nothing down there that I can see that requires on-site investigation. It was a tragic accident, but we have to move on.”

Johnna and Preston took a peek over the railing themselves. Her eyes widened at the sight of the body. Her husband blanched and quickly took three steps back.

“I apologize for Dr. Wagner’s attitude, Detective,” said Johnna. “He can be a fair dinkum git sometimes, but I can’t say I disagree with him on this. Looks like a fall to me.”

“Ash—” Alvarez began, but Creighton cut her off.

“I understand that this is costing you money, ma’am,” he said. “And I get that our procedures might seem unnecessary. My supervisor told me to expedite things as best I can. We’re all keenly aware of how much your company contributes to Kern County.”

Johnna raised an eyebrow. “I sense a ‘but’ coming on, love.”

“Ash—”

“But it’s our job to be thorough. I promise you we’ll be as quick as we can as long as it doesn’t compromise our standards.”

“Thank you,” said Johnna. She looked at Gideon. “And we promise you we’ll stay out of your way and let you work. Right, Gideon?”

Before he could answer, Alvarez stepped forward and handed her phone to Creighton. “You need to see this,” she said emphatically. “Right now.”

He peered at the screen in silence for several seconds while Gideon hissed an impatient sigh through his nose.

“What is it now?” Gideon demanded. “Yet another delay?”

“Oh, most definitely.” Creighton turned toward the group and showed them the photo. His expression was stone. “There’s deep bruising all along the width of the victim’s throat. Just about the size and shape of a human forearm.”

Gideon, the Smythes, and Joe Trinh exchanged awkward looks while the deputy spoke into the radio handset clipped to his collar, asking for a medical investigator to be dispatched to the scene.

“So…what does that mean, exactly?” Gideon asked.

Creighton fixed him with a steely look. “It means your test is definitely off, because I’m officially declaring this a homicide investigation.”

6

“Glad to be back in your old stomping grounds?”

Salima Patel blinked stupidly at Connie Peroni. They were standing at the buffet table in One World’s corporate suite at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, along with thirty or so others awaiting the launch from Cape Canaveral. Salima had been so deep inside her own dark thoughts that she didn’t even realize someone was talking to her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I was wool-gathering.”

Connie flashed an easy smile. Al Peroni’s wife was tall and fit, and Salima was jealous of her looks even though the woman was almost twice her age. How a shlub like Peroni could have snagged such a stunner back in the days before he made his billions was a mystery to Salima. The pair had married over thirty years ago, when Al was barely making ends meet as a software engineer, and stuck together as he built the foundations of an empire out of the garage of their bungalow in Oyster Bay.

“I asked how you like being back in Florida,” Connie said. “I hear you grew up in Orlando.”

Salima nodded. “I used to watch every launch when I was young. This is probably my twentieth time here in the space center.”

“It might actually be my last time here,” Connie said wistfully. “But that’s not a subject for right now. So, are you born and bred Floridian or…”

Salima shook her head. “My folks moved here from Mumbai when I was two. They both still teach at the University of Central Florida.”

“Ah, so your smarts are genetic.” In Connie’s Long Island accent, the word came out as smorts. “Al says you’re a rock star.” She leaned close and said in an unconcealed whisper, “He thinks you’re crazy to work for Philip. He’d bring you into One World in a heartbeat.”

Not if he really knew me, Salima thought.

“I’m afraid I’m loyal to my boss,” she said with a grin she didn’t feel. “He’s…one of a kind.”

“I won’t touch that one with a ten-foot pole,” Connie chuckled, taking a sip of champagne. “But you know, I can’t help thinking that the two of them—Al and Philip, I mean—could do more together than separately. I bet you and Ennis could do great things, too.”

As if hearing his name, Ennis Wright glanced in their direction and nodded. He and Peroni were on the other side of the suite, chatting with Arlen Becker. A few yards away, Barnhart confabbed with the same team of senators who had sat in the front-row seats to StarSeeker’s epic fail two months earlier. Salima noted with some bitterness that there were no members of the news media in the room. Peroni had obviously learned a lesson that day about what not to do.

Though, to be fair, today’s launch would be almost pedestrian in comparison to StarSeeker’s. One World wasn’t interested in developing cutting-edge rocket technology of its own. Instead, it focused on using established tech to get their products into orbit, which was where the real work would commence. The rockets they used didn’t have to return to Earth, which made the whole process exponentially easier than what StarSeeker was doing.

Peroni’s vision was to build One World’s Mars explorer in space itself, rather than launching it from Earth, while outsourcing the transit of personnel to other providers. That was the main reason Salima and Barnhart were there—StarSeeker was best positioned to provide that service, even though they were competitors. Peroni’s plan was sound, if not exactly inspiring, but it had garnered a lot of interest from Becker and other Space Force brass.

“I was hoping Johnna Smythe would be here,” Connie said, pulling Salima out of her thoughts again. “She’s fun. And I’m not gonna lie, that dim-bulb husband of hers is easy to look at.” Salima snorted in spite of herself, which made Connie’s smile widen. “You should laugh more often, hon. You’re too young to be so serious all the time.”

If you only knew, Salima thought darkly. “I’m sure Johnna wishes she were here, too. But she’s been keeping her head down lately, which is understandable.”

Connie shook her head. “That whole murder thing is crazy. Why would somebody kill a harmless old engineer and at the launch pad?”

Salima could think of one very good idea of why but kept it to herself. Just then, her cell phone warbled. She glanced at it and saw a single word in her message app: outside.

She put on a pained smile. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve got a work thing I have to attend to. I’ll be back, though. I’m really enjoying our conversation.” That much was true.

“Me, too, hon.” Connie drained her champagne and grabbed another flute. “One for the road. We’ll catch up later.”

Salima took another look around the room on her way to the door. No one was looking in her direction at the moment, which was good. She slipped into the lobby and immediately saw the person who texted her standing with his hands in his pockets, looking nervous. Matt Cummings was in his late thirties, tall and raw-boned with a bald pate that glinted under the hot lights. He was the second engineer on the project that was launching today, answering to the lead engineer who reported to Ennis Wright.

Cummings made a show of being surprised to see her, and she greeted him the same way. They made small talk as they strolled away from the One World suite, continuing until they reached the Atlantis exhibit, where they were sure they’d be alone. As always, Salima was impressed by the decommissioned shuttle suspended above the floor on a banking angle, bathed in blue light. It was a symbol of what mankind was capable of when it didn’t put limitations on itself.

“It’s official,” Cummings said quietly, elbows propped on the glass railing that circled the shuttle. “Your contractor is in the wind. I couldn’t find anyone who’s seen him in the last nine days.”

“Son of a bitch,” Salima hissed. Cummings was just confirming what she already suspected: the man she’d hired to infiltrate One World and sabotage its launch effort had played her for a fool. He’d called himself John Quincy, which Salima was sure was an alias. She found him on the dark web, offering his services as a so-called retired SEAL demolitions expert, no questions asked. The plan had been to have Cummings set up Quincy inside One World as a short-term maintenance contractor, which would give him access to equipment that he could sabotage. Salima had sent the man a hundred thousand in cryptocurrency as a retainer, with another hundred thousand due when the job was done.

Obviously, the whole plan had gone to hell. Quincy had showed up for the first week, established his cover, and then disappeared. Salima didn’t know who she was enraged with more, him or herself for trusting him. Either way, One World’s rocket would almost certainly reach orbit later today.

Worse, that left her completely unsure of her standing now with Cummings. He’d been receptive to her offer when she first approached him right after StarSeeker’s botched test launch. Salima had gotten to know him over the past year, during which she learned of his deep jealousy for Ennis Wright. Cummings had an inflated sense of self-worth, believing himself to be the superior engineer who rightfully belonged at the top of One World’s org chart. She took that knowledge and used it to turn him against not just Wright but Al Peroni himself, to the point where he now despised the man and would do anything to bring him low. When that was done, she promised to bring Cummings on board at StarSeeker as her new chief engineer.

It was a dangerous gambit, she knew, and right now she felt as if she were reaping the whirlwind. Not only did her plan fail, she had showed her cards to both Quincy and Cummings. That made them potentially dangerous. There was only one way she could see to deal with the situation.

“What do we do now?” Cummings asked, glaring at the shuttle. “This can’t be over, Salima. I won’t let it be over.”

“It’s over for this launch,” she said. “We’ve lost the fight, but we haven’t lost the war.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s time to start looking at the bigger picture.”

Cummings turned to face her. “Are you talking about Sicily?”

Salima nodded. One World was in the process of building a huge manufacturing complex outside Palermo, where Peroni’s family originated. When completed, it would produce the major components for One World’s mission—everything from orbital construction equipment to zero-gravity housing to cutting edge electronics and more. The plan had been in the works for more than two years, including secret negotiations with the Italian government, which offered huge tax breaks in exchange for the thousands of jobs it would bring to Sicily.

Once production was up and running, One World planned to move all its launches from Florida to the Israeli Space Agency’s Palmachim Spaceport south of Tel Aviv. That was what Connie Peroni was referring to when she said this would likely be her last time at the Space Center and Cape Canaveral.

“It’s the only choice we have,” Salima said. “There’s no way in hell we’d be able to interdict a launch at Palmachim. The Israelis take security to a whole different level; we’d need a hell of a lot more than some soldier of fortune touting himself as a former SEAL to pull it off. And if the experience with our contractor was any indication, we can’t trust outsiders on this. We’ll have to settle for creating cracks in the foundation. And you’ve already been seconded to the project, so you’ll be on-site. When do you move?”

“In a couple of months.” Cummings scowled. “Wright didn’t even let me choose my own apartment, just assigned me one in the complex Peroni bought. It’s barely a thousand square feet.”

Salima seized on his anger to move to the next phase of her plan. “Well, just bear in mind that revenge is at hand. And it’ll be that much sweeter now.”

He peered at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that this time, you’ll be doing the work yourself, right under Wright’s nose. Not only will you beat him, you’ll be able to look him in the eye while you do it.”

Cummings turned back to the Atlantis, gazing at it as he chewed over what he’d just heard. He was single, with no real attachments that she knew of, so he was as good a candidate as she could hope to find. But would he go for it? And what would she do if he didn’t?

Salima’s guts knotted as she waited, but she kept it from showing. Her acting skills had improved dramatically over the past few months. She didn’t know whether she should be proud of that or not.

Finally, he nodded, much to her relief. “I’m in,” he said. “Where do we begin?”

They talked for another ten minutes, which Salima decided was as far as she could push it before she was missed. She was amazed that Barnhart hadn’t texted her yet, demanding to know where she was.

The two left the exhibit at different times, Salima returning to the One World suite while Cummings headed for the command center.

When she arrived, she poked her head through the door for a little recon. Wright and Al Peroni were chatting with the senators now, while Barnhart was regaling Becker with one of his anecdotes. Her boss was nothing if not a consummate storyteller. Then she caught sight of Connie, who had made her way back to the buffet and was talking animatedly with one of the servers. Unlike many billionaires Salima had met, Connie seemed to have no problem connecting with regular folks.

“Remember me?” she asked as she sidled up to the table.

Connie beamed. “Right on time. It’s happy hour.” She handed Salima a flute of champagne and took one for herself.

“It is indeed,” Salima said, grinning. “In fact, I feel like making a toast.”

“I’m always up for that. What are we toasting?”

Salima raised her glass. Connie did the same.

“To Sicily,” Salima said. “And everything it represents for the future.”

7

Salima let out a herculean yawn and refreshed the secure browser on her laptop. It still showed a black screen, so she sighed and sat back in her chair. She’d been awake since six o’clock the previous morning, and it was now after three the next morning.

All was quiet outside her studio apartment in South Bay, just a few blocks from Redondo Beach. It was tiny, but she was rarely there, and it was a quick commute to StarSeeker headquarters. She spent most of her nights in places Philip Barnhart owned, in strategic locations to house his top people while they galivanted around the country doing his bidding. As always with her boss, it was a strategic move—purchasing an asset was an investment, while travel costs were an expense. Of course, it helped to have a couple hundred billion dollars at your disposal.

Trust Gideon Wagner to be a pain in the ass without even trying, she thought as she slumped forward and planted her elbows on the kitchen table. He had arranged for a noon tour of the Palermo plant, completely unaware that it was the middle of the night here in Los Angeles. Then again, it wasn’t like he realized his visit was going to be livestreamed back to his chief rival back in the States.

She was on the edge of nodding off when the screen finally came to life. “—ahead of schedule on most of it,” Matt Cummings’s tinny voice said through the MacBook’s speaker. The black rectangle had been replaced by a video feed of a vast warehouse floor stacked with shipping containers. The image jounced and shimmied, enough to give Salima’s tired brain a touch of motion sickness. She supposed that’s what she had to expect from a camera that was set into a pen housing tucked into Cummings’ shirt pocket.

The tour had been Al Peroni’s idea, basically an opportunity to show off to the competition how far the plant had come in just a couple of months. Barnhart’s schedule didn’t allow him to join in, and Salima had come up with a plausible excuse to miss the trip. Johnna Smythe was still avoiding travel on the advice of her lawyers, but Gideon was available. He was in Munich visiting family, and Palermo was just a two-hour flight away, so he’d agreed immediately.

Plus he’s devious AF, Salima thought. He’d never pass up an opportunity to gather information the rest of us didn’t have.

Gideon was mistaken, of course. All the intel he was about to receive, she’d had weeks ago, thanks to Cummings.

“Impressive,” Gideon said from somewhere off-camera. “What’s your timeline going forward?”

Salima tuned out for a moment as Cummings went over the data that he’d already shared with her. About half the full contingent of One World’s staff were now in place in Palermo, support services had been arranged, shipments were arriving daily. Peroni estimated that there would be equipment ready to launch within three months, which would allow them to gather a ton of data that would guide them in designing their orbital manufacturing operation, housing units, and more.

Cummings and Gideon continued out of the warehouse and into the open air, passing a number of new buildings. There was motion everywhere, with transport vehicles, cranes, and crews bustling in and out of the camera’s field of view. A few times, Salima caught sight of Mt. Pellegrino and some of the other Palermo mountains that provided a scenic backdrop around the compound in the heart of the zona industrial. The tour ended at the main headquarters, where dozens of people—some in business attire, others in white lab coats, still others in safety vests—milled about through cubicle farms, labs, and common spaces. Finally, they sat down in the vast cafeteria designed to eventually serve hundreds of One World employees at a time. Salima was glad the camera was relatively still, after what seemed like an eternity of jumping and jostling footage. Then again, it was trained on Gideon’s smug face now, which wasn’t a hell of a lot better.

“So how did you get saddled with the job of tour guide?” he asked, sipping his espresso. “I mean, I knew Peroni wouldn’t send Wright. We wouldn’t have gotten a dozen yards from the entrance before he took a swing at me.”

“I volunteered,” said Cummings.

Because I told him to, Salima thought with satisfaction.

“And between you, me, and the fencepost,” Cummings continued, “you’re absolutely right about Ennis. The guy is a dick of the highest order.”

Salima frowned. She’d warned him about going off script with Gideon. Just shut up and let him do the talking.

Gideon smiled and raised his tiny cup in a salute. “A man after my own heart. How is he settling in here? I don’t imagine he enjoys being away from his family too much.”

“He takes Peroni’s personal jet back to JFK every Thursday night,” said Cummings. “He’s got a four-day work week.”

“You sound bitter.”

Goddammit, Cummings, Salima fumed inwardly. Shut your mouth. She suddenly wished she could have equipped him with an earpiece like they use in spy movies, so she could have given him orders directly instead of just watching him.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I just don’t see why the hell Peroni would bend over backwards to get one guy home on weekends. I mean, both his kids are away at college, and his wife could easily have moved here. Why the hell would anyone live in New Jersey when you could live in Italy?”

Gideon shrugged. “No idea, my friend, especially when he has someone like you here who could easily run operations. You’re smart and you’re single, like me. Those attributes give you the freedom that’s necessary to do the best work.”

“I won’t argue,” said Cummings.

“To be honest, I’ll never understand why Peroni hired Wright in the first place after he washed out of NASA. He’s had a hate-on for them ever since. I’m sure he was over the moon when Sloane scuttled the program in favor of the Space Force.”

Salima ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. Ask him about Beyond, you idiot! The whole point of this was supposed to be fishing for any intel about the possibility of sabotage at Beyond’s aborted test launch. The murder had to have been the result of someone trying to cover up something, otherwise it made no sense. There was no motive.

On the screen, Gideon leaned back in his seat and fixed Cummings with an appraising look. “You know, Matt, I’m just going to come right out and say this: you’re not living up to your full potential here at One World. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Salima’s mouth dropped open. What the hell was this?

“I imagine most people feel that way about their job,” Cummings said warily.

“You’re not most people,” Gideon said. “Think about this. I’m an engineer by training, and I run the operations side at Beyond. Salima Patel at StarSeeker went to engineering school and Barnhart has her running every aspect of the goddamn company these days. She and I don’t have much in common, but I can tell you this much: neither one of us ever had to act as a tour guide for a visitor.”

Is he trying to poach Cummings? Salima goggled at the screen.

“Are you offering me a job, Mr. Wagner?” Cummings asked in a half-joking tone, as if reading her mind.

Gideon leaned forward, suddenly filling the entire screen with his face. “That depends on what you consider a job,” he said quietly. “There aren’t any openings at Beyond right this minute, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t work for me directly in other ways.”

Salima’s stomach suddenly dropped into freefall. This was starting to go off the rails worse than she could have imagined.

“I’m not sure I get your drift,” Cummings said, lowering his own voice. “I mean, I’m certainly open to side work, if it’s available.” He paused. “If the price is right, of course.”

“Of course,” Gideon said. “I believe in an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. Let’s say you were to, I don’t know, round up the detailed schematics for this whole operation and make copies of them, for example. That would take about a day, right?”

“Oh my fucking God,” Salima groaned aloud.

Cummings didn’t answer right away. “Uh, I suppose it would. Hypothetically, I mean.”

“And a day’s work like that would hypothetically be worth a year’s salary,” Gideon said, eyes flashing. “Tax-free, of course.”

The bastard wasn’t trying to poach Cummings, he was trying to recruit him as a spy! Worse, he was offering more money! Salima fought back the urge to scream and smash her fist into Gideon’s face in the screen. I subverted him first!

The sound of Cummings’ cell phone broke the silence. “Sorry, I have to take this. It’s Wright,” he said. Salima could practically see him rolling his eyes like a teenager getting a call from their mother. “Hello? What, right now? I can’t, I’m with Gideon Wagner. We just finished the tour.” A pause. “Yes, I’m aware you’re my boss, not him,” he sighed. “Fine, I’ll take care of it.”

The smug look on Gideon’s face made Salima’s skin crawl. Ennis had just played into his hands, making Cummings even more angry over his position in the One World food chain.

“Sorry about that,” Cummings growled. “Lord Ennis of Wright needs me to check on a parts shipment that just arrived. He said to tell you to have a nice flight home.”

Gideon nodded sympathetically. “As you Americans say, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” Both men rose and shook hands. “I’d like to keep in touch, though, if you’re all right with that.”

“Of course,” Cummings said, a little too quickly. “Shoot me a text anytime. Username is Edison3000.”

“Perfect. I look forward to continuing our discussion, Matt. What’s that line from the old movie? Something about being the start of a beautiful friendship?”

The screen went black again as Cummings killed the camera feed. Salima took several deep breaths, willing her racing heartbeat to slow. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to message Edison3000 and tell the stupid prick to engage in an impossible sex act, but she knew that was the wrong way to go about this. Cummings wasn’t the one she needed to talk to right now.

Instead, she picked up her cell and clicked on one of her contacts.

A few seconds later, Gideon Wagner answered.

LAX was definitely not home to any of Los Angeles’s finer eateries, but it was the perfect place to sit down for lunch if you wanted to be completely ignored by everyone around you. The one thing every air traveler had in common was that they were all fully involved in their own business. There’s a reason no one ever coined the term “as friendly as an airport.”

Gideon looked at the menu in his hand as if it were an insect. “Nothing on this is food,” he said. “What the hell are ‘tater tots’?”

“Focus,” Salima said emphatically. “I didn’t ask you to meet me here because I was hungry.”

“Then what is this about? I landed thirty minutes ago, and it will take me another forty to get home. Plus I’m still on Munich time, so I’m exhausted.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t have done this if it weren’t important.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice, not unlike how Gideon had done during his conversation with Matt Cummings a week earlier. “I know about your tour of One World’s facility. You took full advantage of the fact that you were the only one there.”

Gideon frowned. “What of it? You were invited and blew it off, as I recall.”

“I know about the conversation with your tour guide,” she said, being careful not to use Cummings’ name. “And I know what you talked about.”

“We talked about the facility,” he said. His voice was even, but his eyes were wary. “Are you trying to imply something? If so, spit it out. I’m too tired for games.”

Salima fixed him with a steely look. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

He glared at her for several seconds before answering. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I watched the entire thing in real time, Gideon.”

Gideon blanched. “That’s impossible,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“I got to him first,” she said with a sneering grin. “Nice try, though.”

He fell silent again. Salima drank in his agitation, reveling in the fact that she had him on the ropes. When he finally spoke, his voice was steadier.

“Then I suppose you win this round,” he said dismissively. “And you know I have to keep quiet about it or risk implicating myself. Well done.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said. “We don’t have to be on opposite sides of this.”

“What are you suggesting?”

She smiled. “Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei.”

He peered at her a moment before nodding. She knew he’d understand the Latin reference: my friend, the enemy of my enemy. Salima was a prodigy, but Gideon had an IQ that set him apart from the rest of humanity.

“All right,” he said. “I’m in. But not right now. Right now, I need to sleep for a week.”

“Of course. We’ll talk again soon.” Salima extended a hand, and they shook. When he let go, Gideon shook his head and chuckled softly. That made her bristle.

“Something funny?” she demanded.

“Oh, indeed there is,” he said. “God help me, I think I’m actually starting to respect you.”

8

Arlen Becker was bone tired. It wasn’t even noon and he already felt like he’d run a marathon. Luckily for him, his office was one of the few in the Pentagon with a full living room suite, so he was able to stretch out on the sofa and rest his eyes for a few moments. Rank did, indeed, have its privileges.

But those privileges could never equal the shit he had just endured at the hands of Harry Kane and his Space and Science Subcommittee. He’d spent the better part of three hours being grilled by senators from both parties on every aspect of the Space Force program. Why wasn’t he further ahead? Why did he keep asking for a higher budget? They demanded progress that they could crow about to their constituents—which, Becker knew from experience, actually meant donors. They demanded action and ignored the fundamental need for time and resources. Even so, they would go over his every report with a fine-tooth comb, asking pointless questions about minutiae that could only be properly answered by an aerospace engineer. Then they’d offer him amateurish suggestions that would have made an engineer either laugh out loud or quit their job. Possibly both.

Great work, Arlen, he sighed to himself as he gazed at the ceiling. He’d finally achieved true bipartisanship in the U.S. Senate. Of course, it was three years after he left the Senate, and they were teamed up against him, but hey, you had to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right? But he was being too hard on himself, he knew. By the end of the meeting, he’d managed to finesse the discussion from operations and logistics to priorities, which he knew from experience would cause internal arguments. He’d served two terms as the junior senator from Montana, and if he learned anything in that time, it was that it was virtually impossible to get two politicians to agree on priorities, even with members of their own party.

He didn’t realize he’d started to drift off until his cell phone buzzed. He sat up and pulled it from his breast pocket. It was a text that read: Meet for lunch in 15. The contact name above it was a single word: POTUS.

Becker sighed. The last thing he felt like doing was sitting down for a one-on-one with Patrick Sloane, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. Rank didn’t just have privileges, it had responsibilities. And when the commander-in-chief told you to do something, you did it.

Roger that, he texted back. Dining room?

He knew it was a long shot that he’d get fine dining on the White House’s tab, but he had to try. To his dismay, the reply was, Love that chicken from Popeye’s.

“That’s what America gets for electing an independent,” he sighed.

“Cheer up, for God’s sake,” Sloane said amiably as Becker arrived at the food court. “I got you extra spicy.”

As always, the president practically radiated energy. He was the youngest president since Kennedy, but it wasn’t just his age. Becker thought he had a rare ability to be completely present, as if the person to whom he was talking was the only person in the room. It was a quality that had helped him get elected to the Senate as an independent at the age of thirty, after a brief but bright career as an economist. If it had been anyone but Patrick Sloane to offer Becker the role as head of the Space Force, he would have declined immediately and enjoyed his retirement.

A quartet of Secret Service agents lurked at a nearby table, keeping their eyes on the four cardinal directions. Becker knew the Pentagon was likely the most secure building in America, but he supposed they had to do their jobs. He sat down across from the president and nodded, eyeing the greasy bird on his paper plate. “Thank you, sir.”

“Seriously, man, you look like you’ve been dragged through a knothole sideways. What’s up?”

As always, Sloane’s folksy sayings made Becker grin. He knew the vast majority of people didn’t believe the president was actually the person they saw in front of the camera, but Sloane was the real deal. A true independent, he didn’t just play at populism, he actually was a decent human being who could relate to ordinary Americans. Unfortunately, that automatically made people suspicious in this day and age.

“Just a few teeth marks on my backside,” Becker said. “Although I suppose more than a few are actually denture marks.”

“Ha!” Sloane hooted. “Okay, I get it, you met with Kane and crew. I suppose that would ruin just about anyone’s day.” He must have seen something in Becker’s eyes because he quickly sobered. “Seriously, Arlen, you of all people should know you have to take their shit with a hefty dose of salt.”

“I do, sir,” he said. “But they’re not entirely wrong. I had high hopes that we’d be further ahead by now. Sometimes it feels like the Space Force is on a hamster wheel, putting in a ton of effort without moving forward.”

Sloane wiped grease from his mouth and fingers. “Horseshit,” he said. “I think you’ve done an exemplary job, especially given the circumstances. Scrapping NASA was a historic change, the kind you see once in a generation, maybe less. Short-term pain for long-term gain. Unfortunately for you, the pain landed squarely in your lap, and I highly doubt you’ll be in that office long enough to see the gain.” He locked his eyes on Becker’s. “That’s why I chose you for the job. Only a person of the highest character and integrity could operate under those conditions. That’s you, Arlen.”

Becker felt a twinge in his gut. His parents had raised him to be humble, and he didn’t take praise well. But he wasn’t going to contradict his commander, especially after a morning like he’d just endured.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“You have an enormous responsibility, General, but you also have an enormous opportunity.”

Becker gave him a half-grin. “I wish I could see it as clearly as you do, sir.”

“There’s only one way to see it,” said Sloane. “Maybe you need a reminder of that. The fate of the human race lies in the stars. We’re using up this world at an unsustainable rate, and the clock is ticking. That’s just a fact. Not everyone sees that in the same way you and I do. That’s why we need you right where you are, and why we need visionaries like Phil Barnhart, Al Peroni, and Johnna Smythe. Humanity needs people like you to keep your eyes on the prize, because everyone around you is focused on themselves. We can’t allow ourselves to get distracted and wake up a generation from now realizing it’s too late.”

“I understand, sir. I just wish we had more successes to show for our work.”

Sloane shook his head. “Success or failure are two sides of the same coin. Everything is progress. You either win or you learn.”

“You sound like Philip Barnhart,” Becker said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, let’s sum up. Pull your head out of your ass and stop listening to people who don’t matter. I’ve got your back, now and always, and the world is counting on you. Capisce?”

Becker nodded, smiling. “Sir, yessir.”

“Good, it’s settled.” Sloane looked down at Becker’s plate. “Now give me that drumstick if you’re not going to eat it. We’re not wasting taxpayer money on my watch.”

The propulsion and structural test facility sat in a remote corner of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Built in the 1980s to test the various parts of rocket engine systems, its nickname these days was the Box. It was showing its age, but after being taken over by the Space Force, the budget just wasn’t there to do anything about it.

Still, as Becker stepped out of the SUV in the facility’s small parking lot three days later, he was filled with a renewed sense of purpose. He’d flown to Ohio the morning after his talk with the president, excited to see the work taking place inside the Box—though he was careful never to use that term with anyone outside of the project. He had no doubt that many of the folks on the research and development team were feeling the same as he had before his talk with Sloane, and he was eager to share the president’s message of encouragement with them.

Today’s test of a new combustion chamber system, and the meeting that followed, would take several hours. The system was built by the research and development team for use in the Prometheus Project that had taken the place of NASA’s scrapped Artemis plan to return to the moon. A lot of the people behind Artemis—most, in fact—had told Becker to go to hell when he offered them positions on his new team, which was one of the key reasons for the delays that were dogging Space Force efforts. But enough had signed on that they could still move forward. The new system was reverse-engineered from similar technology developed by StarSeeker last year, but it had been a tremendous challenge. There was a fine legal line that had to be walked when trying to replicate patented tech, even for a branch of the U.S. military. Becker didn’t want to put Philip Barnhart’s generosity to the test, particularly when StarSeeker’s legal resources were as unlimited as its funding.

He turned to his driver, an airman named Hatch. “Head back to base and get some chow, son,” he said. “This will take a while. Meet me back here at fifteen hundred hours.”

The airman acknowledged the order and nosed the SUV toward the gate. Meanwhile, Becker took a good look at the Box. A huge cube of reinforced concrete walls and steel doors, it had all the architectural charm of a prison. Certainly nothing like the sleek, modern facilities used by their private sector competition. Becker’s people essentially had one arm tied behind their backs compared to their counterparts, who worked with a huge number of personnel and seemingly unlimited budgets. And yet they were doing excellent work here.

For the first time in his life, Arlen Becker thought he truly understood the term “spring in your step” as he strolled toward the Box’s bland front entrance. This thing may not be pretty, he thought wistfully, but it gets the job done. He supposed that sentiment pretty much summed up the entire military.

A moment later, a huge chunk of the building’s façade exploded toward him in a maelstrom of fire, like the opening gates of Hell itself.

A huge fist of heat and pressure knocked Becker off his feet. He landed hard on his back, sending a jolt of pain up his spine and making it hard to breathe, but that didn’t stop a lifetime of training and decades of command from kicking in. “Get EMS!” he bellowed as Hatch jammed the SUV into park. A moment later, the airman was barking into the radio for support.

The general struggled to his feet and lurched toward the rubble that now stood in front of the hole blown in the wall. His mind flashed back to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan some two decades ago, when the Humvee he’d been riding in was rocked by a roadside IED. That experience had taught him a stark lesson earlier in life, one he took straight to heart. Keep calm, he ordered himself. Breathe. Get your bearings. He took stock of himself as he stumbled over the rubble. He almost certainly had some torn muscles but no breaks anywhere, at least not that were impeding his movement. Ringing in his ears, but no clear indications of a concussion. All of those were good signs.

He reached the remains of the metal stairs that led up to the mangled front door and tried to peer through a cloud of acrid white smoke billowing out of the hole. Up close, Becker could see the interior was burning, but it wasn’t the raging inferno he’d feared. The second floor had miraculously held, although he didn’t trust that to last. He needed to make sure the building was cleared as quickly as possible.

A few more steps took him far enough inside that he could see movement. Silhouettes floated through the smoke from the rear of the main floor, orders being shouted to head for the nearest exit. The voices were calmer than he expected, which was a good sign. No panic. They may have been rocket scientists, but most of them were also military.

“It’s Becker!” he called. “This way! Get out of there.”

“Sir!” a male voice croaked. Becker recognized it as belonging to Capt. Brent Lightfoot, the propulsion team lead. “Three casualties out of eight total, all NSI. None of us were in here when it blew.”

Becker sighed, ending with a groan. Not seriously injured was the term commanders wanted to hear in situations like this, although given the force of the blast that hit him, it was a blue-eyed miracle none of them had been killed.

“Sir!” He turned to see Hatch trotting in his direction. Both the airman and the SUV appeared scratched up but otherwise okay. “We got 88th Medical Group enroute.”

“Good work.” Becker made his way around to the right side of the building. His lower back was starting to seize up, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before there was a symphony of pain playing through him. About ten yards away, Lightfoot and the others streamed through the door and immediately sat down on the tarmac, nursing various minor injuries. Two men and a woman—Becker presumed they were the casualties Lightfoot referred to—swayed unsteadily. The woman held her left arm in her right hand, indicating a shoulder injury. Both men were bleeding, one from a wound on his torso and the other on his upper thigh. Lightfoot himself appeared relatively unscathed, with just some charred areas on his uniform and a few scuff marks on his face. Again, a blue-eyed miracle.

Through the open door, Becker could see more of the carnage inside. Shrapnel littered the ground in chunks, while a larger section sat at the edge of the floor next to the hole in the front wall, surrounded by debris. The shell of the thrust chamber was pitch-black and warped, with huge fissures in the seams like open wounds.

Lightfoot saluted absently, and Becker returned it automatically. “What the hell happened, Captain?”

“Long story, sir.” The team lead turned his gaze to the ground and ran a hand over his close-cropped scalp. “FUBAR.” Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Becker let out a deep sigh and looked around at the scene. FUBAR indeed. The spring that had been in his step less than five minutes earlier was long gone.

“I’ve got time,” he said.

“The high-pressure fuel duct blew apart instantly upon ignition,” said Lightfoot. “The housing blew clean off, right into the front of the building.” He paused. “Jesus, if we’d be standing any closer to the goddamn thing—”

Becker cut him off. “But you weren’t. So, what went wrong?”

He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have happened. The fuel flow had to have been exponentially higher than it was supposed to be at that stage. The process should have been quick and simple: start up, test the flow, shut down again. Pop the champagne.”

And now instead of celebrating, we’re licking our wounds, Becker thought acidly. Pain radiated through his upper body as the damage to his muscles became more apparent and urgent for attention.

“Any suggestions on a possible cause would be appreciated,” he said, trying to sound less defeated than he felt. “Just to have something I can tell the president when he asks.” And Harry Kane, he didn’t add.

Lightfoot sighed deeply as the EMS helicopter whooped in the distance, fast approaching their location.

“Contractors,” he said. “That’s the only thing I can think of right now. A substandard feeder hose could have developed a fissure, screwed up the flow of the fuel mix. Subcontractor supplied it, main contractor should have caught it before it got to us.” Lightfoot lowered his voice and looked Becker in the eye. “Between you, me, and the wall, sir, we’re just not funded to the level we need to be. The tech we’re trying to emulate was developed by the best people in the industry, with the best resources. We’re using spit and baling wire, and lowest-bidder contractors. And of course, sir, none of this can be on the record until a formal investigation is conducted. In the end, it’s my responsibility. If the parts are substandard, I let the subs install them.”

The general could only nod. Later, after he had been checked out by the medics, he would hole up in his hotel suite and knock back a fifth of Jack Daniels.

For now, all he could think about was how his positive attitude seemed as a far away as Mars at that moment.

9

Barnhart glanced at Salima Patel and frowned. “Stop that.”

“What?” She looked up from her tablet, blinking at him across the glass-topped table as if waking from a dream.

“You’re chewing your thumbnail again. It makes you look like a child, particularly when you do it in front of the richest man in the world.”

She looked away, abashed. “Sorry.”

Barnhart hadn’t meant for it to come out quite as condescending as it had, and he felt a rare twinge of regret. He had to remind himself again that Salima wasn’t even thirty yet, and her job was stressful, especially on days like today. The last time they tested an engine had been…less than ideal, but she was very good at her work most days. And she was exponentially better at it than Gideon Wagner had been. If watching her chew a nail was the price he had to pay for that, he should count his blessings.

Luckily, they were alone on the observation deck of the Hangar at the moment, so no one had seen the exchange. StarSeeker technical staff milled about on the floor getting ready for the hot fire test of the second generation of the experimental engine that had exploded months earlier, taking a rocket—and a great deal of Barnhart’s personal hubris—along with it.

“It also means you weren’t listening to me,” he said gently. “And men like me need attention the way other men need air. You should know that by now.”

She gave him a half-grin and got up to pour them both a coffee from the sideboard near the stairs. “I do, and I really am sorry.”

“Forget it. Today is a big day. It will make or break your career.”

Salima’s eyes practically popped out of her skull.

He chuckled. “You know I’m joking. Maybe.”

“You really are as horrible as the people on social media say you are.” She handed him his coffee and sat down again. “Now what were you saying that was so important?”

He paused, frowning. “Would you believe I can’t actually remember?”

Salima snorted softly and shook her head. “So, I can get back to what I was working on?”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Security logs,” she said, back to staring at her screen.

Barnhart sat back in his chair and cocked one knee over the other. He’d noticed that Salima had taken an interest in every mundane aspect of StarSeeker security in the past couple of months. For the past two weeks, she had ordered double the security team presence around the test stand, making sure the area was under surveillance twenty-four hours a day.

Philip Barnhart didn’t believe in worry for the sake of worry. You couldn’t focus on the task at hand, or the ultimate goal, if you spent all your time and emotional energy thinking about things that might happen.

“What is so fascinating about security logs?” he asked. “Why are you so concerned about the comings and goings of people and things? Today, you should be focused on one thing only: the test.”

“Clay has taken care of everything on that end,” Salima pointed out.

Barnhart didn’t understand the details of the process, but he did know that standard testing for aeronautical propulsion was incredibly rigorous. Each rocket engine consisted of four basic components: the propellants, the injectors, the combustion chamber, and the nozzle. Prior to testing the unit itself, each component was subjected to dozens of standard tests, all with dizzying combinations of letters and numbers: MIL-STD-202G, RTCA DO-160, R2D2, yadda yada yada. Thrust and exhaust, simulation of a thermal vacuum to mimic the conditions of space, acoustics, fuel storage, and much more had to meet a vast array of standards dictated by the U.S. military and industry oversight bodies. Only then could the components be assembled into an engine and ignited in the real world.

As if he’d been waiting off stage for a cue, Clay Newton crested the top of the stairs and strode onto the observation deck, carrying his own tablet. As usual, he looked like he needed a shower and a nap. “I have, indeed, taken care of all that,” he sighed, slumping into a seat next to Salima and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “In all the mind-numbing detail that seven solid weeks of intensive standard testing could possibly generate.”

“Of course you have,” Barnhart said. “I’d accept nothing less.”

“Have you had time to go through my report?” Clay asked. He and a special team of StarSeeker staff and outside contractors had gone over the remains of the previous launch with all the attention of a crime scene investigation team. They reviewed the physical evidence and combed through the pre-flight testing data, just as they had for today’s engine test. The result was a 318-page document that essentially said they had theories on what had caused the rocket to explode, but no concrete proof of any of them.

“I read the executive summary,” Barnhart said. “The rest might as well be in Chinese for all I understood of it.”

Clay raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“Obviously I’m disappointed, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it.”

Salima and Clay exchanged a look but said nothing, which irritated Barnhart.

“I hate when you do that,” he grumbled. “By this point, I would have thought you both understood that I’d rather have all the information than have you cherry-pick what you think I want to hear. Are you implying I should have lost sleep over that report? Spit it out.”

Salima flipped her tablet closed. “You’re right. We have been tiptoeing around something.”

“I know I’m right,” Barnhart snipped. “So spit it out. I don’t want to go into this test in my current mood.”

“There’s a good reason I’ve been obsessed with security recently,” she said. “And it’s connected to the results of the forensic audit.”

“How so?”

Clay leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “We went into that investigation looking for a cause on our end, and we didn’t find it. On the day of the launch, I was more confident than I’ve been of any launch in the last eight years.”

“You told me as much at the time,” Barnhart said. “What’s your point?”

“The point is we suspect sabotage,” Salima said earnestly. “That’s why I’ve been poring over the data on who’s been coming and going leading up to this test. I will not allow it to happen again.”

Sabotage? Barnhart leaned back in his seat, brows knit. It had crossed his mind, of course, but only briefly. “What evidence do you have?” he asked.

“Strictly speaking, we don’t,” Clay said. “At least nothing that would stand up in court. But more importantly, we don’t have evidence that it wasn’t sabotage. I didn’t put this in the summary because it’s a public-facing document, but the fact that the engine lost structural integrity at such an early point in the launch is a huge red flag. It’s akin to blowing a tire in the first lap of the Indy 500.”

Barnhart turned to Salima. “You were absorbed in security weeks before the final report,” he pointed out. “Why did you come to the conclusion of sabotage before there was any evidence of it?”

“There was evidence,” she countered. “Just not here at StarSeeker.”

“What are you talking about?”

Salima and Clay once again exchanged a silent look. Clay nodded toward her as if to say it was her show.

“Three weeks ago, the Space Force R&D team tested a new combustion chamber prototype—”

“Based on StarSeeker technology,” Barnhart said waspishly. “And it blew up. That’s what happens when you give a hand grenade to a Neanderthal. They don’t understand it, but they can certainly do damage with it.”

“I know you meant that as a compliment to me,” Clay said, “but they’re not Neanderthals. A few of those people were once NASA’s best and brightest, and the rest were culled from the military’s best aeronautical engineers. I can all but guarantee it wasn’t user error.”

“There’s been no report from Becker one way or the other, at least not to me. It’s too soon to draw conclusions.”

Salima waved a dismissive hand. “The point is it was the second inexplicable rocketry snafu in less than six months.”

“Improbable, but hardly a pattern since you need three data points for such a conclusion,” Barnhart said, his irritation rising. “Paranoia isn’t a good look for someone in your position, Salima.”

“It’s not paranoia!” she snapped. Her eyes were blazing. “Gideon Wagner’s fluid dynamics lead at Beyond was murdered on the test stand the night before an engine test!”

Barnhart considered that. He’d spoken briefly with Johnna Smythe soon after the incident. She’d told him she thought the local police were trying to make up for a recent political scandal, something about the sheriff not taking certain crimes seriously. They were making up for it by intensively investigating every single case.

“Again,” he said, “that has yet to be borne out by evidence.”

She hissed a frustrated sigh. “Can you at least concede that it’s possible I’m right?”

“Of course it’s possible. It may even be probable. And I’m very glad you’re looking into it.”

Salima blinked at him. “But you just said—”

“I know what I said. I also told you the reason I hired you was because you wouldn’t blindly follow me, and you’re not. You’re pushing back because you believe you’re right and I’m wrong. That’s your job and, as always, you’re doing it very well.” He turned to Clay. “That goes for you, as well.”

Salima turned to Clay but spoke to Barnhart. “So we’re not fired?”

“That depends on the result of today’s test,” Barnhart said, flashing a cheeky grin as he glanced at his smart watch. “Which is coming up very quickly, so we’d best get ready.”

He sat back and watched as staff around the Hangar got into place for the test. Clay was on the phone with his team while Salima texted so fiercely that Barnhart wondered how her thumbs didn’t cramp. Forty-five minutes later, they were settled into their seats, awaiting the countdown. Without a rocket attached to the engine this time, there was no point in opening the observation deck door to the sky. Instead, they watched the live feed on a twenty-foot screen.

Barnhart tented his fingers under his chin as a thrill of anticipation ran through him as it always did during any hot fire test. This time, they would be igniting all four of the component engines simultaneously, which added another level of excitement—it would be only the second time StarSeeker had performed such a test.

But underneath it all was a hint of apprehension. Were Salima and Clay right? Was there sabotage afoot? Or were they chasing a conspiracy theory? God knew there were enough of them in the world these days.

His pulse quickened as a voice over the speaker began the countdown in a monotone completely at odds with the electricity of the moment. Exhaust billowed across the screen upon ignition. The initial thrust began at nine percent, slowly cycling up to one hundred percent. Raw data crawled upward on a black strip next to the image of the engine, none of which meant anything to him. As his mother had been fond of pointing out when he was a child, Philip Barnhart was no rocket scientist.

He was, however, a visionary, perhaps the most powerful the world had ever known. He watched, entranced, as the thrust dropped again to simulate conditions the engine would encounter during a real launch. The information gathered would allow Clay Newton and his team to evaluate the thrust vector control systems, which were crucial to their future plans for the engine. More than 700,000 gallons of propellant forced their way through the engine, used up before Barnhart’s eyes, generating nearly two million pounds of thrust.

Finally, they reached the shutdown stage. In all, the test took barely eight minutes, but it had seemed like an eternity to Barnhart. He glanced at Salima and Clay, saw that each of them were clutching their knees for dear life. It was then that he truly realized just how invested each of them were in the process, how deeply they both cared about StarSeeker’s mission. It gave him an unfamiliar twinge of pride.

As the numbers on the screen dropped and the exhaust dissipated, the three of them leaned back and let out a collective breath. It was over. The engines were still intact and judging by the look on his chief engineer’s face, the test had been a success. A moment later, a cheer rose from the staff on the Hangar floor.

“We did it,” Clay said, his eyes dancing across the data on the screen. “A perfect test. Better than I’d even hoped.”

Salima ran her fingers through her hair. “Thank God,” she sighed.

“Not God,” Barnhart said with a smile. “Thanks to you two, and everyone else involved. This feeling right now is why I created StarSeeker. Progress. Forward motion. Another rung on the ladder to humanity’s ascension to the stars.” He took a deep breath, let it out again. “Are either of you two busy for the next five days?”

“Not especially,” Salima said.

Clay shrugged. “Just post-test follow up.”

“Good,” Barnhart said solemnly. “I want you each to pack a bag.”

“Why?” asked Salima. “Where are we going?”

“Bora Bora. Clay, your wife is invited, of course. I’ll have you set up in a pair of huts over the water until Tuesday.” He tapped at his watch. “We’re three hours ahead of Polynesia, and it’s a sixteen-hour flight on the G6, so if you leave at six p.m. you’ll land around seven o’clock tomorrow morning, Bora Bora time.”

The pair blinked at him.

Barnhart beamed. “There’s very little I can do to congratulate you besides giving you my sincere thank you. But a nice trip to clear your minds is important since the next phase will be followed by a next and a next. I’ll keep asking more of you both, but for the moment, I know that you’ve given me all that you have and more. Now get going. That’s an order.”

10

Gideon Wagner tried to keep his cool as he rushed along the hallway that led to Johnna Smythe’s personal suite on the second floor of Beyond, Inc.’s corporate headquarters in Century City. He despised lateness in others, and here he was running late himself to one of the most important meetings of his career. It was all Patel’s fault. If she’d picked a proper time for their clandestine conversation instead of right before goddamn lunch, he would have made the meeting with time to spare.

“Ms. Smythe texted again,” said Tina Chase, practically jogging to keep up with him. “Should I answer?”

Gideon bypassed the elevator and charged up the ultra-sleek staircase to save time. “You’ve been my assistant for two years,” he huffed, “and yet you still ask me stupid questions like that. Unlike Johnna and her guest, I have actual work to do. They can wait.”

He wished he felt nearly as confident as he sounded. He reached the foyer at the top of the stairs and headed for the suite at the end of the hall. As much as he wanted to project an image of utter confidence in this particular meeting, he knew he was in a position of weakness. The image of himself stalking along at almost a run was reflected at him from every mirrored door he passed, as if taunting him for having to rush.

At last, he reached the glass doors and burst through. Tina followed close behind, almost losing a shoe in her efforts to keep up. He immediately saw Johnna and her guest, a chubby gentleman in his late sixties, on the balcony that overlooked the Los Angeles Country Club. Gideon plastered on a wide grin that he didn’t feel and crossed straight toward them, bypassing Preston Smythe and the catering staff he was currently berating over some imagined problem with the food.

“My apologies,” he said. “I thought I was early; turns out Tina here told me the wrong time.”

Tina’s face flushed immediately. “I-I’m so sorry,” she stammered from the patio doorway. “It’s my, uh, my fault—”

“Not at all, love,” said Johnna. Her tone was breezy, and she wore a smile, but the look she shot Gideon could have curdled milk. “Your boss here works you too hard. Take the rest of the day off.”

Gideon forced himself to keep grinning, knowing he’d been caught in a lie. Tina gaped for a few moments, obviously unsure what to do.

“You heard her,” he said amiably. “Enjoy the afternoon.”

“Why not stop in for lunch at the Beverly Hilton on your way home?” Johnna added. “Just put it on Gideon’s bill. He has an account.”

Tina smiled and nodded, avoiding Gideon’s gaze. “Thank you very much, ma’am. I appreciate that.”

“It’s Johnna, love. Now off you go.”

As she walked out of the room, the caterers walked in and began laying out the food. Meanwhile, Johnna swept a hand in the direction of their guest. “Manfred, this is my right-hand man, Gideon Wagner,” she said. “Gideon, this is—”

“Herr Schuchardt,” he finished, shaking the man’s hand. “Ich habe mich sehr gefreut.”

The older man smiled politely. “Das nergnügen ist mein.” When he spoke again, it was in flawless English. “I prefer English, if you don’t mind, since Johnna doesn’t speak our native tongue. I’m not one for excluding anyone from a conversation.”

Hot shame sliced through Gideon’s gut. Not only was he late, his attempt to impress Germany’s most prominent industrialist with their shared language had backfired spectacularly. That would have been bad enough, but Schuchardt was also a key potential investor in Beyond, which was the reason for this meeting. Luckily, Preston chose that moment to sit down with them and make small talk with their guest. While they did, Johnna seized the moment to flash Gideon a sunny grin and kick his ankle under the table with the pointed toe of one Kate Strass pump. Smarten up, that kick said in no uncertain terms.

Goddamn Salima. Checking in with her always threw him off his game, particularly after StarSeeker’s game-changing hot fire test a few weeks earlier. If it wasn’t so crucial to keep tabs on Peroni and Wright’s progress in Italy, Gideon would have been completely on point for this meeting. As it was, he felt like he was playing second fiddle to Preston Fucking Smythe, a man who thought Karl Lagerfeld was a brand of beer.

Then again, Gideon’s problem wasn’t working with Salima at the moment. It was working against her that was giving him headaches.

“My partners and I hope that the unpleasantness in the desert has been dealt with,” Schuchardt said casually, poking at his salad.

Gideon opened his mouth to speak, but Johnna cut him off. “No worries there,” she said. “The sheriff told my lawyers a couple weeks ago that they’re almost ready to close the case. Sounds like the two investigators jumped the gun in calling it a homicide. Not enough evidence to support the theory.”

Just massive, highly specific trauma to the victim’s throat, thought Gideon. In light of what he’d learned about Salima Patel in the past couple months, he’d dramatically changed his thinking on Frank Sheehan’s death. What started as an inconvenient accident had turned into more than one sleepless night, wondering just how much she was capable of in pursuit of her goal to get Barnhart to Mars first.

“Excellent,” said Schuchardt. “I’m sure you don’t need such pointless distractions. After all, you’re in a race, quite possibly the most important race in human history. You have to keep your eyes on the prize, as the Americans say.”

“Absolutely,” Johnna said. “Gideon here knows that better than anyone.”

He took that as his cue to jump in. It was oddly touching that she forgave him as quickly as she did, particularly when he himself would never have done the same for someone else. Then again, Gideon Wagner had no illusions about himself. He was a world-class asshole, and quite proud of the fact. It was one of the reasons Johnna had hired him in the first place, so that she wouldn’t have to be one herself.

It was also one of the reasons Philip Barnhart fired him. His loss.

“Beyond has been moving forward rapidly, despite the inconvenience of the investigation,” he said. “I can assure you, we haven’t been sitting on our hands waiting to finally get the scrapped launch off the ground. For the past two months, we’ve been fast-tracking the development of two other prototype engines and rocket bodies. They will be ready as soon as the test stand is finally released from police custody.”

“And if, for some reason, that doesn’t happen?” Schuchardt asked. “You have no control over the actions of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department.”

Gideon looked to Johnna. It was his idea, but it was better coming from her, since she was the face of the money and what they were talking about would cost a hell of a lot of it.

“Then we’ll hire out a bloody test stand,” she said. “Mojave Spaceport has its own right next door, though not at the same level as ours. Or we could use Astra’s facility in Alameda. Hell, even Lockheed Martin down in Santa Cruz could handle the job.”

“Indeed.” Schuchardt arched an eyebrow. “That’s an expensive proposition.”

“Then it’s a good thing folks like us have a shit-ton of money,” Johnna said with a grin. “I mean, you do want in on this, right? Cos I can always go down the street to the Minhas brothers in Mumbai if you’re getting cold feet.”

Gideon held his breath. It was a gamble for them to act as if they had others on the line, both he and Johnna knew it. Anup and Sandeep Minhas had expressed curiosity in Beyond at a function in Dubai last year, but there had been no serious follow-up. Meanwhile, the company’s development pace since the stalled test launch had left it cash-poor and in need of an immediate infusion of capital. Johnna had given Gideon the green light to ramp up production—she had no choice, really—but she never lost sight of making sure the bills were paid. And that meant they needed Schuchardt and his people on board as soon as possible.

“I can give you a detailed rundown—” Gideon began, opening the folder he’d brought with him, but their guest waved him off.

“I’m interested in this delicious salmon right now,” he said through a forkful of lunch. “Besides, Johnna has complete faith in you, Mr. Wagner. That’s good enough for me.”

Gideon nodded as humbly as he could. “I appreciate your vote of confidence, sir.”

“My confidence is more in the necessity of the race in which you and Johnna find yourselves,” Schuchardt said. “Like her, and your fellow competitors, I believe in the urgent development of space travel.”

“Never were one for patience, were you, Freddy?” Johnna grinned. “Prob’ly why I like you so much.”

The older man chuckled as Preston Smythe finished his pint of beer and let out a belch. “You know what I like?” he asked. “I like that kick-ass pilsner you got over there in Germany. That Doppelbock shit’ll knock you on yer arse after three or four.”

Schuchardt ignored the interruption and placed the napkin on his empty plate. “I am ready to move on this,” he said. “To be honest, Johnna, you had me at hello, as they say.”

She smiled easily, but Gideon saw the relief in her eyes. “You won’t regret it.”

“I’m sure I won’t, because obviously there are conditions.”

“Of course. Just pass ‘em along and we’ll get the lawyers on it.”

Gideon felt a thrill run through his belly. After a rocky start, the meeting had gone better than he could have dared hope.

“Most of them are standard key performance indicators,” said Schuchardt. “But there is one that supersedes them all.”

He fixed his gaze on Johnna’s. After a moment, she turned to Preston. “Darling,” she said, eyes still on Schuchardt, “why don’t you get the caterers sorted? And give them a few hundred for a tip. There’s a love.”

Her husband seemed confused but nonetheless happy to be away from what he no doubt considered a terminally boring conversation. Once he was inside, she and Gideon leaned closer so their guest could lower his voice.

“Our condition is quite simple,” said Schuchardt. “We want guaranteed progress.”

Gideon frowned. “I’m not sure exactly what you mean by guaranteed, sir.”

“I assumed it was quite clear. You put rockets into the sky, or we get our money back, with interest.”

“Come on, Freddy,” said Johnna. “You know we can’t guarantee that.”

The German shrugged. “Then perhaps I need to, as you put it, go down the street. To Philip Barnhart, perhaps.” He paused to let that sink in. “StarSeeker is on the heels of a very successful engine test, with another launch to follow soon. If I’m being perfectly honest, the only reason I’m here and not there right now is because I despise Philip Barnhart.”

“I know that, but—”

“But nothing, Johnna. If you think I’m willing to miss out on the space race solely because of my personal feelings for the competitors, you’re sorely mistaken. Simply put, if you can’t deliver, I have to protect my stake and go with someone who can.” His gaze was steely. “I will not miss out on this opportunity.”

Gideon watched Johnna take a breath for what would no doubt be a long-winded explanation of why Schuchardt’s conditions were impossible, and that everything in life was a gamble, and that he needed to put up or shut up when it came to his faith in Beyond, Inc. But before she could say a word, Gideon darted forward over the table until his face was only inches away from their guest’s.

“I’ll meet your conditions,” he said, never breaking eye contact with Schuchardt. “Progress or your money back.”

The German considered this a moment, then glanced at Johnna. If she was flustered by the turn of events, she didn’t let it show. Instead, she shrugged.

“It’s just my money,” she said. “It’s his company.”

After a handful of beats, Schuchardt finally nodded. “I like your attitude, Mr. Wagner. Send my lawyers a figure by end of day. My partners and I will convene within a week and get you your money.”

“Thank you, sir.” Gideon let go of the breath he’d been holding. “You won’t regret it. And please, call me Gideon. We’re going to be working together, after all.”

Another pause, and then a smile crept across the older man’s face. He snorted softly. “Very well then, Gideon. I look forward to it.”

They said their good-byes, and Johnna walked Schuchardt to the suite’s lobby, seeing him off with laughter and a kiss on the cheek. By the time she got back to her personal office and rejoined him on the balcony, Gideon had managed to get his hands to stop shaking.

“I’ll say this much, mate,” she said as she closed the glass doors behind her, leaving the two of them alone twenty stories above Wilshire Boulevard. “You got a set of bollocks on you the size of a Clydesdale’s.”

“Thank you.”

She rounded on him, eyes blazing. “It wasn’t a compliment, you cocky little shit. What have you put me on the hook for, d’ya reckon? A billion or more? I suppose you think I’ve got that sittin’ in me fuckin’ couch, yeah?”

Now that it was just the two of them, Johnna’s accent was coming out. That was fine. Gideon knew how to deal with her when she was letting off steam. It was convincing Schuchardt that had been the challenge, and he’d pulled it off. The rest was simple, if not exactly easy. As Johnna ranted, he went over the situation in his head.

How hard can it be? he thought. All I need to do is get rockets in the air. I never said how many of them would actually get there, just that some would. If I have to sacrifice one or two in the process, then that’s what I’ll do, which is what we’ve all done. It takes failure to realize progress, and that’s the veracity of failure.

It never occurred to him at the time that he’d just started referring to Beyond, Inc. as his company, not Johnna’s.

Darkness had long since gathered around the old farmhouse in the foothills, broken only by the glow of a gas lantern. Children were in bed in this part of the world, some 7,000 kilometers away from a similar quasi-abandoned building where the man had spent some time many months ago. As he shut down the electronic apparatus, the man briefly reflected on the oddity of having just listened to people who were eating their lunch.

When the power had been reduced to the minimal level necessary to maintain the equipment, the man closed the fake wall on the hidden room that now housed it and doused the lantern. He had built the room himself, making sure the seams looked like simple cracks in the plaster. There was nothing for an outside observer to see in the dusty old hulk of a house, just a place in dire need of either renovation or demolition.

When he stepped outside into the sultry night air, he saw a tiny red ember flicker as a nearby shadow pitched its cigarette into the dirt and crushed it under its shoe.

“Well?” the shadow asked. Behind him, the silhouette of the hills was visible against the backdrop of the indigo sky.

“It’s perfect,” the man said simply. And it was. The laser microphone array’s technology was easily two generations ahead of what the technician had used in Mogadishu. The signal was clearer, to the point where it no longer had to be filtered by a human operator, and it had its own dedicated satellite. It could be recorded in real time and played back within minutes, and this test had taken place over a far greater distance than the previous one. Of course, the glass on the balcony had acted as an ideal conductor for the laser, far more stable than the tabletop on the yacht last year.

More importantly, the whole thing was compact enough to be portable and could be hidden in the equivalent space of a closet.

“Another satisfied customer,” the shadow said in heavily accented English. He held out a tablet that provided the only light for miles. “A few taps should conclude our business.”

The man took the tablet and completed the online transaction, then turned the screen to show his companion. The shadow nodded, then pulled out a satellite phone and made a call. After a brief conversation in another language, the call ended.

“My associate confirms,” he said. “Keep the tablet. A gift.”

A gift of my own fingerprints, the man thought. Very professional. “I appreciate that.”

The shadow shrugged. “A tradition in my trade. Repeat business is our lifeblood, after all, and customers can’t spend money in jail.”

The man nodded, then reached into the pocket of his chinos. He withdrew a shape that glimmered faintly in the moonlight. It was a silver pocket watch wrapped in a handkerchief. He opened the cloth before handing it to the shadow.

“A tradition of my own,” said the man. “Something old for something new.”

The shadow turned the watch over in his hands, admiring it. “Beautiful.” He sucked in air through his teeth and almost dropped the watch. “There is a sharp edge.”

“My apologies,” said the man. “It could do with a good cleaning, I’m sure. It’s almost a hundred years old.”

“Is that so?” The shadow sounded genuinely touched as he brought his finger to his mouth for a moment to stanch the pinprick. “Then I will be sure to care for it. Many thanks, my friend. I look forward to meeting again.”

The pair said their good-byes, and the man watched the shadow take the path that would lead him down the hill to the nearest village a few kilometers away where he’d left his vehicle. After a while, the man peeled off a pair of flesh-colored surgical gloves and checked his own electronic watch. 21:20 hours. The cyanide from the pocket watch that he’d picked up at an estate sale for less than five dollars would begin to take effect around 21:45. The shadow would be fully incapacitated by the time he climbed behind the wheel, and dead a few minutes later. No doubt a small group of villagers would eventually crowd around, and one would get in touch with the local authorities. It would be deemed just another killing in a generations-long conflict that over the decades had left hundreds of others dead.

The man flipped open the tablet one last time and typed out an encrypted message. He sent it to the same person who had confirmed the transfer of funds earlier, a person he had never seen and who, unlike the shadow, had never seen him. The message was a single word: Done.

The response came a moment later: A pleasure doing business with you.

The man double-checked the latch on the invisible door of the secret room one last time before heading down the hill himself. He would take a different route than the shadow, of course, that would lead him away from the action in the village after they found the body. With luck, he would be asleep in his bedroom before midnight.

Private beats public every time, he mused as he strolled along in the dark, savoring the night air and wondering why he, of all people, had taken so long to learn that particular lesson.

11

Arlen Becker took a wrong step and sent a lightning bolt of pain along his right buttock.

“Everything all right?” Harry Kane asked, shooting him a look of concern.

Becker swallowed hard and smiled through the agony. “Right as rain,” he lied as he forced himself not to limp. “Just had a brief flashback to the explosion.”

In reality, a pulled hamstring had been raising hell with his ass cheek in the weeks since the FUBAR test had blown him off his feet, but he wasn’t about to complain to a bunch of senators about it. Instead, he led them along like the commander he was, keeping an even pace across the tarmac from the transports to what remained of the Box’s ruined façade. Other than clearing away the rubble and fencing it off, the site looked much the same as Becker and the R&D team had left it after the incident. Its fate would be a large part of the discussion with the subcommittee on their field trip today.

The group consisted of the four members whose schedules allowed the trip: Kane and his vice-chair Meg Pritchett of Texas, along with Shasta Temple, the junior senator from California currently in her first term, and Wyatt Jackson from right here in Ohio.

Becker brought them to a halt some twenty yards from the site. Even now, a faint whiff of char hung in the air.

“Sonofabitch,” Kane muttered, eyes wide. He turned to face the general. “And you were standing nearby at the time?”

Becker nodded. “The rest of them were closer to the explosion than I was and they all walked away from it,” he said, turning the spotlight on his people.

“Incredible,” said Temple, sidling next to him. She was Black, in her early forties with a swimmer’s build and short hair. “Tell me, General, how old is this facility?”

“It was built in 1982,” Jackson grumbled. “I remember because I was graduating high school at the time. Should have been torn down and rebuilt a long time ago.”

Becker wasn’t about to touch that live wire. As a life-long Ohioan, with four years in the Air Force, Jackson wasn’t about to let this issue go. The Box was only one building, but it constituted the state’s entire contribution to the Space Force. It was only a small part of research and development. He’d been lobbying hard for major expansion on the Wright-Patterson base outside of Dayton since about five seconds after Patrick Sloane’s ink was dry on the paper that shuttered NASA.

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” said Pritchett, barely sparing a glance for the ruined building. Her reedy voice and brusque manner had crawled on Becker’s nerves ever since their time together on the subcommittee years ago. “It’s time to move on, Wyatt. We’ve been over this a hundred times, it’s a done deal.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jackson snapped. “You spent the last year sucking up to every goddamn power broker in DC.” He put on an affected drawl. “Oh, don’t you know, Tex-as was just maaade for space, y’all! We can’t possibly get to Mars if we don’t go through Tex-as!’”

Becker bit down against a grin. Jackson’s impression of Pritchett was hilarious.

“That’s enough,” Kane said sternly. “We don’t air our laundry in front of the staff.” He turned to Becker. “Not that we think of you as staff, Arlen, obviously. More like a retired colleague.”

Just an old pal whose ass you put through the wringer on a regular basis, Becker thought but didn’t say. “I understand completely, Mr. Chairman.”

“Fine,” said Pritchett. “I’ll drop it if Wyatt will. Besides, I can’t think of a better time to talk about this than right here and now. It’s just us and the general; the drivers and aides over there can’t hear us. So, let’s throw protocol to the winds for a minute and bring him up to speed.”

“Agreed,” said Kane. “Arlen deserves a heads-up on this so he can start preparing.”

“Need I remind you we’re missing two members?” Temple pointed out.

“Uh-huh.” Pritchett sneered, rolling her eyes. “From New York and Delaware, neither of whom need to be part of this particular conversation.”

Becker frowned as he tried to take in all that was going on around him. What he thought was a field trip that would end with him making his usual pitch for funding had instead turned into a bizarre airing of grievances. This was a political minefield for an administrator like him, so he decided to keep his mouth closed and watch it play out.

“Look, we got a quorum right here,” Pritchett said, “official or not, so let’s get it out in the open. Y’all—” She caught herself and started again. “You all know as well as I do that Texas is the future of the Prometheus Project, and the clock is ticking on the budget.”

Kane sighed. “I hate to say this, but Meg is right. I can’t think of a better spot than in the shadow of the Space Force’s most public failure to let General Becker in on the big picture.” He must have seen something in Becker’s eyes because he held up a hand. “Again, that’s not directed at you, Arlen, it’s just a stone-cold fact. This snafu was a public embarrassment.”

Becker simply nodded. There was no arguing the fact, much as it hurt him to admit it. The president himself said as much after Becker submitted his initial report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff the day after the explosion.

“I agree,” Jackson replied. “In fact, I’d very much like to hear from the general on this.”

Becker’s eyes narrowed. What was this? When it came to admin, Senate subcommittees asked questions and gave directions, but they rarely took the step of bringing staff into their closed-door conversations. At least that’s how it was done when he was a senator.

Kane nodded. “Any objection, Shasta?” Temple said nothing. “All right, it’s settled.” He turned to Becker and pointed to the remains of the Box. “Not to get your hopes up, Arlen, but that fuckup was your lucky day.”

“Sir?”

“He means we’re opening the taps,” Pritchett said. “Harry and I may be on opposite sides of the aisle, but we’ve been busy in the backrooms gearing up for the budget.”

“It’s hardly just been you two,” Temple countered. “All of us have been testing our political capitol this year, me in particular. Meg gets to take all the credit in Texas while I have to explain to everyone in California why the most populous state in the union won’t be the new home of the Space Force.”

“The primary home,” Kane corrected her. “You still get a secondary site.”

“Gotta keep an eye on the competition,” Pritchett said to Becker, dropping an off-putting wink.

“Let me make sure I’m getting this straight.” Becker glanced from face to face. “You’re saying that R-and-D will be folded into the new launch site at Houston?”

Becker was starting to feel a little adrift. Plans had been in place to eventually build a new launch facility since before NASA was shut down and the Space Force sold off its Cape Canaveral launch pads to their billionaire competitors. But the scope of the project had never mentioned R&D, and Houston was only the proposed site the last he’d heard of it. It was years down the road…wasn’t it?

“You’re getting that and a whole lot more,” Kane said with a wide grin. “Not tomorrow, obviously, but soon. The committee plans to recommend that NASA’s entire former budget be rebuilt into yours, Arlen. Capital, operations, R-and-D, everything. And that’s just the start.”

Becker stood there for several moments, stunned into silence while the senators around him were practically beaming. Finally, he cleared his throat. “And you believe you have the support for this?”

“We don’t believe, we know we do,” Pritchett said. “General, we may have laid the groundwork, but truth be told, this explosion of yours was the wake-up call that Capitol Hill needed to get serious about Prometheus and Mars. There’s broad bipartisan support for this effort.” She made a face. “Except for the fringe idiots in the House, but we don’t need their votes.”

Kane dropped a hand on Becker’s shoulder. “If there was one lesson that we all took away from watching Barnhart’s rocket blow up in person, it’s that we need to be learning from every mistake.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Becker replied, still trying to wrap his head around the news. “It’s a lot to take in, and it’s a lot of money. Are you absolutely sure you have the support?”

Shasta Temple snorted a cynical laugh. “General, I think all of us here know the only certainty in Washington is that military spending is pretty much a blank check. You know that better than anyone, given that your career consists of two occupations: soldier and senator.”

She’s sharper than I gave her credit for, Becker thought. “And the president?”

“Between you, me, and the burnt-out building, he’s entirely on board,” said Kane, keeping his low voice. “He and I discussed it in the Oval a few weeks ago.”

That was when it dawned on Becker. Of course Patrick Sloane was on board. Hell, looking back, the whole thing had practically been his idea. Getting rid of NASA wasn’t meant to save money, it was a move designed to force accountability by making the government’s space agency follow an iron-clad chain of command that led straight to the top—the president himself—and he had the charm and savvy to get the American people on board with it. Yet another example of something that only Patrick Sloane could have possibly pulled off.

“Success or failure are two sides of the same coin,” Becker said to no one in particular. “Everything is progress. You either win or you learn.”

Kane raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”

“Just something President Sloane told me a while ago, Senator. It comes down to exactly what you said about learning from our mistakes.”

Sloane had told him something else that day in the Pentagon food court: I’ve got your back, now and always. Becker smiled to himself, silently vowing to never underestimate his commander-in-chief again.

If he’d been paying attention at the time, he would have noticed that his hamstring pain had disappeared.

“Thank you for your trust in me. I understand with another failure or two, I’ll be out of a job, but that comes with the territory. I know how important it is for the United States to lead the way to Mars, whether private or public, matters less than that the Americans do it. Our international partners have roles to play, but there is no doubt who is leading this parade. I will do my best to show that your trust in me is not misplaced, and that my time working with each of you will bear fruit in ways that benefit us all.” Arlen left the benefits unspoken. For him, getting to space would be the victory. For the others, it would be about cementing their power. He didn’t begrudge them that since that’s what politicians did.

He was glad not to be one anymore, while still playing by their rules.

Three hours later, after a lunch with Wright-Patterson’s senior leadership, Becker stood on a makeshift dais in a hallway outside the base’s main office, behind Harry Kane and a couple of microphones. The only media to show up for the press conference were the local Dayton affiliates and an opinion writer from the Columbus Dispatch. Of course, they weren’t getting the news that Becker himself had received. To them, it was just another talking head expounding on the importance of the space race.

Afterward, while Kane talked into a camera and the other senators schmoozed with the brass, Becker’s mobile rang. It was Brent Lightfoot. “I’m just with the committee,” the general said by way of answering. “Can this wait, Captain?”

There was a pause. “I think you’ll want to hear this now, sir.”

Becker frowned. What was this about? He slipped through a nearby doorway into an empty office, closing the door behind him. “Go ahead.”

“Sir, just this minute, I got some important intel from Chester Klein. In person, no record.”

Klein was the CEO of LyteSpeed Solutions, the contracting company in charge of the supply chain for key components of the botched system test. “I can’t imagine anything of value the man might have to offer,” Becker said. “Outside of a flimsy attempt to limit his company’s liability, that is. And why the hell was it off the record?”

“He needs time to lawyer up, sir.”

“For what?” Becker was irritated now. “LyteSpeed had a bank of lawyers when we threatened their contract.”

“Criminal lawyer,” said Lightfoot. “The man is scared, sir.”

Becker flipped back the blinds in the door’s window to see if anyone was nearby. When he saw the area was clear, he went to the far corner of the room. “Get to the point, Captain. Why would Klein think his company is facing criminal liability?”

“He told me that LyteSpeed somehow lost the chain of custody on the high-pressure fuel duct that blew.”

Suddenly, the general found himself on full alert. “Details now,” he growled.

“They’re not sure exactly where the breakdown was,” Lightfoot said. “Just that whoever delivered the part on our end wasn’t the person who was supposed to deliver it.”

“So who did deliver it?” Becker demanded.

“That’s just it, sir. They don’t know who delivered it.”

“Bullshit!” he barked. “There were video cameras all over the Box! They may have been in shit condition, but they were working. There’s a record somewhere, find it!”

“We already did, sir. I was showing it to Klein right before I called you. There’s clear video of someone in a LyteSpeed uniform delivering the part.”

Becker hissed out a frustrated sigh. “Then what is the problem here, Captain?”

There was another pause on the other end of the line, pushing his blood pressure up with each passing moment.

“Klein doesn’t recognize the face, sir. He’s been over LyteSpeed’s HR records and…well, the face doesn’t match anyone who works for the company.”

Becker’s teeth clenched as he maintained a death-grip on his phone. At that moment, the hamstring throb in his right butt cheek chose to come roaring back in full force.

12

Johnna Smythe’s house on the bluffs overlooking Pebble Beach was some thirty-thousand square feet, designed by an architect who was a household name back in the 1930s to deliver a view of the Pacific from just about every vantage point on the property. Some areas of the sixteen-acre estate were above solid rock, others in lush meadow, but there was one thing they all had in common: there wasn’t a more perfect spot on all the California coastline to watch a sunset.

Or a rocket splashdown.

At least, that’s what Smythe was desperately hoping at the moment. It was the reason she’d invited the seventy-some guests who were currently milling around the immaculately landscaped grounds under a series of canopies, sipping cocktails and eating hors d’oeuvres. Some were locals, Carmel-by-the-Sea high society folks, whose approval Smythe would never admit she craved. Others had come from the competition, including Philip Barnhart and Al Peroni themselves, along with their people. Arlen Becker was also there, though he only had a lone assistant with him. The general always stood out at these functions simply because he didn’t travel with an entourage. Smythe respected that.

They were all there for the same reason she’d attended the StarSeeker launch last year: to be part of the show. Smythe and her counterparts had done an impressive job of projecting a united image to the public, despite their fierce competition behind the scenes. Smile, wave, we’re-all-in-this-together. In reality, with the possible exception of Becker, she knew they were also secretly hoping to witness a spectacular failure this afternoon.

Barnhart and Becker had both been subjected to humiliating losses in the last year, and she herself had been sidelined for months since Beyond’s own aborted engine test-slash-murder investigation. Only Al Peroni had gotten away unscathed so far, likely because his focus had been firmly on the ground with One World’s new facility in Palermo and he wasn’t racing to get into space. His plan was different. Build the ship in space.

But all of that was part of the game that was the race for Mars, and despite the infinitely high stakes—or perhaps because of them—she still loved every moment of it. So did her competitors. It was the challenge of the millennium, and there was no reward without risk. The big three understood that in a way no one else truly could.

Certainly not her Preston. She sighed inwardly as she watched him act out a stupid joke for the members of Beyond, Inc.’s board on a nearby patio surrounded by a cedar hedge. “Wait a minute,” he hooted as he reached the punchline. “I thought you were the doctor!” The members and their partners laughed politely while her husband preened, clearly pleased with himself.

Smythe joined them, giggling politely as she took him by the arm. “You’ll have to excuse Preston,” she said. “He met Jim Gaffigan at a party a few weeks ago and now he fancies himself a stand-up comic.”

“I could do it,” he said earnestly. “I’ve got deadly timing.”

Smythe caught the eye of one of the board members, a young woman named Reece Daniels. They both flashed winning smiles, as if agreeing that Preston should stick to soccer and leave comedy to the pros. Smythe raised her glass to the woman in a silent toast.

Bitch, she thought acidly.

Daniels was a corporate attack dog, brought in by the rest of the board last year in an attempt to keep Smythe in check. A week ago, the two women had been at each other’s throats during an emergency meeting of the Beyond, Inc. board. Daniels pulled out an audit quietly commissioned by the board that warned against today’s launch. It pretty much said everyone on the company’s engineering team outside of Gideon Wagner thought it was too early. They needed to complete the aborted test before even considering sending up a rocket.

Only one of the board was an engineer and not a very good one, but they had one thing in common—keen business minds.

Smythe countered that no one had ever dithered their way into the history books, and she pointed out that she was solely responsible for the infusion of capital from Manfred Schuchardt. That set off another round of raised voices and threats to quit until Smythe finally slammed her palm down on the boardroom table, shocking them all into silence.

“Get this through yer thick heads,” she growled. “Beyond isn’t a business, it’s a mission, and on missions, you take risks. I didn’t claw me way up from a trailer court in the Outback’s arsehole by playing it safe when intuition calls for a bold stroke.”

Daniels had flashed a condescending smirk. “No,” she said, “you ‘clawed your way up’ by marrying the biggest cattle baron in the Northern Territory when you were nineteen and he was sixty. Then he kicked the bucket, and you sold the ranch. You’re not exactly Oprah Winfrey, Johnna, and you don’t know the first thing about engineering, let alone rocket science.”

“You didn’t finish yer homework, little girl,” Smythe shot back. “I risked every penny of that inheritance on a financial services company when I couldn’t balance a checkbook. A few years later, I bought an airline, even though I couldn’t fly a plane. And when I barely knew how to work a DVD player, I started the world’s first streaming media company.” She leaned forward, propping her palms on the table. “And y’know what? Every fuckin’ time I took that leap, people just like you sat across from me and told me not to do it. In fact, a couple of them are at this table right now.”

Smythe waited a few moments to see if anyone had a comeback. When they all remained quiet, she pointed toward the door. “So,” she said, “if any of you have a problem with how Gideon and I are running this show, get out now and don’t come back. I don’t give a shit about your contracts or your shares; if I have to, I’ll buy you out myself.”

With that, she stalked out of the room. None of them had said another word to her until today, when they arrived at her home, acting as if the meeting had never happened. No doubt many of them were silently praying for a disaster today, even though it would cost them all, solely because it would prove they were right.

Fuck ‘em, she thought now, knocking back the remains of her mojito. She’d meant every word she said in that meeting, and that put her in a whole different class than them.

“I’ve seen that look before,” said a voice from her right.

It was Philip Barnhart ambling toward her in khaki shorts, deck shoes, and a sailboat print casual shirt, in stark contrast to most of the other guests. Smythe gazed at him a moment, taking in his sheer magnetism. He was an undeniably attractive man.

“Have you now?” she said, grinning.

“Yes indeed. You’d like to shove something down someone’s throat. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Smythe let out a soft chuckle and shook her head as the two of them cleaved away from the patio crowd toward a more secluded corner. “You’re nothing if not perceptive, Phil-o.”

“Let me guess… You’ve been getting pushback on this launch from your own people.”

She felt a brief stab of adrenaline. Did Barnhart have spies inside Beyond? “What makes you say that?” she asked evenly.

He shrugged. “Because I’m getting the same from my people. Everything is a red flag to them since the botched launch. They spend all their energy trying to make an omelet while simultaneously keeping our eggs in the shell.”

“Amen,” she said, looking to change the subject. “Anyway, it’s my cross to bear. I saw Arlen and the Peroni a few minutes ago. The gang’s all here.”

“Where else would we be?” he asked, grinning. “It’s not every day you get to see a rocket splash down less than a mile offshore. Just a hundred feet deep, I heard. Risky.”

Smythe gave him a coy shrug. “No guts, no glory.” That much was true, because if it didn’t work, there would be plenty of guts to go around. She’d rip out Gideon Wagner’s with her own two hands.

At that moment, her smart watch pinged, and her chief engineer’s face appeared on the screen. It was a direct feed from mission control at Mojave, and there was a buzz of activity going on behind him.

“What’s the good word, Giddy?”

“All systems go,” he replied. “Countdown is on track. Conditions over the coast are ideal.” He smiled. “It’s a great day for a rocket launch.”

Smythe nodded. Gideon was an arsehole, but there was no one better to have leading the team. If only she had as much faith in the tech as she did in him.

No looking back now, she thought.

“Best get ourselves over to the big screen,” she told Barnhart, motioning to an enormous free-standing projection screen draped next to the English garden. Dozens of chairs were set up in front of it like a little outdoor movie theater. “The show’s about to begin.”

She hoped the smile on her face didn’t look like the rictus grin of someone in the front seat of a speeding rollercoaster.

A hundred thousand things needed to go right for a rocket launch to succeed: atmospheric conditions, technology, and human action must align precisely, in a specific order, at specific times, to overcome the bonds of gravity and force hundreds of tons straight up into the air. Thousands of hours of differential equations and vector calculus had to be performed before the engine and rocket body were even transported to the test stand. Tests upon tests, inspections upon inspections, an attention to detail rivaled only by the field of microsurgery. A successful rocket launch was a complex symphony of mathematics and physics, of human brains and computer systems working to their utmost capacity, along with a considerable amount of luck. In ideal conditions, it all came together to create something beautiful, harmonious, and powerful that inspired the human soul in a visceral way that could not be described in words. There was no thought given to the composer, or the process, only to the result and the exultation it brought.

Johnna Smythe goggled at the screen as the drone cameras followed the rocket’s climb. The crowd around her was silent, allowing the roar of the engines through the speakers to fill their ears.

Even Preston, seated next to her and clutching her hand, was impressed. His mouth had dropped open during liftoff and he hadn’t closed it again.

Smythe held her breath as the climb continued and the rocket’s speed increased. Finally, the drone cameras were no longer able to keep pace and instead turned their lenses skyward to follow it from below. The view switched to a feed from a series of powerful mounted tracking cameras on the ground at the Mojave compound. Smythe thought they resembled laser cannons from a science fiction movie when she’d first seen them. The coverage would eventually shift to other cameras installed along Pebble Beach and another on the recovery craft for the splashdown.

When the rocket reached orbit—Smythe would have sworn it took an hour, even though it had been less than nine minutes—a spontaneous cheer erupted around her. The sound startled her out of her reverie. She pulled away and looked at her watch. Gideon’s attention was still fixed on the readouts even as the rest of the staff pumped their fists and exchanged high-fives. Smythe knew her top man wouldn’t allow himself to celebrate until the rocket had returned to Earth and was safely aboard the recovery vessel. Still, he allowed a brief glance at the camera, and damned if he didn’t smile when she gave him the thumbs-up.

Several minutes later, she led the crowd away from the makeshift theater to the edge of the property overlooking the beach. They watched as the rocket appeared on the horizon, first as a speck, then growing as it dropped. The shell didn’t have to deal with the brutal heat of typical re-entry from orbit, as the flight was only a brief test, but it still had to slow down. Smythe felt the crowd holding their collective breath as the trio of parachutes opened from the nose cone. It continued to fall, slowing, slowing, the tension rising, until finally it hit the surface of the Pacific, throwing up a wall of water around it. The parachutes, having done their job, quickly deflated and settled on the surface, sparking another impromptu cheer from the crowd.

Smythe turned and looked at Preston. He was beaming and reached out to pull her into his arms. “Congratulations, babe,” he whispered in her ear. “You pulled it off.”

We were lucky, she thought. But I’ll take it.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by well-wishers. Even the members of the board came up to shake her hand, including Reece Daniels. And why not? Smythe had done exactly what she told them she would, and while their pride might be hurt, their profits weren’t. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of her success, but when the crowd finally thinned, she saw a group in the distance that hadn’t made their way over to her: the competition.

Fuck you all. She grinned to herself, plucking a flute of champagne from a passing tray and striding over to the patio where Barnhart, Becker, and Peroni were gathered with their various hangers-on.

“That’s how it’s done, my friends.” She raised her glass as she reached the patio. “You’re welcome for the lesson.”

Becker, ever the gentleman, was the first to extend a hand. “Excellent work, Johnna. You should be very proud of your team.”

“Too right I am.” She shook his hand and raised her other wrist to her face. “I’m sure you’ll be able to say the same of your group someday soon, General.”

Becker winced, and for just an instant, Smythe regretted stepping over the line of civility.

But only for an instant.

Salima Patel and Clay Newton offered polite congratulations, followed by a glum-looking Al Peroni holding a bottle of Yuengling. “Connie sends her regards,” he said absently. “She had a foundation thing in Manhattan. Ennis is in Palermo, of course. The plant is, uh, coming along.”

“Tell Connie I’m sorry I missed her,” Smythe said, meaning it. She liked Peroni’s wife quite a bit. Alvito and Ennis Wright, on the other hand, could pound sand up their arses for all she cared.

Finally, she turned to Barnhart with a cocky grin. “Well, Phil-o, what say you?”

“Impressive,” he replied with a smile of his own. “Not unlike StarSeeker’s own recent success. And One World’s.”

“Except, of course, that there was a reusable rocket attached to mine,” she said, glancing at Peroni before turning back to Barnhart. “And it made it back to Earth in one piece.”

Barnhart’s expression seemed to freeze in place, and for just a moment, Smythe thought she saw a hard gleam in his eye. But it disappeared just as quickly. Peroni scowled while the others looked around awkwardly.

“Touché,” Barnhart chuckled. He raised his drink, motioning for the others to do the same. “First blood to Johnna Smythe.”

They all toasted and drank immediately, as if to cut the tension. While their conversations resumed, Barnhart leaned close to Smythe’s ear, keeping his voice to a mild whisper, “Funny thing about blood,” he said. “It’s not the one who draws it first who wins. Ultimately, it’s the one who has the most left at the end.”

Johnna Smythe masked the shiver that ran down her back by downing her champagne in a single swallow.

13

Alvito Peroni loved Sicily in a way he couldn’t put into words. His old man, a first-generation Italian-American, never left New York State in his seventy years on Earth, but his mother had been born and raised in the farmlands around Agrigento on Sicily’s southern coast. Alvito was the last of her eight children, and she died when he was just thirteen years old. But during their brief time together, she made him vow to visit her homeland.

He and Connie made good on that promise on their honeymoon. It took a year to scrape together the money after the wedding, with her working as a substitute teacher and him studying full-time at Princeton. Between her salary and his scholarship, they made just enough to keep them off welfare, so he spent his nights and weekends delivering for an Oyster Bay pizza place, stashing his tips in an old mayonnaise jar. Working together to achieve that dream brought the young newlyweds closer together and laid the foundation for the incredible success they now enjoyed.

Peroni would never forget the ride into Palermo from the airport that first time, watching Mount Pellegrino rise in the distance above the Mediterranean Sea, seeing the rich architecture of the city that seemed a million miles away from Long Island. It felt right to him.

It felt like coming home.

“Sir?”

Peroni blinked at the man who spoke. It was his tour guide. The guy was tall and lanky, bald as an egg. What was his name again? Cummings. Matt Cummings. They were standing on the vast lot outside the entrance to the main building of the One World plant. Cummings had just finished taking him on a motorized cart tour of the property.

“Sorry, Matt,” he muttered. “It’s the mountains. Sometimes I get lost in them.”

Cummings nodded. “I hear you, sir. They’re pretty spectacular.”

“That they are. And I told you before, don’t call me sir. It’s Al.”

“It’s Mr. Peroni,” said a stern voice.

Peroni turned to see Ennis Wright, flanked by a pair of grim-looking senior vice presidents, Herman Macht and Elliot Schiff. Peroni always thought of them as Mutt and Jeff. As usual lately, Ennis looked tired and harried. That was one of the reasons Peroni was here.

“Of course,” said Cummings, clearly perturbed. “I’ll make sure to remember that, Mr. Wright.”

Ennis shot Cummings a look as he sidled up to Peroni. “You can get back to work now,” he said. “I’ll take over from here.”

Peroni shook Cummings’ hand and thanked him for the tour. When his guide was out of earshot, he turned to face the executives. “Matt’s a good man. He was downright enthusiastic, which is more than I can say for any of you.”

“Cummings is a kiss-ass,” Ennis snapped. “He’s angling for a promotion.”

“Then he’s doing a good job of it,” said Peroni. “It was nice to finally see a friendly face on this trip. You three have looked like someone shit in your cannoli ever since I got here.”

“Look, Al—” Ennis began.

Peroni cut him off. “No, you look. I don’t know where all this negativity is coming from, but it stops now. You three are going to plaster smiles on your pusses and follow me as I tour this entire facility for the next two hours. We’re going to act like this plant and its employees are the most important things in the world, and that we’re just as happy as pigs in shit to be here. Capisce?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. The three fell in line behind him as he strode through the front door and into the main building. On the right was an elevator that would take them to the corporate offices, where Ennis and the VPs had just come from, while the door to the left led to the main warehouse floor. Peroni immediately grabbed a hardhat from the bank of hooks on the wall and walked through that door onto the concrete floor. It was a sea of yellow safety vests and bustling traffic, with forklifts and other transports following the yellow lines through the vast space. Hundreds of One World employees went about their daily business, oblivious to the fact that the company founder now walked among them.

“None of these people look like the sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads,” Peroni observed as Ennis and the VPs tried to keep up. “And yet you three keep telling me morale is down and folks are panicking.”

“You know what we meant,” Ennis said. “Executive leadership is worried that we’re falling behind. Construction and operations have been eating up all our time and resources, which leaves everything else on the backburner.”

“Then executive leadership needs to pull their heads out of their asses.”

They rounded a corner and headed through an open bay door that took them outside into a yard filled with huge stacks of rebar, pallets of concrete, and other construction material. Beyond that was another building, somewhat smaller than the first, that housed the manufacturing plant. Peroni led them through the front door, where they were met by a security guard who asked to see their IDs. The man’s eyes widened when he recognized the name.

“Uh, go right ahead, please,” he said. “Do you need an escort?”

Ennis opened his mouth to speak, but Peroni cut him off. “We’re good, thanks.”

They continued onto the floor. This plant was responsible for tooling the various parts that would eventually be used to build One World’s orbital platform, which would in turn be used to assemble the company’s enormous Mars explorer. The ship would eventually act as a nuclear-powered ferry between the two worlds, shipping cargo, components, and crews to and from Mars without ever having to enter either planet’s atmosphere. It would travel no farther than to a high orbit around the planets.

Peroni had Ennis point out the senior supervisor, then strolled over and introduced himself. The man’s reaction was similar to the guard’s when he learned who was talking to him in American-accented Italian.

“How are things going?” Peroni asked.

The man shrugged. “We’re right on schedule, sir. Should have no problem meeting the quarterly targets.”

Peroni grinned and clapped the worker on the shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear.”

The two men chatted for a few minutes about work, the plant, life in the One World apartment complex, and Palermo in general. This was the kind of personal interaction Peroni enjoyed. Talking with regular people was so much easier than talking with billionaires, particularly Philip Barnhart and Johnna Smythe. They always seemed to bring out the worst in him, which reminded him that he still had to call Barnhart in a few hours. Until then, he’d take advantage of being surrounded by regular people for as long as he could.

Peroni shook the man’s hand and told him to pass along his personal gratitude to the rest of the manufacturing staff. The man beamed with pride at the praise and hurried off to tell his colleagues about the close encounter with the big boss.

“That guy’s not worried about being on some imaginary backburner,” Peroni said as he rejoined the others next to an empty conveyor belt. “So why are you three?”

“It’s not the same and you know it,” Ennis said, frowning. “StarSeeker and Beyond have both taken leaps forward in the last couple months, and that’s not even touching on the huge injection of Space Force funding announced in the last military budget. One World’s R-and-D is stagnating while everything is tied up in this plant. We’re moving at a snail’s pace!”

Peroni crossed his arms and shook his head at what he was hearing. Ennis was up to the job of running things here in Sicily, but that was as far as he could go. For all his vast intelligence and fierce loyalty, Ennis Wright wasn’t a visionary. His laser-like focus on the details didn’t allow him to see the big picture.

“Funny you use the term ‘snail’s pace,’” said Peroni. “I prefer ‘tortoise pace’ myself. Slow and steady wins the race, gents, and that’s exactly how we’re doing things here. Let the others burn themselves out trying to always be first; that’s not our job.”

Macht and Schiff looked puzzled. They were vice presidents of finance and technology, respectively.

“What is our job then?” asked Schiff. “With all due respect, Al, why are we doing any of this if not to win?”

“Win?” Peroni’s eyes narrowed. “We’re doing this to succeed, Elliot, not to ‘win.’ They’re two different things. Our job is to build the most viable and sustainable means of getting back and forth to Mars, period. We’re not re-inventing the wheel, we’re looking for better ways to use it. If you’re worried about impressing me, don’t be. I’m telling you right now that you’re all doing fine, just like everyone else around here. Is that understood?”

The executives exchanged awkward looks before finally nodding their agreement. Peroni thought they looked like schoolkids who’d just been lectured by the principal.

“Now slap on a grin and follow me,” he said. “We’ve got a lot more places to tour and people to meet before we grab lunch in that amazing cafeteria that Matt Cummings told me about.”

He led them away from the conveyor belt toward the main door just as the belt’s motor came to life. When they were about a dozen yards away, the motors’ dull whir suddenly escalated into a pitched whine, then an ear-splitting metallic shriek. Peroni looked over his shoulder just in time to see the housing around the motor fly apart. He dropped to his knees as a small shower of gleaming shrapnel shot outward, shattering a pair of empty pallets just a few feet from where he and the execs had been standing not twenty seconds earlier.

The next thing he knew, workers were scurrying everywhere. Ennis was pulling him away from the scene even as the belt went silent again. Safety protocols had kicked in, killing the power, and two men were spraying the area with fire extinguishers despite the fact there were no flames. Peroni stood his ground and yanked his arm away when he realized the situation was over and being handled.

“Oh my God!” someone cried in Italian. It was the floor supervisor he’d met earlier, running toward him. “Are you all right, sir?”

Peroni waved him off. “I’m fine. What about our people? Did anyone get hurt?”

Ennis started to tear into the man in English, but now Peroni grabbed him by the arm. “I said I was fine and I am.”

“No, signore, no one hurt, thank God.” The supervisor crossed himself. Peroni clapped him on the shoulder.

“Now let’s get back to the tour so these people can do their jobs.”

“You could have been killed!” Ennis protested.

“I could have been killed on the drive here,” he said dismissively. “Let’s go.”

By the time he sat down to lunch in the cafeteria, which was every bit as good as Matt Cummings said it would be, Peroni had all but forgotten the incident.

“Why are you such a prick?” Peroni hissed, shaking his head in frustration. Philip Barnhart was lucky his oh-so-punchable face was on a tablet viewscreen and a continent away from Peroni’s fist.

“You should eat a croissant,” Barnhart said easily. “You’re obviously hangry. I know they aren’t big on breakfast in Italy, but—”

“It’s five-thirty here!” Peroni snapped. The Las Vegas sun was just beginning its climb into the sky outside Barnhart’s penthouse window. Meanwhile, it was starting to drop outside the window of his own office in the plant’s corporate suite outside Palermo.

Barnhart shrugged. “Then have some pasta. Whatever it takes to get your blood sugar up.”

Peroni took a deep breath and counted to ten. Obviously, Barnhart was trying to get his goat. One World needed StarSeeker’s services, and they both knew it. Peroni was over a barrel and Barnhart wasn’t about to let him up.

Remember what you told them this morning, he thought. This isn’t a race. Slow and steady.

“You’re a prick because you’re demanding fifty percent up front,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice even. “I don’t even have an ETA on this project.”

“I don’t know what kind of mafia-style business you do in Sicily, but that’s fairly standard practice here in America.”

“You never asked NASA for money up front when you were shuttling personnel to the International Space Station before it shut down.”

Barnhart frowned. “That was two trips a year, Al. You’re talking about two trips to your platform on my rockets every month. That’s impossible with StarSeeker’s current resources. I’d need capital, but more importantly, I’d need people. That all adds up to cash and liquid assets.”

“You’d have an iron-clad contract with One World,” said Peroni. “Isn’t that worth something?”

“That and ten dollars will get me a kid’s meal at a fast-food place.”

“I’m not Johnna Smythe,” Peroni snarled. “You and I are neck-and-neck when it comes to net worth, tough guy.”

Barnhart sat back in his chair and crossed one knee over the other. “And yet you came to me, not the other way around.”

“Do you need me to say you win? Jesus, you just can’t get out of the mindset you had that day on the boat, can you?”

Barnhart’s demeanor instantly soured, and he shot Peroni a severe look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said coldly.

Peroni immediately regretted his slip of the tongue. Their internet connection was secure on both ends, but there was no guarantee that industrial spies couldn’t somehow tap in. That had been the whole point of the meeting in the Indian Ocean.

“All right,” he sighed. “Give me a number.”

Barnhart did. Peroni’s stomach clenched when he heard it, but he kept it from showing. “I can do seventy-five percent of that.”

“You can do ninety percent, final offer.”

Peroni scowled. “Did I mention you’re a prick? Fine, I’ll have my VP of finance get in touch with your people in a few weeks to talk details.”

“After you scrounge up some capital, you mean.” Barnhart’s grin was back. “A pleasure doing business with you, Al.”

Peroni flipped him the bird and ended the call. Barnhart was right: One World not only didn’t have that kind of cash on hand, it was already deeply in the red with the start-up costs for the new plant. He wasn’t worried about drumming up the money—Johnna Smythe may have sewn up the Germans, but there was still plenty of capital in Asia and the Arabian Gulf—but he didn’t relish the idea of investors giving him the same grilling he’d just gotten from Barnhart. Peroni had more money than any of them, but people who came from generational wealth still looked down on him. As far as they were concerned, you could take Guido out of Long Island, but you couldn’t take the Long Island out of Guido.

He called up his email and sent Elliot Schiff a brief note instructing him to start lining up potential capital sources immediately. As he hit the send button, his stomach rumbled, reminding him it was suppertime. For a moment, he thought about heading back to his rental villa in the city, then thought better of it. He pulled out his cell phone and called up a new contact, one he’d added just that morning.

Hey, he typed. Want to grab something to eat in the cafeteria?

“I have to admit I was surprised to get your message,” Matt Cummings said as he and Peroni strolled along the perimeter of the One World complex. The setting sun cast long shadows all around them in the main yard, nearly empty at this time of evening. Work indoors carried on 24/7, but the outdoor work shut down at 6 p.m. The two men had wolfed a dinner of veal Marsala and pasta alla Norma, washed down with a half-liter of local Syrah. When they were finished, Cummings offered to show Peroni the One World observatory site. It had been Peroni’s own idea to have a means of watching the company’s progress in orbit directly from the plant, and he was eager to see it. He grabbed a couple of Yuenglings from the kitchen, supplied specifically for him, and they headed outside.

“I spend way too much of my time around bean-counters and worrywarts,” said Peroni, taking a pull from his beer. “Sometimes, I just want to hang out with someone who appreciates how cool it is to be going to space. Know what I mean?”

Cummings nodded. “I hear that. Best job in the world.”

They reached the makeshift stairs that led up to the observatory platform. It was designed to resemble ancient Roman architecture, with columns and wide steps, which required hundreds of tons of concrete. The building itself was just a skeleton of a dome at this point, and the platform was covered in construction materials and scaffolding, but Peroni could see the finished project in his mind’s eye. It would be a true monument to the past and the future.

“She’s really coming along,” said Cummings. Then he snapped his fingers. “Hey, I should get a pic of you in front of it!”

That was the best idea Peroni had heard all day. Connie hadn’t been able to make the trip—as usual, she was too busy with their foundation—and the photo would be a good souvenir to take back for her. He positioned himself in front of the dome, next to a rusted old scaffold, and propped his fists on his hips. Meanwhile, Cummings took out his cell phone and clambered around for a position. With his gangly limbs, it was like watching a spider monkey do yoga.

“Ugh,” he grunted. “I can’t get the top of the dome behind you. It’s too high.”

Peroni glanced around, then up at the scaffold. “Lemme get on this contraption,” he said.

“You’re not afraid of heights?” asked Cummings.

Peroni barked a laugh. “If I were afraid of heights, would I be trying to get to Mars?” He grabbed a handhold and pulled himself up. Still in good shape for sixty, he had no trouble getting to the second platform, though his palms were now covered in rust. “How about here?” he called, looking down.

Cummings knelt and angled his phone upward, then made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. There was a red light for a moment before the flash went off, leaving Peroni with a dark spot in front of his eyes.

Then there was the sound of groaning metal and a sudden drop, followed by the sensation of falling. The ground was rushing up toward him.

Then came darkness.

14

Salima Patel felt a gnawing in her gut that had nothing to do with skipping breakfast at the hotel and everything to do with Alvito Peroni.

The highway southwest of Huntsville, Alabama, unfurled outside the windshield of her rental BMW, but she wasn’t taking in the scenery. Instead, she was stewing over not being able to reach Gideon Wagner for more than a week. She was almost desperate to set up a face-to-face with him to discuss the “accident” at the One World plant that left Peroni with a concussion and two broken ribs. News reports said only that he’d fallen from a scaffold and was cared for by an unidentified employee until paramedics arrived. The media interviewed Ennis Wright, who blamed a local concrete contractor for using ancient, rusted equipment that collapsed under his boss’s weight.

Salima hadn’t reached out to Matt Cummings about the incident because she feared she was jumping at shadows. Philip Barnhart had all but accused her of paranoia a couple of months ago; the last thing she wanted was for Cummings to confirm it. After all, she’d seen the media photos of the scaffold. It was ancient and rusted, and one leg had snapped just above the wheel. Peroni himself had confirmed in an interview that he should have known better than to climb on the equipment.

Besides, industrial sabotage was one thing, but what she was considering was the equivalent of attempted murder. Even Gideon wasn’t capable of that…was he?

She turned off the interstate and headed south on Rideout Road, the highway that led to the Marshall Space Flight Center. It was a short drive, but long enough for her to compartmentalize her anxiety over Peroni. She needed to focus on the here and now. Barnhart had tasked her with personally recruiting the talent StarSeeker would need to fulfill its new contract with One World.

Her first stop had been Boston and MIT, her alma mater, which netted several top grads from the school’s AeroAstro graduate program that she herself had aced. Like her, the candidates were keeners with high GPAs and leaped at the opportunity for a real-world application of their skillsets and the experience that would bring.

But Barnhart insisted she also hit up MSFC. He pointed out that, as the government’s civilian rocketry and propulsion research hub, the center had been an integral part of the history of space flight for decades before NASA was shuttered. Salima argued against going herself, mainly because she had a company to run and that company had a fully functional HR department.

“But you’ll happily go to Boston yourself?” Barnhart said, cocking an eyebrow.

“That was a vacation to my old stomping grounds,” she countered. “This is a chore. Besides, Marshall has been in a holding pattern ever since NASA was shut down. How hard can it be to poach recruits?”

“It was in a holding pattern,” he pointed out. “Arlen Becker was able to massage his initial budget to keep MSFC’s lights on for the first eighteen months, but that was it. The staff are some of the best in the business, and they’ve had their thumbs up their rear ends for months because the Space Force’s R-and-D has been rooted at Wright-Patterson in Ohio.”

Salima grew exasperated, as she so often did when talking with her boss. She already knew everything he was telling her. The decision to keep MSFC open while closing its sister facility, the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, had ignited a political firestorm at the time. StarSeeker had snapped up some of Goddard’s talent in the aftermath, as did One World and Beyond, Inc. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

“I still don’t understand why it has to be me that goes,” she said.

“Let me finish,” Barnhart said. “NASA’s shuttering was likely the biggest political minefield in U.S. history, so Becker kept his head down and focused all of the Space Force’s efforts on existing military personnel and resources. But that’s all changed with the huge flood of cash from the new budget. Both political parties are fully on board now, and the new Space Force HQ in Texas will need a lot of new bodies ASAP. What was once a holding pattern at MSFC has recently become an Immelmann turn, and Becker will be offering military commissions and signing bonuses to the best and brightest.” He fixed her with a stern gaze. “We have a very brief window to beat Becker to the punch, Salima, and you know his people won’t open any doors for StarSeeker recruitment staff.”

Salima nodded as realization dawned. “But they pretty much have to open the doors to me,” she said with a sigh. “Becker told me as much after the failed launch last year. And they won’t suspect me of being there to recruit until it’s too late.”

Barnhart touched the tip of his nose. “Exactly. Our contract with One World hasn’t gone public yet, but we can’t keep it under wraps much longer. The time to strike is now.” He flashed his trademark shit-eating grin. “Besides, the sooner you get good people in place, the more time you’ll have to do your own job. It’s a win-win.”

So she had resigned herself to the trip, and even managed to work up some excitement over it. Despite her career path, she’d never been to the renowned Rocket City of Huntsville or the historic Marshall Center, whose inaugural director had been Wernher von Braun himself. She got in touch with Alicia Foster, Becker’s chief tech officer, and arranged to meet with MSFC’s associate directors and a bevy of their top employees. Salima offered the pretense of needing a sounding board for StarSeeker projects, and Foster told her the staff jumped at the chance to finally have something interesting to do.

Clay Newton devised a series of engineering and logistical challenges—none of which StarSeeker was actually facing—that Salima would use to open the conversation. She’d feel out the people who seemed most talented, then approach them off-campus over the next couple of days to start the poaching process. Barnhart had authorized her to offer ridiculously high salaries and perks.

At the MSFC visitor checkpoint, she picked up her guest badge and windshield decal. “The color indicates you’re a VIP, ma’am,” said the employee who handed her the package. He smiled. “They’ll take good care of you.”

They wouldn’t if they knew why I was really here, she thought as she drove off toward the center.

Two hours later, after a tour by its director himself, Salima was kicking herself for never visiting before. MSFC was truly a living piece of history, and it broke her heart to see its progress stalled because of what she saw as stupid political decisions and a lack of planning. When the director finally led her to the small lecture hall where some two dozen staff were gathered, she was happy she’d come. It would be a pleasure to offer these good people an opportunity to continue their careers. She could see in their eyes that they were caged tigers, elite experts in aeronautics who had been locked up and declawed due to no fault of their own.

A middle-aged woman with silver hair and cat-eyeglasses met her at the door and introduced herself as Joan McDougal, the center’s deputy associate director of technical operations. Her smile was infectious as she introduced the group.

“We’ve divided into five teams of three,” she explained. “I forwarded them the package you sent me yesterday, so they’ve had some time to brainstorm already. Everyone’s eager to get started. Do you mind if we kick off with a brief Q-and-A?”

Salima shrugged as she looked out at the audience of engineers and technicians. “Whatever you’d like is fine with me,” she said. “I’m here to follow your lead.”

McDougal excused herself to return to her office, which turned out to be a small blessing. The first few questions from the group were enough to let Salima know that she was in over her head. She immediately regretted not spending more time going over Clay’s data before she arrived. Two years in the corporate office, relying on Clay to do the heavy lifting, had dulled her awareness of the cutting edge of rocket science. It was clear that the cutting edge was where the Marshall Center people lived.

After several minutes of giving half-answers and throwing the questions back to them by asking what they thought the answer might be, Salima could see in their faces that she was losing them. Flustered, she called for a short break and excused herself. The clack of her heels echoed through the empty corridor as she speed-walked to the nearest lady’s room. Inside, she propped herself up against the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. If not for her dark skin, she knew her face would have been practically glowing red with embarrassment.

“Everything all right in here?” said a voice from the entrance.

Salima’s stomach dropped as four of her audience members walked in. Two of them were men, which was alarming on its own, and the looks on all their faces told her they didn’t really care about her well-being.

“I-I’m fine,” she stammered, forcing herself to smile. “You can, uh, you can go back to the lecture hall. I’ll be right there.”

Before she knew what was happening, the four had surrounded her in a semi-circle, hemming her in at the sink counter. The two women were directly in front of her, flanked by the men. All of them were glaring at her. Salima’s anxiety leaped to a whole new level.

“What are you doing?” She tried to sound commanding, but it came out like a childish whine instead.

“I think the real question is what are you doing?” said the woman to her right, a blonde in her thirties. A name popped into Salima’s head from the employee profiles she’d skimmed the night before at the hotel: Amy Olmstead.

“What do you mean?” Salima asked. “Obviously, I came here for a second set of eyes on our—”

“Cut the shit,” said the woman to her left. This one—a Filipina named Peralta, according to her file—crossed her arms over her chest. “If you really wanted that, Barnhart would have sent Clay Newton, not you. He would at least have a grasp on what we were talking about.”

Salima’s mind raced. “Clay, uh, Dr. Newton doesn’t have the time—”

“Oh, but you do?” Olmstead looked her up and down, sneering. “I would have thought StarSeeker’s chief of staff would have a million other things to do. I mean, assuming it’s actually a real job.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Salima snapped.

“I think you know what it means,” said Peralta. “You’re barely thirty. Why would the richest man in the world hire you to run his flagship company? What special…qualifications do you have?”

Salima’s hands curled into shaky fists. “You’re way out of line—”

“You think so?” Olmstead scowled. “Everyone in that lecture hall worked their asses off to get into NASA, the best and brightest in the field. Then suddenly the government pulls the rug out from under us, and we’re reduced to analyzing research from your company, and the other billionaire assholes’ vanity projects, while we wait for our pink slips.”

“That’s not my fault!” Salima tried to escape the semi-circle, but the man to her right physically blocked her.

“Maybe not,” he said evenly. “But you’re the one who’s here right now, and we’ve got a lot of anger issues to work out.”

Her heart was thundering in her chest from both anxiety and anger. “Just tell me what you want!” she cried. “And let me the hell out of here!”

“I thought that was obvious,” said Olmstead. “We want to know why you’re really here.”

Salima took a deep, shuddering breath. This whole trip had gone so far off the rails, she could barely remember the original plan. All she knew was that she just wanted out of this bathroom.

“All right,” she said quietly. “This was a recruitment mission.”

“Of course it is,” said the man to her left, grinning.

Salima gaped at him. “You knew?”

“Of course we knew,” said Peralta, rolling her eyes. “We just wanted to hear you say it out loud.”

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Arlen Becker is going to try to steal NASA’s best for the new Space Force Headquarters,” said the man to her right. The name Kirk suddenly popped into Salima’s head now that she’d calmed down somewhat. The other guy was Mayer.

They all took a step back, allowing her to move again. She felt her anxiety begin to drain away.

Olmstead smiled and said, “Anyone who knows anything about Philip Barnhart knows he hates to lose, which means he sent you here to beat Becker to the punch.”

“If you already knew that, then why all of this?” asked Salima, waving her arms in exasperation.

Mayer shrugged. “We’re bored out of our minds.”

“He’s only half-joking,” Peralta said when she saw Salima’s incredulous reaction. “But more to the point, this was… I guess you’d call it a show of strength.”

“You mean shakedown,” Salima countered.

“We know our value,” said Olmstead. “So does everyone else back in that lecture hall. We’re the best in the business. And, as you just saw, we four are mavericks.” She grinned. “Everyone knows Philip Barnhart loves mavericks.”

Salima shook her head, bewildered. “I suppose I can’t argue with that, and your profiles back you up. So, consider this an official job offer from StarSeeker for the four of you.”

“Not so fast,” said Peralta. “What’s the package? We’re not just going to jump at it just because it’s StarSeeker. We’re a hot commodity right now. We can pick and choose.”

Salima listed the salaries and benefits that Barnhart had authorized, easily half again what they made now. It gave her a measure of satisfaction to watch their eyes widen and their cheeks flush. Kirk’s mouth even dropped open a little bit.

“Uh,” said Olmstead. She cleared her throat and looked around at the others, who all nodded eagerly. “Those terms sound, uh, acceptable. Please tell Mr. Barnhart that we’re looking forward to working with you all.”

So now it’s Mr. Barnhart, Salima mused, holding back the smug grin that threatened to spread across her face.

“Just remember who your actual boss is going to be,” she pointed out, “and imagine what will happen if you ever decide to pull a stunt like this again. Mr. Barnhart may be a fan of mavericks. I, on the other hand, am not.” She paused and let that sink in. “But I’m willing to forget this ever happened if you are.”

They looked around at each other again and nodded. Salima was glad for that. The last thing on Earth she wanted was for anyone to know how intimidated she’d been.

Then she thought about her deal with Gideon Wagner, and her stomach lurched as she realized there were worse things that people could find out about her.

15

“How the hell are we here again already?” asked Ennis Wright, hands stuffed firmly into his trouser pockets. “It hasn’t even been six weeks since the last one.”

“Better yet, why the hell are we here again?” Salima grumbled. “As if I don’t have anything more important to do than sit around in goddamn Mojave all day.”

They were in the corporate building at Beyond, Inc.’s testing facility, once again surrounded by catered food and drinks, though the crowd was smaller than the one at Johnna Smythe’s estate. That was because the Pebble Beach social elite weren’t there. It was just stakeholders, the media, and a couple local politicians. Salima glared in silence as a reporter for an online news outlet called The Curve interviewed Smythe and Gideon Wagner on the other side of the room. They were both so upbeat it put her teeth on edge.

Still, it was the first time she’d seen Gideon since Al Peroni’s “accident,” and she was determined to pin him down at some point today, come hell or high water. There was a lot they needed to discuss.

Ennis raised an eyebrow. “You know the answer to that one as well as I do,” he said. “Gotta keep up the pretense that this is just friendly competition.”

“Johnna and Gideon didn’t do a very good job of that last time,” Salima pointed out. “They were practically gloating over their success.”

“Yeah, but they made sure it was only when the cameras weren’t around. When anyone was looking, they were all smiles.”

Salima shook her head in exasperation. “That brings us back to your question,” she said. “How are we back here again so soon? That last launch shouldn’t have gone nearly as well as it did. You and I both know Beyond’s entire program is years behind StarSeeker and One World.”

Ennis nodded. “Gideon’s the only big brain on their entire team, and he’s running the corporate side as well as engineering. Preston’s name may be on the CEO’s door and paycheck, but no one has any illusions that he’s actually doing any of the work. And they were in the middle of a murder investigation for the better part of three months.”

“Yet they managed to convince the Schuchardt group to drop a dump truck full of cash on them,” Salima said. “And here we are again, with another Beyond prototype on the launchpad.”

“Maybe Gideon is a lot smarter than we gave him credit for,” Ennis said with a shrug.

“God forbid,” she muttered. She caught sight of Peroni across the room, chatting quietly with his wife, away from the crowd. “How’s your boss doing, by the way?”

“Better than he has a right to. Al never should have been in the situation to begin with.” Ennis scowled. “Goddamn Matt Cummings should have kept him off that scaffold. I was ready to fire his ass, but Al wouldn’t let me.”

Salima felt a jolt of panic at the mention of Cummings’ name. “What are you talking about?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Cummings—you know him, right? Well, he was Al’s tour guide the day of the accident. The two of them had dinner and a few drinks together, then he decides to take Al up to the observatory site. Next thing you know, Al’s on the scaffold posing for a photo and one of the legs gives out.”

“I saw that on the news,” she said. “Rust was to blame, right?”

“As far as we can tell. The tube had a good-sized hole right above the wheel. There was a lot of debris after the collapse, so they didn’t actually find the missing piece if it was there. The contractor admitted the scaffold had been used pretty much daily since the sixties.” He gave her a half-grin. “Why do you ask? You think it was sabotage?”

Salima’s stomach lurched, but she managed to smile. “Can you blame me?” she asked lightly. “I mean, we all remember watching a certain rocket blow up last year.”

“You still don’t know the cause?” asked Ennis, quickly sobering.

She shook her head. “Clay is frustrated as hell. He’s assigned a team of our new hires to look into it with fresh eyes.”

“You mean NASA eyes.” The little smirk was back. “I know what you did at the Marshall Center.”

“Don’t pretend you and Gideon aren’t planning the same thing,” Salima said. “You’re just mad that I beat you to it and got the cream of the crop. Besides, how else are we supposed to meet your crazy schedule?”

Before Ennis could reply, her phone buzzed. It was a message from Philip Barnhart across the room: Look sharp. Something is going on.

She glanced up and caught her boss’s eye for a moment. He gave her a hard look before he turned back to his conversation with Arlen Becker. What was this about? Becker obviously knew about her poaching staff away from the Space Force by now. Was he threatening some sort of retaliation? That didn’t sound like his style.

Before she could give it any more thought, she saw that Gideon and Smythe were done with their interview. She turned to Ennis and excused herself, stalking across the room to intercept him before he could take off again. When he finally caught sight of her, the look on his face betrayed more than a little surprise.

“Salima,” he said, but it was all he managed before she ripped into him.

“Don’t ever ghost me again, you son of a bitch,” she said, keeping what she hoped was a neutral expression on her face. “I’ve been trying to get in touch for weeks now.”

Gideon cleared his throat. “Obviously, I’ve been busy—”

“Busy,” she echoed, nodding. “Busy pushing up a launch that’s meant solely to convince your investors that Beyond is more than just a bush-league competitor in the space race.”

“Now wait just a minute,” he fumed.

Salima lowered her voice and smiled, just in case anyone was watching. “Shut up and listen,” she murmured. “I don’t care about your launch. I want you to tell me right now what you know about Peroni’s fall in Palermo.”

Gideon glared at her, also doing his best not to let his emotions show. She saw the wheels spinning behind his eyes and wondered once again how she ended up in league with a man she trusted about as far as she could throw him.

“The media called it an accident,” he said tersely. “Even Peroni himself admitted it was his own fault.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Support tubing on a scaffold that’s been in constant use for sixty years just happens to give way when one of the richest people in the world is on it?”

“It was rusted—”

Salima moved closer, until their noses were only inches apart. “Or maybe someone dabbed a little hydrofluoric acid on it,” she hissed. “Perhaps a mutual acquaintance of ours?”

“Now you’re just being paranoid,” Gideon snapped.

“Am I?” Her smile vanished, but she kept her face neutral. “A Beyond, Inc. employee was murdered on your test platform last year, Gideon. Did you just forget about that?”

Gideon’s eyes blazed. “What are you implying?” he asked, his voice tight. “I had nothing to do with that. The police closed their investigation with no charges.”

Salima locked her eyes on his. “Interesting that you immediately denied that, but not Peroni’s supposed accident.” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m not implying anything, Gideon. I’m flat-out telling you that I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth. Good luck with your launch.”

She turned and strode away. As she did, a voice from the observation screen announced the countdown was about to commence. Salima plucked a pair of champagne flutes from a tray and headed over to where the Peronis stood. Al greeted her with a nod while Connie smiled warmly and took one of the glasses.

“Happy hour!” she said, taking a sip. “A woman after my own heart.”

Salima giggled in spite of her mood. They made small talk for a minute until Ennis joined them and they all turned to face the screen. Another day, another launch. She wondered at what point she’d lost her passion for watching rockets slip the surly bonds of Earth and drive their way into the sky and the infinite beyond. Meanwhile, Barnhart himself gazed at the screen with a childlike wonder that Salima envied.

The rocket climbed slowly on its cloud of exhaust, steadily gaining speed with each passing second. She downed the rest of her wine and was setting the empty glass on a nearby table when she heard a collective gasp all around her. Her head snapped around to the screen as a white-orange fireball filled the sky. A moment later, the champagne flute fell to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces, just as flaming debris on the screen rained to the desert floor below.

It was like déjà vu from last year, with people scurrying around the space trying to deal with the situation while others acted like it was no big deal to watch a rocket explode less than a minute after launch. Salima looked over to see Barnhart sidling up next to her.

“I told you something was up,” he said quietly as he sipped his drink.

“How did you know?” she asked, baffled.

“Gideon’s eyes. He looked like a rabbit in a roomful of coyotes.”

She thought about her own conversation with him and realized she’d seen it, too. She just didn’t recognize it the way Barnhart did.

That’s why he’s a billionaire and you’re not, she told herself.

“I’ve seen that look before,” he continued. “When he was still with StarSeeker, during the Condor 6 launch.”

Salima knew the Condor 6 had been StarSeeker’s most spectacular failure prior to the X9 last year. Engine seal failure had caused the rocket to explode halfway to orbit, destroying a classified National Reconnaissance Office NROL-91 spy satellite along with it. As a result, Barnhart had been handed his ass in a closed-door meeting of the Space and Science Subcommittee, with Harry Kane threatening to cancel all of StarSeeker’s government contracts. That embarrassment had led to Gideon’s very messy dismissal from StarSeeker.

“What happened?” she asked.

“He hid test data that predicted the seal failure, because protocol would have dictated that he scrap the launch.” Barnhart scowled. “He knew damn well it was a ridiculous gamble to send the Condor up that day, particularly with a payload. He was wound up like a watch spring the morning of the launch, just like he was today, because he was walking on a tightrope, willing to risk everything so that he could be seen as a hero. Gideon Wagner is undoubtedly a brilliant man, but his ego is all-consuming. I’m convinced he’s a borderline psychopath.”

While Salima considered that, Johnna Smythe and a Beyond engineer whose name she couldn’t remember were arguing with Gideon. They kept their voices low—the media were still around—but she could make out snatches of the conversation. She heard gimballing test and unnecessary risk and Germans will string us up. The wildness in Gideon’s eyes was unmistakable now. He was a trapped animal.

Ennis Wright appeared at her side and offered her a fresh glass of champagne. Salima took it and raised her glass ever-so-slightly. He did the same.

“Here’s to Gideon,” Ennis said softly. “May he reap what he sows.”

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, Salima thought as she sipped deeply.

The man sat back in the creaky wooden chair and placed his headphones on the desk, next to the control panel. Outside the window to his left, the sun was beginning to set behind the hills that surrounded the little farm. A sultry evening breeze helped cool the room after the blazing heat of the afternoon.

The laptop screen in front of him went blank as Beyond, Inc. discontinued its livestream of the launch. No point in running a feed that showed nothing but blue sky, with no rocket to fill the picture. Meanwhile, the huge desktop computer parsed the data recorded from the laser mic over the last hour into an audio file.

The man chewed over what he’d listened to live. The sound quality hadn’t been great—it was a closed room filled with people talking, after all—but what he had been able to make out piqued his interest considerably. First had been a strange discussion between Salima Patel and Gideon Wagner, where they talked about Alvito Peroni’s fall at the One World observatory site. Then, immediately after the rocket exploded, a heated exchange between Wagner and Johnna Smythe. As a former soldier, the man knew a dressing down when he heard it.

He got up and walked to the window, savoring the breeze under his loose safari shirt and gazing at the hazy hills silhouetted against the setting sun. He knew as much about Gideon Wagner as anyone could who hadn’t actually met the man. The detailed psychological profile he’d studied outlined Wagner’s genius as well as his serious character flaws. Such a man didn’t deal well with failure. His experience at StarSeeker and the Condor 6 fiasco had led to a very ugly feud with Philip Barnhart. Wagner had followed it up by jumping at Johnna Smythe’s offer to head up Beyond, Inc. even though he must have known that it would be a pale shadow of his former employer’s program. To everyone but Wagner himself, it was a demotion. Wagner, however, would never admit that to himself—his ego wouldn’t allow it.

Men like that were dangerous when cornered, but they were also vulnerable. Wagner had let himself be taken advantage of by Smythe just to save face and get petty revenge against Barnhart. If his career was on shaky ground again, what might he be manipulated into this time? How far would he go to exact his revenge?

The man returned to the desk and pulled a satellite phone from the drawer. “Yes?” a voice on the other end said in English when it answered.

“We need to meet,” said the man. “I think it may be time to reconsider our current business plan.”

16

Arlen Becker heard the footfalls echo through the hallway of what was known as JSC Building 1 long before his guest arrived at his office. Up until about eighteen months ago, the room had belonged to the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. The building itself, one of many in the former NASA complex on the outskirts of Houston, had been home to some 3,000 people working on a variety of projects. Patrick Sloane’s executive order had shuttered the center, forcing them all to seek other employment. Now, as the temporary home to Space Force Command, it was eerily empty, with only a handful of offices in use. Without people and furniture to absorb sound, every noise—including footsteps—was amplified.

Becker glanced at the bookcase on the office wall, where a collage of his medals was mounted. Inside the bullseye in the center of his Distinguished Marksman medal was a tiny camera. He nodded to it, then turned to face the door. There was a knock, followed by an airman escorting their guest into the room. Chester Klein, the CEO of LyteSpeed Solutions, was a Millennial with dark curly hair and a beard that would have looked more at home in an armpit than on a face. Becker had met Klein before, but he still had to clamp down on his distaste for the man’s appearance and demeanor. They were anathema to a Marine.

“Mr. Klein,” he said, motioning for the man to take a seat opposite him at the desk. “Please make yourself at home.”

Klein looked around the room. “Not exactly what I expected for a chief of staff,” he said.

“It serves its purpose,” Becker countered. “I’ve always believed that if I’m in an office, I’m not actually working. In any case, we’re stuck here for at least a few more months.”

The Johnson Center had been commandeered to serve as the home of Space Force until the new headquarters were built between Houston and Angleton, about forty-five miles south. The process was incredibly complex, with everything from massive land appropriation to environmental concerns to building roads, and it was a major political football. Still, it was underway and moving as quickly as could be expected. The old saying about the right way, the wrong way, and the military way wasn’t true in Becker’s experience. He encouraged the entire Space Force to be innovative and to think around corners, and they were. He had every confidence the new HQ would be done on time and on budget.

Meanwhile, research and development was moving ahead faster than he’d dared hope now that it was co-located at the Johnson Center. The new recruits from Marshall Space Flight Center played a key role in that, adding exponentially to the R&D team’s brain power. Becker still kicked himself for inadvertently allowing StarSeeker to poach the best of the MSFC talent right under his nose, but he was never one for dwelling on past mistakes. All in all, the Space Force’s future had never looked brighter. Unfortunately, it seemed as if his own role had devolved to little more than putting out fires and managing contractors. It was a long way from sweeping abandoned buildings in Kabul for enemies, although in some ways, the stakes were just as high.

“I appreciate you reaching out to me,” he said, summoning all his tact. “I’d very much like to discuss your concerns.”

“Good,” said Klein. “Because I’m here on behalf of all your key contractors, not just LyteSpeed. There’s been a lot of talk about a coordinated walkout.”

“So you said.” Becker knew such a walkout would throw a monkey wrench into his timelines so big that even Patrick Sloane couldn’t forgive it. “There appears to be some sort of logistics problem with human resources?”

“Logistics problem?” Klein said, incredulous. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. Another would be ‘bureaucratic nightmare.’ These new people you’ve brought in are making it impossible for any of us to do our jobs!”

Becker nodded, feigning concern. These new people were four colleagues from his days in the Marines, and he trusted each of them implicitly. “How so?” he asked.

“They’re vetting every frigging employee prospect we try to bring on board!” Klein fumed.

“Of course,” Becker said. “They’re a special security team, that’s what they do. I thought that was understood.”

Klein threw up his hands in frustration. “The whole process is invasive and it’s causing unnecessary problems for us!”

“Such as?”

“Huge delays, for starters. Then there’s the bad will with our potential hires. Your people told LyteSpeed’s HR that they had to demand financial records from some of our applicants!”

This was the moment Becker had been waiting for. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desktop, and fixed his gaze on Klein’s.

“Given your company’s history with us, Mr. Klein, that’s the least I would expect my people to do,” he said evenly. “Don’t forget that the U.S. government is paying you millions of dollars, and you managed to hire someone who doesn’t exist who delivered a bad part to our test facility.”

He watched with satisfaction as the CEO’s pale cheeks turned crimson under his so-called beard. “That’s been settled,” Klein sputtered. “Your own lawyers agreed there was no definitive evidence to link that fuel duct to the accident, and the breakdown in the chain of custody could have been due to any number of factors.”

“You have no record of the employee who delivered it,” Becker pointed out, managing to keep his distaste for cheap excuses to himself.

Klein scowled. “Okay, fine, our HR protocols weren’t the greatest. Whoever the driver was obviously didn’t get onboarded properly into our system, and then quit before we could investigate. Your lawyers spanked us for it, hard. We’ve tightened up since then.”

“I’m sure you have,” Becker said. “But the fact remains that the driver’s identity is a mystery to this day. There may not be enough evidence to stand up in a court of law, but there’s more than enough to suggest that there was foul play involved. Can we agree on that much?” He saw the hesitance in Klein’s face and added, “There are no lawyers here, Mr. Klein. It’s just you and me.”

And the four people watching via hidden camera, he didn’t add.

After a long pause, Klein sighed. “All right. I guess I see what you’re saying.”

“I’m glad. The Space Force may have inherited contracts from NASA, but we are not NASA. That’s a key point, Mr. Klein. Security is our top priority, just as it is for any of the Armed Forces. I hope you and all your fellow contractors understand and appreciate that.”

“Of course,” Klein said grudgingly. “I suppose I could have been more diplomatic about this myself. We’re not trying to rock the boat, General, we’re just frustrated.”

Becker nodded. “That’s justified. We’re still feeling our way here. But the Space Force is also hitting its stride, particularly in R-and-D. Things will start moving faster very soon, and we need to be prepared to move with it. Between you, me, and the wall, Mr. Klein, we have to take advantage of the fact that government is giving us free rein at this point. That won’t last forever. Construction on the new HQ is months ahead of schedule, which is unheard of for a government project, and we can’t afford to lose that momentum.”

“I understand,” said Klein. “We want that as well.”

You mean you want our money, Becker thought but didn’t say. “Rest assured that I’ll consult with my security team and have them work on increasing efficiencies.” He grinned. “In fact, I’ll make it an order. I’d appreciate it if you could pass that along to your colleagues.”

Klein agreed and left the office on what Becker considered good terms. When the footsteps had faded into the distance, he pulled out his cell phone and texted: He’s gone. Less than a minute later, three men walked into his office. Like Becker, they were middle-aged, fit, and wore their hair just a shade longer than a brush cut. Unlike him, they wore business suits instead of fatigues. Their names were Jim Koski, Jason Wolfe, and Adam Robertson, and they were all Marines who had served under him some two decades earlier, before he got on the fast track to the upper brass.

Koski and Robertson sat on the leather sofa under Becker’s medals while Wolfe took the armchair that completed the office sitting area. It was the first time Becker had been able to have a face-to-face with the trio in more than two weeks.

“Report,” Becker said.

Wolfe grinned. “I don’t think you get to do that anymore,” he said. “We’re consultants now, not grunts.”

“I know,” Becker groused. “Only a consultant could afford those suits.”

“Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful,” Koski deadpanned.

“Yeah,” said Robertson. “Hate us because we’re insubordinate.”

Becker snorted a laugh in spite of himself. “I knew I should have just had you clowns recalled to active duty for this. Would have saved me the better part of a million bucks.”

“Hate to tell you this, boss,” said Wolfe, “but that’s not how Title Ten works.”

“I eat Popeye’s in the Pentagon food court with the commander-in-chief, smartass,” Becker countered. “You do the math.”

Robertson turned to Koski. “I think he’s serious.”

“I will be if you don’t report ASAP.” ASAP may have meant soon to civilians, but in Marine-speak, it meant immediately. The time for jokes was over.

“Roger that.” Wolfe opened the tablet he’d brought in and started scrolling. “I’ll go first.”

Wolfe had gone into forensic psychology for the FBI after mustering out, while Koski and Robertson had started their own cybersecurity firm. All of them had been comfortably semi-retired and bored out of their minds when Becker called to recruit them to form his special team.

“Klein was telling the truth, or at least his own skewed version,” said Wolfe. “That said, his posture betrayed a lot of insecurity. His bluster is a way to cover his embarrassment over LyteSpeed’s screw-up. I wouldn’t doubt his pseudo-confidence is the reason the other contractors got him to speak on their behalf. Most of them are tech-heads and wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with an authority figure like you.”

Becker considered that. Personal feelings aside, he never truly believed Klein had anything to do with the delivery. Still, he was glad to have his instincts backed up by an expert, even if that expert had been watching from a nearby room through a not-entirely-legal hidden camera.

“What about the claim that the company’s HR department was lax?” he asked.

“Can confirm,” said Koski. “We’ve looked into their records going back to the day they won the NASA bid.” He paused. “Ask me no questions about how we got that information and I’ll tell you no lies.”

Becker frowned and waved dismissively. “I told you from the outset, I don’t give a shit about your methods. Neither does Harry Kane, as long as no one ever asks him about it.”

“Like the SecDef on Mission Impossible,” Wolfe said with a grin. “He’ll disavow all knowledge of our actions if we get caught. Anyway, there have been at least four employees who didn’t get onboarded until after their first payday, when they noticed their money wasn’t deposited, so it’s technically possible that whoever delivered that fuel pump was legit.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Becker said.

Robertson nodded. “But when you bring other factors into the equation—mainly that the guy quit without notice and never came looking for the money he was owed—it makes it harder to swallow.”

“Not to mention the fact that whoever it was never let his face be caught head-on by any of the cameras in the Box during delivery,” Koski pointed out. “Which means the best we could do was partial facial recognition. That left us with about approximately seven thousand hits in the various databases we ran it through.”

“So, basically useless,” Becker sighed.

“Not necessarily,” said Wolfe. He turned the screen of his tablet so Becker could see it. It was the footage of the delivery, split into four feeds representing the four cameras in the Box’s shipping and receiving area. “I’ve gone over this dozens of times and come to the conclusion that whoever this man is, he’s not a delivery driver.”

“What are you basing that on?” asked Becker, eyes narrowing as he watched the grainy video.

“Look at the way he moves. It’s not just avoiding the cameras. Every step is determined, like he knows exactly where he needs to be. He goes directly to the person in charge of transportation operations. Someone who hasn’t worked for LyteSpeed long enough to earn a paycheck wouldn’t know that.”

Robertson pointed to the feed in the lower right corner that showed the driver scanning the area. “This isn’t what a new driver would do,” he said. “A new driver would be anxious to make sure the TO guy signed off on the paperwork. An experienced driver would likely be scrolling through their phone to make sure they were on time for the next drop-off or a dozen other logistical concerns. Not this guy—he’s looking around the place like a tourist.”

“Or a spy,” said Wolfe.

Becker sat back in his chair to chew over what he’d just heard and seen. The others knew him well enough to just leave him with his thoughts. Taken separately, this new information left room for doubt, but when you brought it all together, it left little room for doubt. Someone had deliberately sabotaged the test at the Box that day.

“Well, gentlemen, you’re earning your fee,” he said finally. “When I first broached the idea of this team, Senator Kane wondered if I wasn’t being paranoid. I explained to him that Marines aren’t paranoid, we’re thorough. Hopefully, I got that across to Klein and the other contractors as well. The Space Force is finally getting traction after years of being a late-night TV punchline, and I’ll be damned if I let that go to waste.”

Koski nodded. “Roger that, sir. We’ll see if we can speed up our vetting processes going forward. Hopefully, that will help keep the contractors on side.” He sighed. “If you want, I can keep trying to track down the driver, but we’ll need more resources—”

“What the hell?” Robertson blurted, his wide eyes on his own tablet.

“Report,” Becker ordered, combat instincts kicking in.

Robertson turned the screen to face the others. Becker saw a field of small squares, topped by a single larger square, all showing a live video feed. Robertson was pointing at the top one.

“What am I looking at?” asked Becker.

“Jim and I set up a squadron of drones last week,” said Robertson. “They have dome cameras in their undersides, and they’re programmed to fly in a grid over the southeast quadrant of the JSC compound, where all of the admin buildings are.”

“Including this one,” Becker noted.

“Right. We don’t have the resources to monitor the live feed, but the system is set up to automatically record and file them. That’s what we’re looking at right now: the feeds from yesterday afternoon.” Robertson slid his thumb and forefinger across the screen, zooming in on the frozen image of a dark spot in the distance. “This is over the former NASA Mission Control Center.”

That was approximately one hundred yards northeast of where they sat right now. “What the hell is it?” asked Becker.

“It’s a drone,” said Koski, peering intently at the screen. “But it’s not one of ours.”

Becker felt a tightening in his gut as Robertson tapped the screen again, restarting the video feed. The intruder hovered for several seconds before taking off to the southeast, toward South Shore Harbor, where it disappeared. Robertson called up the other feeds and found two more that caught the same thing but from two different angles.

‘Son of a bitch,” Wolfe hissed. “I guess that takes care of any lingering doubts about the delivery driver.”

“Analysis,” Becker said tersely.

Robertson said, “Judging by the design and the speed, it was cutting edge.” He glanced at Koski. “What would you say, Jim? Twenty grand?”

“If not more,” said Koski.

“And the fact it managed to avoid our own cameras until it was well within the JSC perimeter suggests an expert pilot,” Robertson pointed out. “Same with the rapid retreat to the harbour. It was almost certainly being controlled by someone on a boat.”

“It’s what I’d do,” said Koski. “You can escape quickly without having to worry about cops in cars tracking you down. All you’d have to do is head east on Clear Lake and then under the 146 and you’re in open water. Keep going south another thirty miles to Galveston and you’re in the Gulf of Mexico.” He looked Becker in the eye. “This isn’t some local enthusiast accidentally wandering into our airspace, sir.”

Becker sat back and processed what he’d just learned. A dull throb in his lower back took him back to the day the Box exploded in front of him and threw him to the ground. He thought about how much worse it could have been. He thought about the mystery driver. He thought about the mystery person controlling the drone. Above all, he thought about the progress they’d already made and how crucial it was to hold onto their advanced schedule.

“I’m going to ask you a question and I need an honest answer,” he said. “Not as contractors, not even as old friends, but as fellow Marines.”

“Always, sir,” said Wolfe. “You know that.”

“Good,” Becker said. He took a piece of paper and a felt-tip pen from his desk drawer and scrawled a question: Is $20 million enough to deal with this?

The men read the message, their eyes wide. They looked at each other for a moment, then around the room. They obviously picked up on his suspicion that someone could be listening in. Again, paranoia was just being thorough. They nodded their agreement. Becker nodded back and scratched out another sentence: It will be in your account tomorrow. Get to work most ricky tick. Anyone asks, send them straight to me.

Koski took the pen and wrote his own line: Roger that. You can count on us. The trio gave Becker one last earnest look and left without another word. The sound of their echoing footsteps went unnoticed as the general sank deep into his thoughts.

Twenty minutes later, he made a call to Alicia Foster, his chief of technology, to set up an evaluation of his office and its vulnerability to listening devices. Next, he called Harry Kane’s personal cell phone to arrange a private meeting, just the two of them.

“Why the cloak and dagger, Arlen?” Kane chuckled. “Should I reserve a SCIF?” He was referring to a Sensitive Compartment Information Facility, secure rooms under the Capitol building designed specifically for dealing with top secret or special security information.

“Yes, Senator,” Becker said gravely. “That’s exactly what you should do.”

17

Salima had no idea what arcane fuel drove Philip Barnhart, but whatever it was, it was limitless. He had already been up for hours when he called her the previous morning at 6 a.m., demanding a tour and review of StarSeeker operations. When she finally left the manufacturing headquarters eighteen hours later, utterly exhausted, her boss was still going over technical reports. She dragged herself back into the main building the next morning at 5 a.m., only to discover him sitting in her office, freshly showered and dressed, deep in the process of reviewing every detail of the company’s progress for the last year.

Sudden hyperfocus on every detail of the business was one of Barnhart’s many eccentricities. It had happened twice during her tenure, with him demanding that all department heads stay late, their books open, until he was satisfied. He’d gone away happy both times, handing out bonuses for everyone’s overtime and never bringing it up again.

But this time was different, and not just because an upcoming test launch was pulling Salima’s attention in a dozen directions at once. First, Barnhart had Clay Newton give him an exhaustive briefing on the launch preparation details and testing. Then Salima introduced him to Peralta, Olmstead, Mayer, and Kirk—the all-star recruits from NASA. Instead of welcoming them, he grilled them on their backgrounds and fields of research. They briefed him on their work, including Olmstead and Peralta’s breakthroughs with oxygen-in-situ, which was key to StarSeeker’s entire plan to bring humans back from Mars. In hindsight, Salima realized she’d struck gold with the quartet who confronted her in the ladies’ room at the Marshall Center, but Barnhart simply nodded and moved on to the next ones in line.

It all added up to a jagged rock of anxiety in Salima’s belly. When she walked in on Barnhart sitting at her desk, perusing a stack of card-stock binders, she was all but convinced he was there to confront her about the deal she’d made with Gideon Wagner. Had Gideon talked in the aftermath of Beyond’s latest failure? Worse, had Matt Cummings approached Barnhart, maybe looking for money in exchange for keeping quiet about what he knew? Shame and fear that had been gnawing at her for months suddenly intensified a hundredfold.

“How did you get in here?” she demanded, masking her fear with anger. “I thought the door sensors had to read the fob on my lanyard to open.”

“I own the place,” Barnhart muttered as he scanned through a file. “My fob opens every door.”

Salima hissed a frustrated sigh and dropped her bag on the sleek sofa that was the centerpiece of her office suite. “Well, whatever you have planned for today will have to wait a few minutes,” she said. “I need a coffee like Taylor Swift needs a break-up.” She went to the sideboard next to the door and set the single-cup machine for an eight-ounce espresso. The vaguely intestinal sound of the coffee leaving the dispenser did nothing to help her knotted insides.

Cup in hand, she took a seat at her desk, opposite her boss. “I don’t know what’s left to show you,” she said. He hadn’t looked at her since she walked in. “Look, Philip, there’s less than three days till the launch—”

“I’m putting the launch on hold.”

“You’re joking,” she said, stunned. “Why?”

Barnhart suddenly slapped the folder in his hands down on the desk and leveled a steely glare in her direction. Salima was so startled she almost spilled steaming espresso into her lap.

“Why did I hire you?” he asked.

Her heart thumped hard. She’d asked herself the same question a thousand times over the last two years. Barnhart had recruited her a few months after she finished her graduate work with the AeroAstro program at MIT. She leaped at the offer—of course she did, no aeronautics engineer in their right mind would turn down such an opportunity—but ever since, she’d harbored serious doubts about her ability to do the job. She was barely twenty-six when she was hired. Staff at StarSeeker, including Clay, had given her the side-eye for months after she started. Now, after what felt like a rocket-powered rollercoaster ride ever since the launch explosion last year, she felt even less confident in her abilities than she had on her first day at the desk where she now sat.

“You were impressed with my work at MIT,” she ventured, clutching her cup to keep from wringing her hands.

“No,” he said, and her stomach dropped. “I didn’t choose you for your engineering acumen, Salima. I’ve surrounded myself with brilliant engineers from the day I registered StarSeeker as a company. If that was all I wanted from the position, this office would belong to Clay Newton. For that matter, I could have just censured Gideon Wagner for the Condor 6 fiasco and kept him on. He possesses a once-in-a-generation intellect, and he was a huge asset to the company.”

He continued to gaze at her as if he expected her to say something, but nothing came to mind. After several long moments, he continued. “Do you remember the piece you wrote for Popular Mechanics shortly after you finished at MIT?”

Salima’s eyes widened in surprise and confusion. “You actually read that?”

The article had been a way to earn some cash while she was job-hunting. It was a six-page round-up of contemporary research on how to return from Mars. The sheer weight of current rocket fuels didn’t allow for spacecraft to carry enough to both send them to the red planet and also get them back to Earth. Some of the solutions included theoretical fuels, such as metallic hydrogen, and new engines, chief among them a fuel-efficient ion drive that would turn xenon into thrust. The concept of a huge ship that could stay in orbit above Mars and carry enough fuel for a smaller rocket to reach the surface and return to the mothership was also popular. Most of those ideas were still decades from being practical, however. The most viable way forward right now—and the ultimate goal of StarSeeker’s current plans—was to produce return fuel on the surface of Mars itself, drawing elements from the thin atmosphere and liquid water to synthesize methane. The chief downside was the amount of time it would take to build the necessary on-planet infrastructure to process the fuel. Essentially, the first manned voyage to Mars would strand the entire crew on the surface for years. But, she concluded, it would also be the greatest achievement in human history.

“That article inspired me to find out more about you,” Barnhart said. “After viewing your CV, I talked to your instructors. They told me you were something of a polymath, gifted in a number of areas, and that you were passionate about the exploration of space.”

“I remember,” Salima said warily. “I was over the moon when you invited me to tour StarSeeker. I hoped you might offer me a job that day, but I never could have dreamed it would be the top position in the company.”

He shrugged. “Your instructors also told me you were in high demand, so I made a quick decision to snap you up. I have always trusted my gut, Salima.”

“All because of a magazine article that didn’t even feature my own research? I was just summarizing other people’s work.”

Barnhart arched an eyebrow. “The assignment editor told me it wasn’t a submission; she approached you to write it.”

Salima goggled. “You talked to the editor?”

“She was the first one I spoke with, even before your MIT colleagues. She specifically chose you for that article because she had seen your published papers. You didn’t just recite dry facts; you told a cohesive story that captured the imagination of the reader. As an editor, she wanted lay readers to understand exactly what it will take to get humans to Mars and back, and you were the best person to tell that story. You had the expert knowledge to educate, but more importantly, you had the passion and imagination to inspire. That’s why I hired you.”

She met his gaze, but her thoughts were still swirling. He seemed to be paying her a compliment, in his own eccentric, Barnhart-esque way, but she couldn’t be sure. Her boss was by far the most complex person she had ever known. She couldn’t begin to fathom how his mind worked.

He stood and gathered the files from the desk, placing them on the glass coffee table. He motioned for her to sit next to him on the sofa. Reluctantly, she did so.

“Taking risks and following my instincts are how I turned the small manufacturing company I inherited into the largest personal fortune on Earth,” he said. “I’ve had a vision since I was a child, one that leads directly to the surface of Mars, and every single step I take in life is a step toward that goal. Hiring you was one of those steps.”

Salima took a breath and allowed herself to relax a bit. She finished her coffee and placed the cup on the side table, savoring the feeling of relief.

“That’s why I’m so disappointed in you right now,” Barnhart said, hefting one of the files.

Annnd we’re back, she thought as anxiety and frustration set in again.

“I don’t understand what it is you’re looking for,” she said miserably. “Why are you postponing the launch? Was the review not thorough enough?”

He frowned. “Of course it was. I just told you I surround myself with the best technical people in the world. Were you not listening?”

Salima didn’t answer. She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t just dig her in deeper than she already was.

“The launch is on hold because you and I need a gut check,” Barnhart said, slumping down into the sofa. He suddenly looked drained, as if his manic behavior over the last forty-eight hours finally caught up to him. “Ever since the Beyond disaster, I’ve had this feeling that something is…just off. I can’t put my finger on it, but I won’t move forward until it’s gone.”

“What is it you want me to do?” Salima pleaded. “I’m done with guessing games, Philip. You turn my life upside-down for two days and then sit here and talk to me in riddles. I can’t take any more of it. Just give me an explicit instruction before I lose my mind!”

Her heart raced with adrenaline and anger and anxiety, but she was also relieved that she finally spoke her piece. If he fired her, so be it. Meanwhile, Barnhart gazed at her silently, his expression completely unreadable. After a few moments, he lifted a file folder off the table and handed it to her. She recognized it as Clay’s report on the X9 launch failure last year.

“Tell me why that rocket exploded,” he said flatly.

Salima gave him a quizzical look but did as she was told. She didn’t need the report; she’d been over it with a fine-tooth comb several times. Barnhart had read the executive summary himself, or so he claimed.

“There are several possibilities,” she said. “Our working theory is a faulty strut on the internal helium pressurization tank breaking loose before second-stage initialization. The resulting increase in pressure blew apart the second-stage superstructure.”

“Which you believe could have been the result of sabotage,” he said.

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Forget the strut. Another theory?”

“Resonant mode.”

“Which is what?”

Salima sighed. He knew this, or at least he should, but he was the boss. “It’s when a rocket’s structural vibration frequency matches the frequency of the engine thrust or the aerodynamic forces acting on the rocket. It led to structural resonance that caused the rocket to vibrate excessively. The resulting stress caused a chain reaction that led to the explosion.”

“And what could cause structural resonance?” he asked.

“Any number of factors.” She shrugged. “Aerodynamic forces, engine vibration, a flaw in the design. A minor shift in the payload distribution can affect the rocket’s natural frequency and make it more prone to resonance. Even something as minor as wind conditions during the launch can set off a catastrophic series of events.”

Then Barnhart did the last thing she expected him to do. He smiled.

“You’re talking like an engineer again,” he said. “It’s been a while. More importantly, you’re using that innate talent of yours to dumb it down for a layman.”

“You’re hardly a layman,” she scoffed. “You may not have gone to school for this, but you’ve been around rockets long enough to understand Clay’s report on your own.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Doesn’t matter. Tell me, Salima: what is the key difference between the flawed strut theory and the resonant mode theory?”

“There are too many to list,” she said, exasperated.

Barnhart nodded, as if he expected her answer. “I’ll tell you what the key difference is from my perspective, and since this is my project, my perspective is the one that matters most. The first theory could possibly be the result of sabotage. The second theory could be the result of a thousand factors, or any combination thereof, a significant number of which were beyond your control. But not sabotage.”

Salima considered that. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Have you compensated for the possibility of resonant mode for this next launch?” he asked.

“Of course. We factored all of that into the design of the new rocket before we launched it a couple months ago. The team went over it again during the testing and prep for this latest launch as well. If resonant mode really was the cause, it won’t happen again.”

“And have you tracked down the theoretical saboteur of the guilty strut?” he asked.

A familiar flash of panic sliced through her, and she swallowed hard. She hadn’t found any proof of sabotage, but that didn’t stop her from pursuing sabotage of her own. “N-no,” she stammered. “I mean, I, uh, I’ve stepped up security as much as possible—”

“Exactly!” Barnhart crowed. “Finally, she sees the light!”

Salima stared at him, baffled. “I don’t understand.”

He stacked the files on the coffee table and settled himself into the corner of the sofa, draping an arm over the back. He appeared as relaxed as she’d ever seen him, in stark contrast to the look of agitation he’d worn when she arrived at her office.

“Salima,” he said gently, “do you know why I fired Gideon after the Condor 6 launch, and yet I kept you on after losing the X9? Like I told you earlier, I could have just censured him.”

She shook her head. Clay had told her what little he knew about it, but she couldn’t assume she knew the whole story.

“It’s quite simple,” Barnhart said. “Gideon rushed the launch because Beyond was getting media attention for its new space plane idea, and he couldn’t stomach being in second place. When the 6 failed, he blamed everyone down the ladder. Then he started throwing around ridiculous theories of sabotage. He was willing to do anything except take responsibility for his actions. He lost his focus, if he ever truly had it in the first place. He was more concerned with his ego than with the mission. You, on the other hand, have done everything possible to ensure that the X9 failure won’t be repeated. You learned from your mistakes.”

She sighed, finally letting herself feel some relief after the gauntlet she’d just been through. A thought suddenly occurred to her. “The veracity of failure,” she said.

Barnhart grinned. “So you have been listening after all. Failure is not to be feared, it is to be embraced. Gideon didn’t understand that. He let his competitiveness override his common sense, as evidenced by Beyond’s latest botched launch. He’s sending rockets up like a kid in the schoolyard, all because he’s obsessed with beating me to Mars. He believes failure is not an option.”

“But failure is an option,” Salima said. The sudden clarity of thought was welcome after forty-eight hours of constant pressure. “More than an option, it’s essential. You can’t learn without it.”

“Indeed,” Barnhart said. “You’ve demonstrated that very well.”

“I appreciate that, I really do. But if you feel that way, why did you suddenly need the last-minute, all-hands review? Why delay the launch?”

He leaned forward and fixed his gaze on hers. “I’m going to admit something to you, Salima, and if you repeat it, I’ll deny it.”

She blinked, surprised by his candor. “Of course I won’t.”

“I’m…not like most people,” he said awkwardly.

“You think?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

He gave her a half-smile. “You know that I’m exceptionally focused. I can have a dozen thoughts in my head at one time and compartmentalize them so that they don’t overwhelm me. However, I am also prone to brief but intense bouts of anxiety. My psychologist says both are traits associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

Salima nodded. She’d long suspected her boss suffered from ADHD, although suffered probably wasn’t the right word. Most of the time, it was more of a superpower.

“When I lose my focus,” he continued, “I rely on you to bring it back to me. To keep me from getting lost in the rabbit hole of details by which I’m constantly bombarded. Your unique perspective has always been like a north star for me, pulling my spinning compass back toward the goal of the mission.”

“I-I never knew that,” she said softly. “So, what happened to pull you off course the last few days?”

“I’ll be honest, Salima. Your near obsession with security seemed to be taking up far too much of your time. That, combined with the spectacular failure at Beyond’s launch and Al Peroni’s fall, led me to a bit of a dark place. And it feels as if you’re never in your office these days. There are too many moving parts for me to keep track on my own.”

She sat back and shot him a look. Part of her was incredibly flattered, but another part of her was mad as hell. “With all due respect, Philip, whose fault is that?” she snapped. “You’re the one who has me running all over the fricking world! And I’m certainly not the one who chose to send me to Alabama for a week to recruit staff from Marshall! And just for the record, I don’t need trips to Bora Bora for a reward. I just need you to stay focused so that I can stay focused. We’re in this together.”

Barnhart glanced at the floor and nodded. “That’s fair. I have to acknowledge my part in this as well. I’ll be sure to keep you by my metaphorical side as much as possible going forward.” He looked up at her again. “In return, you need to promise me you’ll make achieving our goal the top priority. Competition is a powerful thing, but it’s not the only thing. I don’t need another Gideon Wagner, Salima. I need the big-brained, wide-eyed grad who wrote that article.”

She didn’t know if it was relief or gratitude or a deep-seated need for approval, but Salima felt a sudden tidal wave of emotion. Before she knew what she was doing, she was clutching Barnhart in a fierce hug. She felt him resisting, but she didn’t care.

“Salima, this isn’t appropriate…” he said awkwardly.

“Don’t make it weird, okay?” she said into his shoulder. “Just this once, be a normal person and accept a hug.”

After a few moments, she let him go and he immediately stood up. The look of embarrassment, combined with her jangled nerves, almost sent her into a fit of giggles. Her boss was as cool as they came, but he was never one for shows of affection. It was nice to be reminded that Philip Barnhart was, in fact, human. She stood up and shook his hand, which seemed to set him at ease.

“Thank you for this, Philip,” she said earnestly. “You don’t know how much I needed it. Neither did I, obviously.”

He smiled. “I’m glad. Let’s set a pre-launch team meeting for tomorrow at ten.”

“I better let them know the launch is back on ASAP,” she said.

“No need. I never told them it was postponed in the first place.” He shocked her by dropping a wink. “I never doubted how this meeting would turn out, Salima. I have far more faith in you than you have in yourself, even when I’m spiraling. Remember that.”

He strode out of the office, leaving her alone to digest what she’d just been through. She’d never met anyone even remotely like Barnhart. What had begun as simple idol worship had evolved into a deep and abiding respect for the man, and he clearly had much more to teach her. She could only hope to live up to his vision of her. It would take a drastic change in attitude, and a hell of a lot of work.

Salima sat at her desk and took a deep, cleansing breath. She knew what the first order of business had to be, so she pulled out her cell phone and sent a message to Gideon Wagner: We need to meet NOW.

18

Gideon Wagner wondered how many years the blob of ketchup had been congealing on the table as he sat down in a booth at the greasy spoon that Salima Patel had chosen for their rendezvous. It was on Rosencranz in East Compton, and the place didn’t seem to know if it was a hamburger joint or a taqueria. Whatever it identified as, it smelled like everything Gideon associated with failure: burning fat, stale air, and human sweat.

He was eyeing the menu the way he might look at a dead rat when Salima walked in. He barely recognized her in a faded denim jacket and capri pants, with her glossy black hair pulled into a ponytail under a Dodgers baseball cap. She saw him right away, though, and slid onto the bench opposite him. She looked him up and down and shook her head.

“You think a two-hundred-dollar Tommy Bahama polo shirt helps you blend in here?” she asked.

“Believe it or not, my social calendar has never brought me to Compton before,” he replied dryly. “You said dress casual. This is casual.” Salima rolled her eyes, sparking a flare of anger in his chest. “I could have done better if you’d given me more than twenty-four hours to prepare,” he snapped. “Now kindly get to the point. I’m a busy man.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said. “You must have, what, half a dozen launches lined up this week?” Salima wanted to get under his skin even though she didn’t want him as an enemy, only to be in pain, to knock him off his self-appointed perch.

Gideon took a deep breath in an attempt to tamp down his rising ire. He’d spent the past few weeks trying to keep Johnna Smythe from eviscerating him and eating his entrails for pushing up the launch date. While she would never let it show in public, the failure had sent her into a rage behind closed doors. With the Schuchardt group breathing down her neck, she was projecting her own insecurities onto him. It didn’t seem to matter that the launch before that one had been a resounding success. Gideon was apparently expected to deliver nothing but good news until they finally reached Mars. Another mistake could very easily be enough to put him out of Beyond, Inc. for good, and he was not about to let that happen. With his history, he would never work in aerospace again, and Barnhart would win the race to Mars.

It all added up to a knot of barbed wire in his guts, and Salima was currently tugging on it. In fact, she’d been tugging on it since the day of the launch.

“I’m in no mood for bullshit today,” he said curtly. “You’ve got thirty seconds to get to the point.”

She looked at him for a beat before deciding he was serious. “Fine,” she said. “I suppose I should just be happy you agreed to this one after weeks of ghosting me.”

“I just told you I’m busy—”

“Fuck you, Gideon,” she whispered fiercely. “You and Cummings both went dark right after Al Peroni’s fall. I still can’t get him to respond, so that leaves you.”

Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “I already told you Peroni admitted that was his own fault.”

“That’s not a denial that you were involved.” Salima scanned the dive to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. The nearest patron was standing at the counter a dozen meters away. “Even if you weren’t directly behind it, that doesn’t mean Cummings didn’t do it on his own with your blessing after the fact.”

He gritted his teeth. That was exactly what had happened. Cummings got in touch immediately after the incident to tell Gideon the story. The scaffold support had indeed been weakened with hydrofluoric acid, just as Salima suspected, but the fall wasn’t supposed to be as drastic as it was. Cummings’ plan had been to catch Peroni on the way down and be the hero, with the goal of being promoted and getting into the old man’s inner circle. Instead, he wasn’t fast enough and ended up being the schmuck who watched it happen and called for help. There was no promotion, and he had almost been exposed. Still, as idiotic as it was, it put Peroni out of commission for a while. Gideon wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he gave Cummings a cryptocurrency bonus worth $10,000 to keep him on the hook. He also told him to cut contact with Salima immediately after that to keep her from finding out.

Gideon weighed his options, using his lightning-fast intellect to run through a dozen scenarios in a matter of seconds. He ultimately decided it made no difference whether she knew. In fact, it could make things easier.

“What of it?” He shrugged. “What are you going to do about it, Salima? If you think you can somehow get the upper hand in this situation, forget it. As you Americans say, I have bigger fish to fry.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms, flashing him a look of contempt from under her ballcap. A few months ago, the thought of a poser like her judging someone of his stature would have made him laugh. Now, though, the look hit him with unexpected force. The feeling was interrupted when a dead-eyed teen in a restaurant uniform appeared next to their table.

“If you’re gonna sit here, you have to order something,” the kid said dully. “It’s the rules.”

Salima grabbed the menu from the table, but Gideon beat her to the punch, pulling a $100 bill from his pocket and shoving it at the kid. “Here,” he sighed.

“We don’t take hundreds. Rules.”

Gideon bit down on his annoyance. “It’s for you, Einstein. Now get lost.”

The kid blinked a few times before finally recognizing his good fortune. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then jammed the bill in his pocket and hurried back to the counter.

“Way to avoid standing out,” Salima hissed.

That was the last straw. “Listen closely,” he growled. “I have neither the time nor the inclination to be on the receiving end of your verbal denigrations. I’m not going to play your little cloak-and-dagger games. Do you honestly believe any of the slackjaws in this place recognize us? They wouldn’t recognize Barnhart himself if he walked in wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Hello, I’m Philip Barnhart.’ So make your point and make it now, or I’m walking out of here. Good luck getting me to return your messages after that.”

Salima scowled, but Gideon could see that he had her. “All right, fine,” she said. “I brought you here to tell you I’m out.”

He blinked. “What do you mean ‘out’?”

“I’m coming out of the closet,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What do you think I mean, genius? You and I are done. Over. Cummings is all yours.”

This was unexpected. “Why?”

“Because it’s insane! Cummings could have killed Al Peroni, Gideon. This competition isn’t worth someone’s life.”

God, you’re naïve, he thought. “Do I need to remind you that you recruited me into this little venture?”

Her eyes turned down to the table. “I know,” she replied barely above a whisper, “and I’m ashamed of it. I was at a low point in my life after the X9 disaster. I spent every day for weeks sure that I’d walk into the StarSeeker offices and find security there with all my things boxed up, ready to escort me out.” She looked up at him again. “You of all people should understand that.”

Sudden fury roared into Gideon like a furnace blast. Who the hell did this little dilettante think she was, comparing herself to him? As always, anger helped him keep the feelings of humiliation at bay. He leveled a finger across the table.

“First of all,” he hissed, “leaving StarSeeker was the smartest decision I ever made. Second, there’s no way you’re going to just walk away from this. I won’t allow it.”

Her eyes went wide. “You won’t allow it? I wasn’t asking your permission, Gideon.”

“Or what?” he challenged. “What will you do if it’s not over? You’re playing in the big leagues here, little girl. I was building rockets and running companies when you were still doing the popular crowd’s homework so that they’d like you.” He watched with satisfaction as her mouth dropped open. “Don’t look so shocked, Salima. I hired professionals to look into your background the day after Barnhart announced your hiring. Big league players do their research on the competition.”

“You don’t even realize how crazy that sounds,” she breathed. “Is that why you convinced Johnna Smythe to drop the space plane concept? So you could focus on copying Philip’s plan? Just put out rocket after rocket in the hopes of somehow beating us? It’s not possible, Gideon. StarSeeker has more than a decade head-start on Beyond, and exponentially more money.”

Gideon felt his pulse quicken. She was hitting too close to home, like a snake bite to the heart. He forced the thoughts away and let the rich, familiar anger flow all the way through him. She was wrong. No, not just wrong, she was completely out of touch with reality. And he was going to make sure she knew it.

“Delusions like that are what separate you from the real players,” he said. “You honestly believe Barnhart hired you to run StarSeeker? Please. You’re window dressing, Salima. A young woman with a tight rear end to perk up the old men with investment capital. Plus you’re an ethnic, so you satisfy the quota crowd as well. Two for one.”

Her eyes flashed, and he could tell he hit a nerve. Good. She seethed for a few moments, then appeared to get herself under control.

“It’s a shame that such a truly remarkable brain is tied to such a shriveled little soul,” she said.

“You wound me,” he moaned theatrically, clutching at his chest.

“Whatever. Just know that it’s over.”

She made to stand up, but Gideon grabbed her arm. “It’s not over till I say it’s over.”

“Let me go,” she grunted, eyes wide.

“Don’t fuck with me, Salima,” he warned. His patience was gone. “That’s the last thing you want to do. I’ll burn you to the ground with Cummings.”

Salima broke free from his grip. “That’s not going to happen. Want to know why? Because there’s no record of me being involved with him. Every communication we ever had was in person or via encrypted texts. I paid him in crypto, so it's untraceable. As far as anyone can prove, we’re professional acquaintances, nothing more.”

“Everything you just said applies to me as well,” Gideon sneered, “so I guess it’s a stand-off.”

She smiled. It sent a trickle of ice water down his spine.

“You guess wrong,” she said. “That day at LAX, I told you I watched you tour One World with Cummings in real time. Remember that? When you offered him a year’s pay in exchange for a copy of all the company’s records?”

Gideon said nothing. The trickle down his back was suddenly a frigid waterfall. “I don’t recall any such thing,” he lied, his throat dry.

“I recorded it, Gideon. The entire video file of your tour is stored securely in the cloud.” She paused for a moment. “Is that big league enough for you?”

You little bitch. “Are you recording right now?”

She saw him tense—he was ready to search her for a device, to hell with witnesses—and she took a step back. “I’m clean,” she said. “I didn’t even bring my phone in with me.”

“That video is of no use to you,” he pointed out. “You may not be on it, but it still implicates you. Any good investigator would ask why you planted a camera on Cummings. We’re at a standoff, Salima.”

She smiled again. He was starting to hate that smile.

“Except Cummings bought the camera,” she said. “I wasn’t even in the same hemisphere. And I can just forward the video file anonymously.”

Gideon felt the walls closing in, but he still had a trump card to play. “Cummings will implicate you himself if he’s pushed to the wall. He told me you hired a demolition expert to sabotage One World equipment and the guy took off with the down payment.”

“Again, there’s nothing tying that to me,” she said. “Cummings didn’t even know the man’s assumed name, let alone his real one. So, it’s clear I had nothing to do with that or any of it. It was all you from day one and those who were afraid of what you were doing, not to take you down but to protect themselves. It’s what you force people to do, Gideon, because you’re such a cheesedick.”

He resisted the overwhelming urge to slap the smug look off Salima’s face. He might have done it if they’d been alone, but they weren’t. His mind was swirling with scenarios, none of which seemed to have any solutions. Blackmail was, by its nature, simple and effective. That’s why humans had been using it for millennia. Gideon doubted Salima would actively use it against him, but he despised the idea of her having anything she could use to control him.

“So am I out now?” she asked.

“Whatever.” He swallowed down the rising anxiety in his gut and tried to look nonchalant. “I don’t care what you do, Salima. If we’re done here, I have far more important things to occupy my time and attention.”

“Whatever you do from now on is entirely your business. Keep me out of it and you’ll never hear another word about that video file.”

She extended a hand. Gideon shook it reluctantly, then watched as she walked out the door without looking back. She hailed a cab on Rosencranz and was gone. He sat back down and pulled out his cell, tapping out an encrypted message to Cummings. It was evening in Palermo, but he knew the man would reply soon enough. They had important matters to discuss.

The man behind the wheel of a rented Camry rubbed his eyes. He’d been in the U.S. for three days and was still suffering from jetlag. When he opened them again, he saw the woman Gideon Wagner had been talking to walk out of the restaurant and wave down a cab. She got in and headed east into the distance. He had no idea who she was. A local, by the looks of her. What would Wagner be doing with someone like that, in a neighborhood like this?

A mistress, perhaps? That seemed unlikely, given that Wagner was single. The man filed it away for future reference.

He'd been following Wagner since Beyond’s chief engineer left his spacious mid-century modern house in La Brea that morning. When Wagner pulled into the restaurant parking lot and went in, the man parked nearby. After watching his quarry settle in with the woman, the man quickly broke into Wagner’s electric Land Rover and installed a cutting-edge listening device under the dash, syncing it to the media unit. The big white SUV stood out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood and was likely worth more than all the other vehicles in the lot combined, but no one seemed to pay attention to his subterfuge.

He checked the receiver. It was working perfectly, picking up the soft susurrus of traffic outside the Rover’s cockpit. Once he was sure Wagner wasn’t headed home after this, the man would go back to La Brea, break into the house, and install similar hidden microphones. He would also hack into the IP address to follow Wagner’s online presence.

A minute or so after the woman left, Wagner emerged from the restaurant looking angry. He was talking on his phone as he walked to the Rover and climbed inside. A moment after the electric engine came to life, the phone conversation transferred to the SUV’s media unit, coming through the speakers—and the man’s earpiece—loud and clear.

“—didn’t mean for you to phone me, Cummings!” Wagner snapped.

“Your message sounded urgent,” said a male voice on the other end of the line—Cummings, presumably. “Why, what difference does it make?”

Wagner hissed a sigh as he pulled out into traffic. “It doesn’t. Look, you need to put on the brakes for the foreseeable future.”

“What? Why?”

“You almost killed Peroni, for starters. We can’t afford another screwup, and you can’t be going off on your own like that.”

The man perked up as he followed the Rover a few car lengths back. This was interesting.

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it when you sent me the ten grand,” Cummings protested. “Besides, Peroni trusts me more now, I know it. We talk all the time.”

“I said put on the brakes! What part of that don’t you get? I can’t afford to have you fucking around behind my back. I have a thousand balls in the air, and you’re not one of them.”

“You’re not my boss,” Cummings countered, sounding irate. “You don’t own me, Gideon. You forget I have a lot less to lose than you do.”

“Don’t be an idiot!” Wagner snapped. “My job may be on the line, but you’re looking at attempted murder charges!”

The man glanced down at the receiver on the console to make sure it was recording all this. It was.

“All I’m saying is back off for a while,” said Wagner, sounding somewhat calmer now. “We need to regroup and strategize, but it won’t be for several months, at least.”

“Several months while I sweat my ball sack off here in Sicily, picking my nose,” Cummings said petulantly. “What about that job at Beyond you promised me?”

“It’s in the works.”

“Sure it is. Look, Gideon, I’m going to keep doing what I do. If you have a problem with it, come to Palermo and meet me face-to-face like a man. If you don’t, I’ll know that you and I aren’t on the same page. And if that happens, I can’t guarantee how I’ll deal with it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll just confess to Peroni. Or maybe I’ll call up CNN and see if they’re interested in the story of the decade.”

The line went dead. “Don’t you hang up on me, you piece of shit!” Wagner bellowed, sending a painful thrum through the man’s earpiece. That was followed by a series of thumps that were most likely Wagner pounding his fist on the dash. “Goddammit!”

The Rover stopped at a red light on Alameda Street. The man used the time to dial a number.

“Ni hao,” he started and then told the person who answered everything he had just heard.

After a brief question from the voice on the other end, the man replied, “I think we’ve found an ideal opportunity. This is what you’ve been looking for. I’ll send a proposal soon.”

19

The limousine pulled up in front of a building that, to Al Peroni, looked like any of a hundred nondescript office towers he’d seen in his life. It was concrete, barely two dozen stories, with small windows behind which was no doubt a dense jungle of cubicles. It was a stark contrast to the architectural marvel One World was building outside Palermo, or the gleaming corporate headquarters of its rivals, StarSeeker and Beyond, Inc. Hell, even the new Space Force complex outside Houston was more impressive, and it was still under construction.

But Peroni knew better than to judge this particular book by its cover. It may have looked uninspiring from the outside, but it housed some of the greatest aerospace minds on the planet. Minds whose predecessors beat America into space with the world’s first artificial satellite in 1957, followed by the first human to reach orbit five years later.

A small crowd greeted the car as it pulled up in front of the headquarters of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Peroni stepped out and was immediately beset by people who wanted to take a selfie with him. He politely declined—with his gestures, at least, since he couldn’t speak their language—just as a tall, middle-aged woman with iron-gray hair and a suit to match emerged from the crowd and shook his hand.

“A great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Peroni,” she said in flawless English. “I am Director Yelena Krutov. Welcome to Moscow.”

Peroni nodded and smiled, hoping he wasn’t about to make the worst mistake of his career.

It was only three weeks earlier that Ennis Wright had approached him in his Palermo office with a look Peroni had never seen before. It was a combination of confusion and near panic, and his right-hand man wasn’t prone to either of them.

“What’s going on?” Peroni asked, closing the door behind them for privacy.

Ennis sat down and shook his head. “I just came from a meeting with IT. I would have brought Sofia here with me, but I didn’t want to take her away from her work right now.”

Sofia Russo was One World’s chief information officer, not because she was management material but because she seemed to think in binary code. If Ennis needed her at her post, this had to be serious. Peroni motioned for him to continue.

“Our mission control system is compromised,” he said simply. “A few of the IT staff started seeing suspicious anomalies in the code two days ago and sent it up the ladder to Sofia. She took a deep dive and started seeing the anomalies on her own. She tracked them and kept finding more and more. It’s been metastasizing for days. To quote Sofia, we’re looking at the mother of all rootkits.”

Peroni sat down, suddenly intensely alarmed. A rootkit was a form of malicious software that allowed hackers to gain unauthorized access to a computer without being detected. The code spread rapidly through the system, working to gain higher and higher privileges until it burrowed itself so deeply that it couldn’t be found. Once it established itself, a hacker could use it to attack other parts of the system, or possibly even take direct control over parts of the system itself.

He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I don’t understand how this could happen,” he said. “The mission control system is closed, cut off from the outside world. I know it’s been a couple decades since I coded anything, but I’m pretty sure there’s no way to access it from outside, right?”

Ennis nodded. “Right. All the original software was exhaustively tested before it ever went live in the system, and our suppliers signed iron-clad contracts that would pretty much bankrupt them in the event they introduced anything damaging. Every new piece of software added since the initial install has come from One World’s staff engineers. Nothing is ever introduced from outside.”

“And yet it was,” said Peroni, chewing a handful of antacid tablets from the bottle in his desk drawer. This was going to be a very bad day.

“Yeah,” Ennis sighed. He sat with his hands between his knees, fingers fidgeting. Peroni wasn’t used to seeing the man like this. Ennis was usually rock-steady, always in charge.

“Does Sofia have any theories yet?” asked Peroni.

“She hasn’t had a lot of time. She and the rest of the team are consumed with whack-a-mole right now, trying to keep it from spreading further.”

“And a reboot won’t work.”

Ennis shook his head. “Rootkits are pernicious little bastards. The good news is that Sofia’s sure they can kill this one. It’s just going to take time and a dedicated team. She’s already got someone sourcing experienced contractors in Rome to join the fight.”

“What’s the bad news?” Peroni braced himself for the answer.

“The rootkit must have been introduced physically into the system. That means someone installed an ethernet port somewhere. Until we find that, we’re still under threat.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, should it? A port isn’t exactly a needle in a haystack.”

“It’s not a problem on its own,” Ennis said. “They’ll find the port. The problem is that it had to have been installed by someone who had physical access to the system.” He turned to look Peroni in the eye. “It was one of our own, Al.”

That hit hard. Al Peroni’s father and grandfather had both been union men, and he himself firmly believed in giving workers a sense of ownership in One World. He wanted One World to be a multi-generational company, the kind where employees would encourage their children to follow in their footsteps. The sense of betrayal he felt right then was palpable.

“Suggestions?” he asked.

Ennis got up and started to pace slowly, which Peroni knew meant deep thinking. He let his man do his thing and waited patiently. Finally, Ennis stopped and nodded to himself.

“We have to get the first modules into orbit, Al. As soon as possible.”

“What? Why?”

Ennis scratched at his curly black hair. “Something’s going on,” he said. “This is clearly sabotage, which means the equipment is always going to be vulnerable when it’s on the ground. If this cyberattack had worked, someone could have potentially taken control of the units after they were in orbit. The damage up there wouldn’t just be in dollars, it would be human lives. People who’ve dedicated themselves to this mission—to your vision—could end up dead.”

That hit Peroni liked a baseball bat to the gut. “We’ll find the piece of shit who did this,” he growled. “They won’t get away with it.”

“They already have, Al. Don’t you see? The attack on the system won’t succeed, but the attack on our trust will. Think of it this way: the towers coming down on Nine-Eleven was just the start of Bin Laden’s plan. America went into a paranoid spiral afterward that led the U.S. into the longest war in the nation’s history. The effects of that are still being felt today, a generation later, all because they lost trust in our fellow man, in the institutions that were supposed to keep us safe.”

Peroni considered that. He was already running through the employee roster in his mind, searching for suspects. And he was angry. Betrayed. Scared.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“Bottom line is no one can fuck with the equipment if it’s in orbit,” Ennis said. “So let’s get it there. The crew’s been chomping at the bit for months now, and all we’re doing is accelerating the original plan. We can deal with the security issue without losing focus on the goal.”

It was Peroni’s turn to pace now. Ennis made sense, but it was all coming at him like a blast from a firehose. The crew might be ready, but was he? Barnhart bragged about following his gut instinct, but Peroni had never been like that. He was methodical, a planner. Could he throw all that to the wind and take this leap into the unknown without his usual deep analysis? Ennis seemed more than ready, and Peroni trusted the man with his life.

“All right,” he said finally. “How do we do it?”

“Unfortunately, that depends on forces beyond our control,” Ennis said. “I doubt the Israelis could meet the new timelines and get the modules into the air at Palmachim, which means we have to rely on StarSeeker. They have the lift capacity. We’d just have to ship the units to California, which is more time and more money. More importantly, we need them to accelerate the contract you struck to get the crews into orbit.”

The idea of dealing with Barnhart again made Peroni’s guts churn, but Ennis saved him by dealing directly with Salima Patel. He called her immediately—it was dinnertime in Palermo but still morning in Los Angeles—and put the conversation on the speaker. He explained their needs to her, carefully omitting any reference to the cyberattack and the mole in their midst. What they heard back wasn’t encouraging.

“I just don’t see how we could do it,” she said. “With the delay on the X9-C test and our new hires still getting their feet under them, we just don’t have the bandwidth. Maybe six weeks from now…”

“That’s too long,” Peroni snapped. “I gave your boss half the capital up front, and now you’re telling me I have to wait?”

“To be fair, this is coming out of the blue,” Salima said. “We would have to pull significant resources away from StarSeeker projects to meet this timeline. What’s the sudden hurry?”

“It’s a business decision,” said Peroni, biting back his irritation.

“I really am sorry,” she said. “If the situation changes, I promise I’ll let you know immediately.”

The trio ended the call with the typical business niceties, but Peroni slammed a palm on the top of his desk as soon as it disconnected. “Goddammit!”

“I’m disappointed, too,” Ennis said. “But StarSeeker isn’t the only option we have.”

Peroni peered at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Just hear me out.” He held his hands up in surrender. “It’s not exactly the ideal choice, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

That was when Peroni realized what Ennis was suggesting. He fished another three antacids from the bottle and chewed them furiously.

“Roscosmos is fully prepared to fulfill your needs,” said Yelena Krutov. “As you Americans say, we are locked and loaded.”

They were alone in an executive lounge that had all the charm of a vasectomy clinic waiting room. Outside the door, Peroni could hear the bustle of staff going about their work. It was almost unnerving to be in such a bureaucratic environment. If he didn’t know the Russian space agency’s remarkable history, he would scarcely believe he was in its nerve center. Then again, most of Moscow had turned out to be both more and less than he’d expected when he arrived. It was somehow similar to much of Europe and yet utterly alien at the same time.

“I’m sure you are,” he said evenly. “Especially since you’ve been looking for something to do after your president pulled out of the International Space Station. And the money doesn’t hurt either, does it?”

Krutov’s expression showed no reaction to the slights against her motherland or its leader. It could be that she was used to such talk from outsiders, particularly Americans, in the wake of Russia’s departure from the world of civility. Their leader seemed determined to cut off his nose to spite his face, but if that had any effect on Krutov, she didn’t let it show.

That was a good sign. It was easier to do business with people like that.

“Money is secondary to us here at Roscosmos,” she said with no hint of sarcasm. “We do what we do to benefit mankind. I’m sure the same can be said of your people at One World.”

Except for whoever installed that goddamned external port, Peroni thought darkly. Sofia Russo’s contractors from Rome were able to kill the rootkit and destroy the port in a few days—to the tune of more than a million dollars in fees—but there were no leads on who planted it. Security had been beefed up around the physical system itself, and now Peroni had to consider how One World was going to track down the culprit without alienating its entire workforce.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “I also appreciate how quickly you were able to draw up your proposal. As you know, my people have given it the thumbs-up, pending Mr. Wright’s review of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.”

Ennis was far from enthusiastic about his trip to the launch facility in the middle of the desert steppe of southern Kazakhstan, but he knew he and other One World staff needed to get used to it. The orbital crew, at least, were excited to head to Star City, just north of Moscow, for their flight training with experienced cosmonauts.

“I am sure he will find it meets your needs,” said Krutov. “Our Soyuz fleet is at your disposal as soon as you are ready.”

“Good. Time is of the essence.”

She leaned back and gave him an appraising look. “If I may be so bold, your invitation came as a surprise to us. We were under the impression that you would exhaust the resources in America before reaching out to Roscosmos.”

“I’d prefer you not be so bold,” he said flatly.

“As you wish.” The director seemed completely unperturbed by his curt reply. “I look forward to a long and fulfilling relationship between your company and our agency, Mr. Peroni. It is good for Russia to be at the forefront of humanity’s race to Mars. We will be proud to supply cosmonauts to this endeavor, should you desire experienced personnel in your space operations.”

“I also look forward to a fruitful relationship,” he lied, hoping he hadn’t just made a deal with the devil.

20

The crowd broke into raucous applause on the sweltering tarmac as the rocket climbed into the clear skies above Houston. Salima joined in, then saw that her boss was simply standing there, looking bored. She elbowed him in the ribs.

“Show some enthusiasm,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “Clap for a routine launch of a rocket that’s three generations behind our own, and that uses tech they virtually stole from my company? Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because it’s the political thing to do,” she scolded. “And it’s patriotic. So, clap.”

Barnhart reluctantly obeyed. Nearby, Johnna Smythe and Al Peroni did the same, looking about as enthusiastic as he did. Salima knew the debut Space Force launch from the new headquarters wasn’t exactly history in the making, but a few thousand Texas civilians were on hand and treating the event like the Fourth of July. Not to mention the fact the president was also there, along with Senators Harry Kane and Texas’s own Meg Pritchett. It added up to a rare opportunity for them all to show support for each other and the space race. The public needed to feel confident that they knew what they were doing and had the best interests of humanity at heart. Whether that was true was irrelevant, as long as it appeared to be true.

The rocket’s corona of exhaust quickly faded into the distance, so the crowd turned to the massive tarp serving as a projection screen to follow the ascent into orbit. As it became clear that the test was a success, people started breaking off into smaller groups. Two dozen food trucks were set up near the public parking lot, keeping the party atmosphere alive now that the fireworks were over.

“Cheer up,” Salima said. “I’ll buy you a chili dog.” She grinned at the horrified look on his face.

Just then, she saw Arlen Becker ambling over to them with the senators in tow. Meg Prichett stepped away into the crowd, smiling and touching every hand she encountered, campaigning like a pro even though her term wasn’t up for another four years.

“Well?” Becker inquired when he arrived. “Did it pass muster?”

“Of course,” Salima replied before Barnhart could say something she would regret. “Very impressive. As a matter of fact, this whole complex is awe-inspiring. You’ve made incredible progress in such a short time.”

“Even more impressive when you take into account it’s a government project,” Barnhart said dryly. “In that context, you’re practically moving at light speed.”

Salima thought she saw a flash of something in Becker’s eyes at the mention of light speed, but he quickly smiled and bowed his head slightly. “That’s high praise coming from you, Mr. Barnhart.”

“And it justifies the money the American taxpayers poured into this,” said Kane.

Barnhart arched an eyebrow. “I don’t know that I’d go that far, Senator, but it’s a first step.”

Salima braced for a reaction from Kane, but at that moment, his phone buzzed inside his suit jacket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen.

“The president would like us to join him in Arlen’s office,” he said to Barnhart. “Ms. Smythe and Mr. Peroni are already on their way there.”

Barnhart sighed. “Well, if POTUS says jump, I suppose we ask how high.”

“Yes, we do,” said Kane, ignoring the shot. He turned to Becker and Salima. “On the off-chance Meg shows up and asks where we are, tell her to get a corndog and sit tight.”

Salima bit down on her lips to keep from laughing out loud. Becker nodded, a Marine taking orders. “Yessir.”

When the billionaire and the senator were out of earshot, Becker turned to Salima. “I’d like to round up your counterparts and have a confab of our own, Ms. Patel. Do you have some time?”

“Of course,” she said. “And it’s Salima.”

“All right.” He grinned. “And I’m Arlen.”

“That’s not going to happen, General,” she said sheepishly. “I’ve admired you since I was a kid. I don’t think I’d be physically capable of calling you by your first name.”

Becker nodded—was he blushing?—and they headed off toward the hospitality tent, where Ennis Wright and Gideon Wagner were standing several meters apart under the canopy, steadfastly ignoring each other. Salima was relieved when Becker headed straight for Gideon. She hadn’t spoken to him since their confrontation at the restaurant weeks ago.

“Quite the complex,” she said to Ennis by way of greeting.

“What?” He blinked at her as if she just woke him up. “Oh. Uh, yeah, it’s pretty impressive.”

“Something wrong?”

He sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Nah, just…stuff. You know?”

Salima nodded. She of all people could imagine what he meant. At that moment, Becker appeared with a glowering Gideon in tow just as a large, windowless military utility van pulled up beside them. The general ushered them into the back, and Salima saw two rows of bench seats facing each other. Once they sat down and buckled in, the driver pulled away onto the tarmac and Becker fiddled with a console next to the sliding door. As he did, Salima thought she felt her cheeks tingle.

“Directional audio device,” Becker said. “We call it DAD for short. The vibrations you just felt are caused by the soundwaves it generates.”

“What the hell is it for?” Gideon grimaced. “I can feel it in my fillings.”

“I apologize. It’s for jamming parabolic microphones and other covert listening tech.”

“You think someone’s listening?” Ennis sat bolt upright. “Is that why there’s no windows in this thing?”

“It was specifically designed to counter surveillance,” Becker said. “Windowless, the DAD, armor-plated, soundproof barrier between us and the cockpit. It’s basically a mobile SCIF.”

Salima frowned. “I’m sorry, a what?”

“Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility,” Gideon said waspishly. “It’s what people with security clearances use when they’re talking about classified information. Christ, Salima, try to keep up.”

She felt a flash of anger, but before she could say anything, Becker shot Gideon a stony glare that only a commanding officer could conjure.

“Mr. Wagner, I have neither the time nor the inclination for petty bullshit right now,” he growled. “What we’re talking about is deadly serious.”

Gideon looked as if he’d been slapped, but he closed his mouth and focused his attention on the general. Salima’s heart was pounding, imagining this was what it was like to be a Marine under Becker’s command.

Ennis leaned forward intently. “What exactly are you talking about, General? Have you discovered something?”

Becker nodded. “Several weeks ago, a special team of security experts reporting directly to me captured video of a private drone surveilling this complex. Unfortunately, we don’t know how long it had been going on before we discovered it. We haven’t detected it since, which means whoever was operating it knows we saw it. They likely assumed we increased security, which we of course did. This van is part of the new protocols we put in place.”

Salima was stunned. Judging by their expressions, so were her colleagues.

“There’s more,” he said. “I won’t go into detail, but we have reason to believe the explosion at our original R-and-D lab in Ohio was the product of deliberate sabotage.”

“Oh my God,” Salima breathed. “Do you have any leads?”

Becker shook his head. “Only speculation at this point, which I’m trying to pare down into a working theory. That leads to what I’m about to say. It’s undiplomatic, but I’m afraid it has to be done.”

“You want to know if it was one of us,” Ennis said.

Salima’s stomach dropped, and Gideon’s eyes went wide. She immediately wondered if he was actually brazen enough to spy on the Space Force. As crazy as that sounded, she couldn’t put it past him.

“The drone, yes,” Becker said. “I give you my word as a Marine that your answers won’t leave this van, but I need them for the process of elimination. If it was one of you, we’ll hash it out right here, right now, and that will be the end of it.” He paused for a moment, his brows lowering. “That said, if one of you lies to me and I find out, the consequences will be dire.”

“It wasn’t One World,” Ennis said with all the gravity of a witness being sworn in.

“Not us, sir,” Salima said.

“This is an insult,” Gideon said. “I don’t have to sit here and—”

“Apparently, you misunderstood me.” The general’s tone was ice. “This isn’t the complaints department. Now answer the question, please.”

Gideon glared at him but did as he was told. “No.”

“Glad to hear it,” Becker said. “Again, I meant no offense. Just eliminating possibilities.”

“Of course,” Gideon said tightly.

The van drove on in silence for a few moments, making Salima wonder where they had been going the whole time. Then again, the complex was vast; they could probably drive for an hour and not pass through all of it.

Ennis finally spoke, “Someone planted a rootkit in our module system last month.”

“What?” Salima’s eyes went wide. “How can that be? I thought the system was self-contained.”

“It is,” he said grimly.

Gideon seemed intrigued but said nothing. Becker, on the other hand, looked as alert as Salima had ever seen him.

“A break-in?” he asked.

Ennis shook his head. “Our security people pretty much ruled that out. The complex is surrounded by a ten-foot fence with cameras every ten feet, and you have to go through two checkpoints to get in or out.”

“Are you saying it was an inside job?” Salima’s heart kicked in her chest. Could it have been Cummings? She caught Gideon casting a glance in her direction.

“That’s our working theory,” Ennis replied. “Someone added an external port to introduce the malware. If we hadn’t caught it when we did, it would have been so deeply embedded we likely would have missed it before we sent the modules up. By then, whoever planted it could have taken control of them from the ground. The lives of our crew members would have been in enemy hands.”

“So that’s why you wanted to move up the contract date,” Salima said.

Ennis nodded. “Sorry I couldn’t bring it up when we talked, but this incident threatens everything we’ve done. As long as those modules are on the ground, they’re vulnerable because we haven’t been able to find who did it, and Al is hesitant to destroy the loyalty of all for the disloyalty of one. But we need to get those modules into orbit ASAP.” He looked at Becker. “Something else SCIF-worthy, sir: One World has partnered with Roscosmos to get access to the Soyuz fleet, since StarSeeker doesn’t have the capacity right now.”

“The fucking Russians?” Gideon cried. “You’re so paranoid about a simple cyberattack that you’re willing to partner with them? Espionage is endemic in any high-stakes industry, man! Learn to play the game!”

Becker frowned. “Espionage is one thing, Mr. Wagner. Sabotage is something else entirely. Do I need to remind you that a Beyond, Inc. employee was murdered on your own test stand last year?”

“The investigation was dropped!” Gideon fumed. “How many times do I have to point that out?”

“It’s a criminal matter,” Becker said. “Your opinion of it means nothing. I suppose now is as good a time as any to let you people know the Department of Justice is opening a federal investigation into Frank Sheehan’s death. POTUS is telling your bosses about it as we speak, which is why he’s using my surveillance-proof office.”

Gideon’s face went crimson. “Sloane has no right to stick his nose into private business—”

“I can assure you the attorney general has every right to do exactly that. And while the president has no jurisdiction in Italy, you’d best believe he’ll be extremely concerned by the news of a cyberattack that threatened American lives. I’m sure he’ll offer One World any help he can.”

Gideon slumped in his seat and folded his arms over his chest. Salima thought it was like watching a child who’d just been punished, and she wondered again how she had ever believed they could work together.

A moment later, Becker plucked a radio handset from the wall and told the driver to head back before turning to the three of them. “There’s one more thing I’ll share with you all. It’s tickling the edge of classified information, so treat it as such. The U.S. intelligence community has heard rumblings in the last year of certain underworld figures showing up dead. All of them had recent dealings in stolen technology. Whether it’s related to anything is up in the air.”

“Do you have a theory?” Ennis asked.

“Nothing substantial yet.” The general looked from face to face. “But it tends to prop up the idea that all of these incidents might be part of a coordinated effort.”

“Terrorists?” asked Salima, aghast.

“They don’t know, but it doesn’t appear to be connected to any known groups. It’s more likely mercenaries, but who they’re working for—assuming they exist—is a mystery. I’ll keep you apprised as much as I can going forward.”

Salima stared at the wall and when she spoke, it was a stream of consciousness that riveted the listeners. “The race to Mars is the best thing the world has going for it right now. It should be bringing people together, finding ways over the immense technological hurdles involved in flying humans a hundred and ninety-five million miles to Mars, land them on the red planet, and provide what they need to not only survive but return to Earth. It’s a race, but one where we all win if one of us can pull it off. I used to think of it as a competition, but I’m wrong.” She fixed the general with her keen gaze. “We need to work together, even if we are working in our own stovepipes of control.”

Arlen Becker listened and thought that speech should have come from him, but he was rooted in the all-or-nothing faith that people like Sloane and Kane had put in Space Force. It was about power and the perceptions built to keep delivering power to a small group of brokers seated on Capitol Hill. Becker nodded tersely. “Well said, Salima.”

When the doors finally slid open, they were back where they started near the hospitality tent. Preston Smythe was there, drinking a beer and giving them a strange look as they climbed out of the van.

“Oi, Gideon!” he called. “Why didn’t you tell me you were gonna go smoke up? I’da come along!”

Gideon stalked off in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot. Preston jogged after him.

“That man is not easy to work with,” Becker said.

Ennis laughed out loud. Salima flashed a smile she didn’t feel, thinking that the general had no idea how right he was. They said their good-byes and promised to keep in touch going forward. Soon after Becker and Ennis left, she saw Barnhart and Smythe have a brief, heated exchange. Then her boss walked in her direction like a man on a mission.

“Let’s go,” he said, not slowing as he passed. “The limo is waiting.”

Salima tried to match his pace, but he was a head taller than her, so she had to hustle. “What happened in the meeting?” she asked. “Or is it classified?”

“One World has gone to the Russians,” he grumbled. “And Sloane is perfectly fine with it! Said some nonsense about how he didn’t care how One World got its modules and crews into orbit, just that they did. And then he proceeds to lecture us about the importance of America reaching Mars.” He snorted, shaking his head. “That jumped-up town councilman had the nerve to tell me about the importance of Mars!”

“What was the thing with Johnna?”

“Beyond is dead in the water,” he said. “But she doesn’t want to hear that.”

The limo pulled up alongside them at the entrance to the parking lot. Barnhart, as always, didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. He just climbed in and told him to head back to L.A. Then he closed the partition, leaned back in his seat, and heaved a long sigh.

“Let me guess,” Salima ventured. “The meeting reawakened your competitive spirit?”

He looked at her as if she was dim. “Quite the opposite,” he said. “We need to meet with Al Peroni as soon as possible.”

Salima would share her information at a later time in a more secure location. It could wait.

21

Al Peroni always felt awkward whenever he stepped into the lobby of the Millennium Club. Comprising the entire fifteenth floor of a stately old limestone building on Park Avenue, it featured a Michelin-star restaurant, a lounge with one of the best skyline views in Manhattan, a fitness center with on-staff trainers and massage therapists, and a vast library lined with burnished mahogany accents. The club was accessed from a private elevator for members and their guests only.

A middle-aged man in a suit that easily cost twice what Peroni paid for his own appeared as soon as he arrived, ushering him down a narrow hallway toward a private room. As always, the air was redolent with the smell of old wood mingled with cigar smoke that drifted in from the open-air balcony. His escort stopped outside a door with an oversized knob set in the middle, opening it for him as if the job of entering a room was somehow beneath Peroni’s dignity.

Inside were six pairs of antique wingback chairs, each separated by a small wooden table. It reminded him of the type of rooms he saw in Sherlock Holmes movies as a kid. The sole occupant, Philip Barnhart, rose to meet him. “Al,” he said warmly. “Thanks for coming.”

They sat in two of the chairs. It felt uncomfortably intimate to Peroni, the two of them sitting so close in a roomful of seats, but he supposed that’s how it was meant to be. A few moments later, another middle-aged man appeared with a crystal decanter of amber liquid and a sweating bottle of Yuengling. He placed the beer on the table next to Peroni, filled Barnhart’s tumbler and left the bottle, then disappeared without a word.

Peroni took a sip of beer. “This place is ridiculous.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Barnhart chuckled. “They had to send someone to the store to get that Yuengling for you. Probably wore a disguise so no one would recognize them.”

“Sometimes, I think about applying for membership just to watch the board squirm.” He took another swig. “Then I’d buy it out from under them.”

That made Barnhart laugh out loud. It was a far cry from how they’d left things a few days earlier in Houston after their meeting with the president. Barnhart had been ready to spit nails when Peroni admitted to making a deal with Roscosmos. It was made worse by the fact that Sloane had endorsed the idea completely, calling it a necessary evil. Smythe, meanwhile, had been totally absorbed in the news of the DOJ investigation.

“You’re in a good mood,” said Peroni. “I confess that’s not what I expected when I accepted your meeting request.”

Barnhart shrugged. “Bygones. We need to keep moving forward, always. You understand that better than anyone, Al.”

He couldn’t argue with that. Time seemed to be on a rocket sled ever since the cyberattack. What had once seemed like a game now felt more like a chase, and he was the quarry. Getting into orbit consumed his thoughts in a way it never had before.

“Agreed,” he said. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

“I think you know the answer to that.” Barnhart took a sip of bourbon. “The meeting with Sloane, combined with the attack on One World, was a wake-up call about the urgency of our mission.”

“I’m not sure that was Johnna’s takeaway.”

“Johnna is no longer a serious player in this,” Barnhart said with mild contempt. “Beyond is flailing now, and it’s apparent that there was never any plan except to somehow mimic StarSeeker. That’s entirely Gideon Wagner’s doing. He’s consumed with getting revenge on me, to the point where he’ll ignore everything else even if the building is burning down around him. Johnna bought into the fantasy that he would elevate her little hobby company into a real contender. All he ever wanted was to show the world that he was better than me, and both of them are paying for that delusion now, because I’m not me. I am who I’m surrounded by, something that Gideon Wagner could never understand.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, sipping their drinks. Peroni had been so caught up in the Palermo complex and his own projects that he’d lost sight of what his competitors were doing. But now that Barnhart laid it out, he could see that Beyond had indeed fallen behind, if it were ever truly in the race to begin with. Johnna Smythe’s only original idea had been the space plane that could escape the surface of Mars on a gently climbing trajectory until it reached orbit, thereby overcoming the need for rocket fuel by taking advantage of the minimal atmosphere. But there were a thousand limitations to it even if it worked, which it didn’t. Immediately after that, Wagner had begun a program of designing and launching rockets even though StarSeeker already had that market sewn up.

“Have you ever heard of Al Ries?” Al asked, looking at his bottle.

Barnhart arched an eyebrow. “Holy non sequitur, Batman. No, I don’t recognize the name. Why?”

“He was a marketing genius back in the seventies. One of his key principles was that the first product in the marketplace is better than any competitor, regardless of quality.” He held up his beer. “For example, Budweiser became the first national beer brand in America in 1876, and it’s still at the top of the market almost a hundred and fifty years later. People drink it because they’ve always drank it. I drink Yuengling for the same reason. It was exotic and wondrous when I was growing up, the real champagne of beers. I always drink it.”

“What’s your point?”

“I’m saying that Wagner made a fundamental mistake by thinking he could somehow steal StarSeeker’s thunder. You were the first, Phil. You’ve been synonymous with Mars for the better part of twenty years.” He offered a half-grin. “Even before you became the second-richest man on Earth.”

“Smartass,” Barnhart muttered. “But I see what you’re saying, and I appreciate it. In a way, it’s actually the reason I asked you here.”

Peroni snorted. “To tell you how great you are?”

“To offer an olive branch. I admit I was furious when I found out you’d gone to the Russians, but in hindsight, I see it was the right thing to do. It’s imperative to get those modules into orbit and start working on that mothership of yours, and not just to avoid sabotage. We need to kick this mission into high gear, and if that requires collaboration, then so be it.”

“Wait a minute,” said Peroni. “Are you admitting that One World’s concept is better than your own?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Barnhart looked offended by the suggestion. “I don’t need to remind you that One World hasn’t even started work on the orbital elevator. Meanwhile, my new people are making incredible strides in atmospheric fuel extraction. This is still a competition.”

“Whew.” Peroni drained his beer. “You had me worried for a second.”

“What I am saying is that we’re working to increase capacity as quickly as possible. StarSeeker will get your modules into orbit immediately, and Roscosmos can ferry your people up there until we’re ready to take over that as well.” He extended a hand across the table. “All I need is your word and I’ll make it our top priority to have the equipment and people in place as soon as possible.”

Peroni looked at Barnhart’s hand, frowning. “I’m having déjà vu,” he said. “If I recall correctly, I already gave you a shitpile of money to do just that.”

“You’ll also recall the timeline we agreed on,” Barnhart said, keeping his hand in place. “I’m committing to accelerating that timeline by a factor of three. Now shake my hand before I use it to slap some sense into you.”

Peroni did so with some trepidation. What choice did he have? After what Sloane had told them, particularly about the possibility of bad actors actively working against the Space Force and possibly their own efforts, they needed to do something, and fast.

“I’ll have Ennis get in touch with Salima ASAP,” he said. Just as he reached into his jacket pocket for his cell phone, it rang, startling him. The screen told him it was Ennis. He tapped the green button to answer.

“Speak of the devil,” he said. “Were your ears burning—”

“Boss, are you still with Barnhart?” Ennis’s voice sounded strained.

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m calling from the jet. I’ll be landing at Newark Liberty around midnight.”

Peroni felt a jolt of adrenaline. “What’s going on? You weren’t scheduled to come back until the weekend.”

“Something wrong?” Barnhart asked.

“We should really wait until I land—”

“Just spit it out!” Peroni snapped. “I can’t be bothered with the cloak-and-dagger shit anymore.”

“Are you sure?”

The tone of Ennis’s voice suddenly made him wonder if he was. But he’d come this far, and he truly was sick to death of subterfuge. He wasn’t built for it. Whatever the news was, he didn’t care if Barnhart knew it.

“Go ahead,” he said.

Ennis sighed in his ear. “All right. Matt Cummings was found dead in his apartment about two hours ago.”

The words hit Peroni like a thunderbolt. “What the hell happened?”

“One of his direct reports went to his place when he didn’t show up for work and wasn’t answering his phone. The guy knocked but didn’t get a response, so security called the local police. They broke in and found him on the floor. Looks like an oxycodone overdose.”

Peroni took a long, shaky breath. Cummings was young, in good shape, had a great career. What the hell was he doing messing with opioids? Was he an addict? Peroni tried to remember if he’d ever mentioned a family or significant other. He drew a blank.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Ennis said.

Peroni blanched. “Jesus, what could be worse than that?”

“There was a note.” He paused. “You sure you don’t want to wait till I land?”

“It’s too late now, Ennis. Just tell me.”

“All right, then. Cummings was our saboteur, Al.”

Another thunderbolt, only this one felt like it was going straight through him. Peroni’s throat went dry.

“He confessed to installing the port and the rootkit,” Ennis continued. “And…this is going to be hard to hear. I know you liked the guy.”

“Of course I did,” he said through numb lips. “He saved my life.”

“That’s the thing… He didn’t save your life.”

“What do you mean? Of course he did. He caught me when I fell from that scaffold.”

“No, boss. He sabotaged the strut on that scaffold, then suggested that you climb it.”

“What are you saying?” But Peroni feared he already knew the answer.

“There’s no easy way to say this. He tried to kill you, Al. And he could have killed our astronauts and our whole program if we hadn’t caught that rootkit.”

Peroni slumped into his wingback, the phone dropping from his ear. Barnhart quickly leaned forward, eyes wide with alarm. He picked up the phone and spoke into it. “Barnhart here. He’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone. “Al, are you all right? Do you need a doctor? There must be one in the club...”

“No doctor,” he said hoarsely. “But I’d appreciate some of that whiskey.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. His fundamental understanding of the world around him had just been changed in a way that he never could have predicted.

22

Get yer arse over here NOW.

Gideon Wagner erased the text as he stalked his way toward Johnna Smythe’s office, as if doing so would somehow erase the fact that she was furious with him. That was nothing new, and there was no way he was going to let her ruin his mood right now. Matt Cummings was dead, and Gideon was going to celebrate.

It had only been a few hours since he learned about Cummings’ suicide—from a Facebook post of all places. Gideon made it a habit to monitor the man’s social media to make sure he wasn’t leaking any information, particularly after learning of the cyberattack on One World. He was stunned to see a headshot of Cummings in his feed with the words Rest In Peace emblazoned across the bottom. Cummings had been tagged in the post by his sister, whose message simply read, Farewell to the best big brother, followed by links to suicide prevention resources.

It all added up to one less distraction, not to mention Salima losing any leverage she thought she had over him. He almost felt like whistling as he strode through the open door to his boss’s office. Smythe was on the terrace, looking out over the Los Angeles skyline.

“My arse is here,” he called. “What do you need, Johnna?”

She turned to face him with a blistering look. “Close the door.”

Gideon did as he was told. The old bird was obviously in a mood, so he’d best keep quiet and let her have her tantrum. Then he could get back to work.

Smythe didn’t offer him a seat as she sat down at her desk. “I just got off a call with Manfred Schuchardt,” she said, pointing to her desk phone. “Maybe you can see his teeth marks there on the handset.”

“What’s his problem?”

“Are you tryin’ to take the piss?” she snapped. “You know there are still people combing the Mojave for little bits of the multi-million-dollar rocket that blew up, yeah? And you’ve seen the folks with the dark suits and cheap haircuts roaming the halls asking all sorts of questions the last couple days?”

“It’s the cost of doing business, Johnna. You and Schuchardt know that. What does it have to do with me?”

“It has everything to do with you. You’re the one who convinced me we were ready to launch when we obviously weren’t. And you’re the one who did his damnedest to get Frank Sheehan’s death swept under the rug last year. If you’d just let the local coppers call in the FBI to begin with instead of pushing their bosses to close the case, the DOJ wouldn’t be here now looking for a friggin’ conspiracy.” She shook her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you had something to do with it.”

Gideon stiffened. “That’s beneath you, Johnna.”

The sudden flush in Smythe’s cheeks indicated she knew she stepped over the line. Her eyes darted nervously around the room, everywhere but at him.

“I’m getting desperate, Gideon, and it’s not just because Schuchardt is breathing down my neck. That meeting in Houston with Sloane was humiliating. He spent the entire time talking to Barnhart and Peroni and all but ignored me. I felt like I was the fucking secretary or something.” She turned to him, and he saw the bleak look in her eyes. “Beyond needs a win. I need a win, and I need it right now.”

He held back a grin. This meeting was going better than he’d dared to hope. Taking advantage of desperation was easy and effective.

“I have the win you need, Johnna. All you have to do is trust me.”

She shrugged. “Pitch away. I’m swingin’ at anything right now.”

“My team assures me we’re ready to test the upgraded prototype,” he lied.

“Seriously?” The sudden hope in her voice was almost pitiful. “Why didn’t I know this?”

“Just got the final report yesterday,” Gideon added. In for a penny, in for a pound. “It proves what I suspected all along: wind shear was to blame.” He tried to sound contrite. “The gusts that day turned out to be higher than forecasted. If we’d known that before launch, we would have shut it down.”

In truth, there was no report yet, and he had no evidence of wind shear. He did have proof that some gusts that day were as high as twenty-five percent above the forecast, so the story was plausible. Luckily for him, neither Johnna nor Preston had ever taken any interest in talking to Gideon’s team, preferring to deal directly with him. And he ruled his team with an iron fist.

“Another test launch isn’t exactly the win I’m looking for,” Johnna pointed out. “Even if it’s a perfect launch, what of it?”

Now was time for the clincher. “What if you could humiliate Philip Barnhart at the same time?” he asked with a grin.

“What?” Smythe’s eyes went wide. “How?”

“He’s been delaying the launch on StarSeeker’s latest prototype, which, knowing him, means he has doubts about it. You publicly challenge him to launch it on the same day as we do. With his ego, he wouldn’t possibly turn it down and risk losing face. Worst-case scenario is that both rockets stay up and the president sees that you can run with the big dogs.” His grin widened. “But if StarSeeker’s launch isn’t successful, I guarantee Sloane will see Beyond—and you—in a whole new light.”

She eyed him silently for several moments. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’ll stake my career on it.”

At that moment, the door to Smythe’s office burst open and Preston Smythe ambled in, wearing a seersucker suit and his usual mindless expression. “How ya goin?” he asked by way of greeting, then pulled a bottle of beer from the mini bar and plopped down on the sofa.

“Gideon just suggested a head-to-head launch challenge with Barnhart,” said Smythe. “Both companies launch on the same day.”

Preston appeared to chew that over as he chugged his beer. “Bet it’d be a hit with the TikTok crowd,” he said, belching. “Stream it live.”

“That’s actually a brilliant idea,” Gideon said, stunned.

“Why d’ya think I get the CEO bucks?”

Smythe clapped her hands together. “It’s settled, then. Gideon, make the launch happen. Darling, you’re in charge of the TikTok thing.”

Preston stood up and took her by the arm. “Right now, I’m in charge of lunch, love. There’s a new sushi place on Melrose.”

Gideon took that as his cue to beat a hasty retreat. He could hardly believe his luck as he rounded the corner and headed down the hall to his own office. When he reached the door, his cell phone pinged. He pulled it out as he closed the door behind him. Then he saw the message and almost fell over.

It was from Matt Cummings’ account.

His thumb moved on its own while he stared open-mouthed at the screen. There were four photos attached. Three of them were of Cummings’ dead body lying on the floor of what Gideon assumed was his Palermo apartment. The fourth was a shot of a handwritten note on a table. None of this had been made public, as far as he knew. He himself wouldn’t have known about the suicide if he hadn’t stumbled across the sister’s Facebook post.

Gideon swallowed hard and used his thumb and forefinger to expand the image of the note. He read it in disbelief. Cummings confessed to sabotaging the scaffold and implanting the rootkit that Ennis Wright had told them about during their meeting with Becker. It seemed that One World’s saboteur problem had miraculously taken care of itself and taken Gideon’s problem by association with it.

His relief was palpable—until he suddenly remembered that the message had come from the dead man’s own phone, days after he killed himself. Then came another ping from the same account. He opened it with horrified fascination. This time, it was only text, but the message was just as chilling as the photos.

You’re welcome, it read.

That barely had time to register before his office phone rang. Gideon picked it up without thinking. “Yes?”

“Mr. Wagner?” a female voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Special Agent Michelle Talbot with the task force. I haven’t been able to reach Johnna Smythe or her husband, and I’m told you’re next on the list.”

His stomach hitched. “Next on the list for what?”

“We just got a court order to exhume the body of Frank Sheehan,” she said. “I’m giving you notice that, depending on the results of a forensic exam, you may need to shut down your test stand for an indefinite period. And, of course, we ask that none of your staff leave the country until further notice.”

There was yet another ping, and Gideon looked down at a new message on his phone.

Will be in touch soon, it said. I believe we can be of further assistance to each other.

23

The stereo in Gideon’s living room was a meticulously restored 1950s-era cabinet by the iconic George Nelson, retrofitted with a state-of-the-art system controlled from his cellphone via Bluetooth. As soon as he crossed the threshold of his garage door, it kicked in with the first track from Chet Baker Sings, informing him that, while there were indeed love songs being written, none of them were for him.

He stepped down into the sunken living room and went to the sideboard to pour himself two fingers of seventy-year-old Asbach before collapsing onto the sofa. The day that had started out so well had gone steadily downhill, and his mind was racing. As he took his first sip of the brandy, he heard the house’s smart system come on. “Front door open,” said a polite female voice.

Gideon sighed. Maria, his housekeeper, often kept odd hours to accommodate his schedule, but 8:30 p.m. was too late to show up when she knew he wasn’t out of town.

“I’m home, Maria,” he called wearily. “Take the night off.”

A figure emerged from behind the freestanding fireplace that separated the living room from the foyer, and Gideon almost dropped his drink. Instead of a squat, elderly Latina, it was a man around his own age with olive skin and dark hair. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his pullover and jeans highlighted a powerful physique. Gideon thought the man could have passed for any number of ethnicities, from Italian to Middle Eastern.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, struggling to his feet. “How did you have the code for the door?”

“Giovanni Ferraro,” the man said with an American accent. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wagner.”

Gideon set his drink down and took a deep breath that did nothing to calm him. “You’re the one who messaged me earlier,” he said.

The man nodded. “You’re as smart as they say you are.”

“Smart enough to know your name is Italian for John Smith and clearly an alias. Again, who the hell are you?”

“A friend. Call me Mr. Smith if you like.”

“My friends don’t break into my home, Mr. Smith.”

Smith looked around the place. “It’s truly a work of art,” he said. “I took a little tour the first time I broke in to install our listening devices. Your security system is nowhere near as good as you think it is.”

Gideon felt as if he’d been hit with a live wire. The fatigue he’d felt only a minute ago was gone, replaced by surging adrenaline.

“House, call nine-one-one,” he said loudly. There was no response.

Smith gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wagner, but we have control of your house now. Besides, you really don’t want police here, believe me.” He motioned to the sofa. “Should we have a seat? There’s a lot to talk about.”

Gideon suddenly curled his hands into fists and took a darting step forward. He hadn’t practiced in years, but he earned his black belt in taekwondo when he was a teen.

Smith simply looked at him. “You really don’t want to do that,” he said evenly. “Believe me.”

Gideon did believe him. The man’s bearing practically screamed soldier. He lowered his hands, deflated. Smith nodded and sat in an armchair while Gideon all but fell onto the sofa.

“Much better,” Smith said. “I do apologize for the surveillance. It’s standard operating procedure.”

“For who? You keep saying ‘we.’ Who is ‘we’?”

“As I said, we’re friends, with common interests. That’s why we did you a favor.”

“You…you call that a favor?” Gideon blanched.

Smith shrugged. “We solved a problem for you. He could have implicated you in some ugly business, Mr. Wagner. You’re free of that now.”

Ugly business. How much did they know of it? “He left a suicide note.”

“It’s amazing what people will do when you show them surveillance photos of their family. Even unstable people like Cummings tend to become compliant. He was willing to confess to implanting the rootkit, even though that one was entirely ours.”

Gideon breathed deeply, willing his mind to think through the situation. If Smith had been there to hurt him, he would have done so already. And he couldn’t argue with the fact that his life would be easier without Cummings and the leverage he had. Even Salima couldn’t threaten him anymore. And his own hands were clean.

“Cummings had evidence,” he said. “On his phone.”

“The same phone I messaged you from,” Smith pointed out. “The police never found it.”

Gideon realized the leverage wasn’t gone; it was just in different hands now. Smarter hands. He didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

“Are you here for money, then?”

Smith shook his head. “Not from you. I just came here to introduce myself and have a chat. There’s something important we need to discuss.”

“Talk then,” Gideon sighed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“As you know, the FBI is exhuming Frank Sheehan’s body. Their examiners are going to find evidence of foul play.”

Another thunderbolt. “Jesus,” Gideon croaked. “You killed him?”

“Not directly, and not on purpose. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Wait a minute… Sheehan was killed on the Beyond launch stand. Are you saying he stumbled onto you there?”

Smith grinned. “Like I said, you’re a very smart man. It was an outside contractor we hired for the job, however.”

“What job?” But Gideon realized he knew the answer. “You were trying to sabotage Beyond’s engine test?”

“The plan has been reevaluated since then.” Smith sounded almost apologetic. “We’re focused on your competitors now, which is why we did you the favor, and why we’re reaching out to you. Like I said, our interests are aligned.”

Gideon took his glass of brandy from the table and downed it in a single gulp. It was clear to him now that Smith and his people were good. Getting access to One World’s closed system would have been incredibly difficult, and they were obviously behind the drone at Space Force HQ. Probably the explosion at the R&D facility at Wright-Patterson as well.

Judging by their methods, whoever hired them wasn’t concerned about collateral damage.

“Who do you work for?” he asked.

“You know I can’t tell you that. Just know that they’re very interested in you working with us.”

“You can’t buy me. Even if I wasn’t already wealthy, I’ve never been motivated by money.”

Smith grinned again. “We know that. We also know you’re on very thin ice with Johnna Smythe and her Beyond investors.”

“That’s not exactly a revelation to anyone who follows the industry.” Gideon sized him up. “What else do you think you know about me?”

Smith leaned back and rested one knee on the other as if settling in for a story. “Gideon Wagner,” he said. “Tested IQ of one hundred and eighty-two, graduated high school at age ten. Your parents decided to emigrate to the U.S. soon after, because you were teased mercilessly by older kids your entire childhood. You enrolled in Yale when you were twelve, only to find yourself ostracized there as well. Your intellect has always been your blessing and your curse, resulting in a number of neuroses. One of them is extreme competitiveness, which contributed to your deep hatred for Philip Barnhart.”

Gideon’s mouth hung open. He tried to find words and couldn’t.

Smith simply looked at him calmly. “My employer has tremendous resources, Mr. Wagner,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Smith sat patiently as Gideon pulled himself together. He was used to being the smartest, most perceptive person in the room. Facing someone who was able to downplay Gideon’s advantages was disconcerting.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “So what exactly do your employers want with me?”

“Again, we’re just looking at taking obstacles out of your way.”

“And how will we accomplish that?” Gideon asked.

“That’s what I came here to discuss.” Smith pulled a cell phone out the pocket of his jeans and called up an image on the screen. He placed it on the table in front of Gideon. It was a face Gideon recognized, though he couldn’t recall the name off the top of his head.

“His name is Richie Powell,” Smith said, as if reading his mind.

“A maintenance tech at Beyond for a while. If I remember right, he quit while he was on vacation last year. What of it?”

“He was the outside contractor.”

Gideon had thought he was past being shocked tonight. He was wrong.

“We hired him anonymously to sabotage the engine test,” Smith continued. “He accidentally killed Frank Sheehan and took off before he could finish the job. We haven’t been able to find him.” He paused. “That’s where you come in, Mr. Wagner.”

“Me?” Gideon swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”

“We want you to find Richie Powell,” Smith said. “He’s the key to sending your FBI visitors on their way and out of your business.”

“And do I get anything else in return?”

Smith grinned yet again. “A guaranteed win.”

24

Richie Powell crushed his empty can of Coors in one fist and stumbled his way into the kitchen for a fresh one. On the big screen TV in the living room, his Dodgers were losing to the Padres by three runs in the bottom of the eighth. Not that Richie really cared; he’d lost track of the game sometime around the fourth inning and the seventh beer.

Fresh can in hand, he collapsed on the tattered sofa again. The day was already gearing up to be a repeat of the day before it, and the week before that, and the month before that. Ever since he’d arrived in Great Falls almost a year ago, things rarely changed. Except the weather. The Montana winter had been a bitch on him, growing up a desert rat as he had.

He closed his eyes, and once again saw Frank Sheehan’s kind old face. His eyes snapped open, and he drained the new beer in two swallows. A couple more and he should be able to pass out until after dark and have some peace. Then he would order pizza from the place that was happy to let him order by phone and pay cash. The food wasn’t the best, but at least they didn’t hassle him to use the app like everyone else. Thinking of that, he reflexively pulled out the suitcase he kept under the sofa and opened it. The stack of used twenties and fifties was considerably smaller today than it had been when he first got to town, but there was still enough. His rent in the shitty little bungalow downtown used up $700 of it each month. The old lady who owned it gave him a break because he paid in cash, and she didn’t have to declare it to the tax man. Food and beer took up another $800. At that rate, he could live another three years or more on what he had left.

Three more years of this. And then what? The beer helped take the edge off the heartsickness that always followed that thought. A little bit, anyway.

Richie’s mind drifted back to digging the case out of a dumpster in Palm Springs. It had been behind the motel where he rented a room for three nights before the incident with Frank Sheehan. The people who hired him had told him to look like he was on vacation, making sure to pass by as many security cameras at the motel as possible. They left an old Jeep Cherokee with the key tucked under the wheel well for him to drive back to Mojave in the middle of the night. It was supposed to be easy: get in, cut open a small incision along a seam with a backpack plasma torch, and get back out again. Drive the two hours back to Palm Springs and finish his vacation. The people had already left him his $25,000 cash down payment in a backpack dropped into the trash of a park near his apartment in California City. The dumpster case contained the remaining $50,000 when the job was done.

All of it had been carefully planned out by the anonymous people who communicated solely by text. It should have been easy—and it would have been if Frank Sheehan hadn’t showed up and recognized him. Richie abandoned the plan as soon as he saw Sheehan’s body hit the concrete below the test stand. Dazed and panicked, he jumped in the Cherokee and drove back to Palm Springs, sure that the red-and-blue lights would appear in his rear-view mirror at any minute. But they didn’t. When he got to the motel, he found the dumpster in a nearby alley and unearthed the suitcase from under two feet of garbage. For a moment, he thought about getting in touch with his contact and telling them what happened, but immediately thought better of it. He’d just killed a man, and he had no idea who he’d be confessing to.

Instead, he threw the suitcase into the trunk of his Toyota, next to the backpack, and checked out. Then he drove from Mexicali to Vegas where he continued on I-15 until he hit Great Falls some thirty hours later. He stopped because he realized he had no idea where he was going. He stayed because it seemed like a good place to lose himself, and the last place anyone would look for him. He talked to his mother every couple of months on a prepaid cell phone, telling her he’d quit his job on a whim and was backpacking in the Montana Rockies to find himself. She forwarded what little mail he got to a post office box.

Richie had seen a couple of small news stories immediately after Sheehan’s body was discovered, saying police were investigating. It never amounted to anything. That was small comfort to him. Around that time, he had started keeping cubes of Coors in the fridge, with spares in the pantry. He found himself whiling away entire days wondering how the hell an anonymous text offering cash for easy work had led to him killing a man.

A knock at the door pulled Richie out of his partial stupor. The game on TV was over, replaced by the plays of the week. He got up and shuffled across the living room, never realizing that he hadn’t ordered the pizza yet as he pulled a crumpled twenty from his front pocket.

“Hey, man,” he muttered as he opened the door. “Keep th’ change.”

“Richie?”

He looked up, surprised to hear his name. The face in the doorway was familiar and yet not. Blonde, kind of preppy looking, expensive clothes. This guy didn’t deliver pizza. Ah, shit, was he a Mormon?

“Look, I’m not into that stuff…”

“Richie, it’s Gideon Wagner.”

His eyes swam while his brain tried to make the connection. Gideon. That’s a weird name—

“Oh shit,” he breathed as realization set in.

“Can I come in?” Gideon asked.

Richie was still trying to process things as he stumbled back, allowing Gideon to walk into the living room. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and gave the place a once-over, wrinkling his nose.

“I…I dunno…” Richie mumbled. He straightened up, trying to will himself back into sobriety. “Howja …find me...”

“Your mother gave me your post office box address,” Gideon said. “I told her that you hadn’t transferred your 401k when you quit, so I have a check for you. It was easy enough to track you down after that.”

“A check?” Richie frowned. “How much izzit?”

“It was a ruse to find you.” Gideon gripped his shoulder. “I know about you and Frank Sheehan, Richie. It’s time to come home and own up to what you did.”

Richie felt the sudden urge to vomit. He raced for the bathroom and lifted the toilet seat, but it was too late. A stream of beer foam and bile flowed from his mouth all over the floor. With it came shuddering sobs that forced him to his knees. He covered his eyes with his hands and moaned.

“M’sorry,” he wailed. “M’so sorry…”

Gideon appeared in the bathroom doorway, looking down at him. “That’s disgusting. Richie. You need to get yourself together. Come on, give me your hand.”

Suddenly, there was a man behind Gideon in the hallway. He had dark hair and a beard and looked to Richie like a Mexican fella he’d once known.

“No,” said the newcomer.

“Christ!” Gideon jumped like he’d been hit by a cattle prod. “You said you were going to wait in the car!” he cried, spinning to face the man.

“Move, I have to get in. This is actually perfect.”

The bearded man pushed Gideon out of the way and was suddenly kneeling over Richie. He wore rubber gloves. Why was he wearing rubber gloves?

“What are you doing?” Gideon demanded. “You said we were taking him back to Mojave!”

“I lied,” the man said calmly. “I can’t have him testifying about the anonymous source of cash under his couch. Speaking of that, go get it while I do this.”

Gideon looked furious. “I didn’t agree to this.”

“You’re going to discover a series of long-lost personal emails between Richie here and Frank Sheehan.” The man’s gloved hands were holding Richie’s head now. “There was bad blood. Something about Frank passing him over for a promotion. Poor Richie just snapped and followed him out to the test stand that night. You’ll turn them over to Special Agent Talbot, and they’ll add it to the physical evidence they gather from Sheehan’s corpse. Eventually, the FBI will track Richie here and find him on his bathroom floor in a puddle of the vomit that choked him to death.”

“What are you doing?” Richie asked as the man turned him to lie on his back.

“Just making you comfortable.” The man’s hands disappeared from Richie’s view. A few moments later, a needle entered under his right thumbnail.

“Ow,” Richie murmured.

“What the hell was that?” Gideon asked.

“Insulin. Bùyòng dānxīn,” the man said in English and added in Chinese, don’t worry.

Richie’s eyelids suddenly felt as heavy as sandbags. His head dropped until the back of his skull was resting on the cool floor tile. The fuzz in his brain was suddenly much thicker, wrapping around his consciousness like a warm blanket.

His last coherent thought was three simple words: Frank, I’m sorry.

25

“Salima?”

“Hm?” She looked around the conference table as if seeing it for the first time. Five faces gazed back at her expectantly. They belonged to Clay Newton and the four NASA alumni she’d poached in Alabama: Amy Olmstead, Judi Peralta, Patrick Mayer, and Judd Kirk.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I lost my train of thought. Where were we?”

The meeting was an update on research projects for the next phase of StarSeeker’s Mars mission, and under ordinary circumstances, it would have been riveting. Clay and the former Marshall Space Flight Center crew were gelling better than Salima could have hoped, thanks in no small part to the bonus incentive program created by Barnhart himself that included company shares. Their work was proceeding at breakneck speed, and Mars had never felt closer than it did right then.

But all Salima could focus on was Matt Cummings. The news of his suicide had shaken her to the core, leaving her questioning everything she believed she knew about him—and herself. Hot shame filled her whenever she thought about recruiting him to help sabotage the One World launch the previous year. It was arrogant of her to think she could read him so easily, that his deep jealousy of Ennis Wright was just a simple character flaw she could manipulate. The suicide note had hit her like a physical blow. Finding out he was capable of murder had robbed her of sleep every night since Ennis Wright broke the news to her weeks ago.

And you were his accomplice, her inner voice derided. Salima’s stomach churned at the thought of how close Cummings had come to killing Al Peroni, and to taking over the orbital module and possibly killing its crew. It drowned out any relief she might have felt at knowing he was dead and couldn’t do any more damage, and that she couldn’t be implicated in any of it.

“Maybe we should reschedule this,” Clay said, looking concerned. He turned to the others. “There’s a lot going on outside the walls of our labs, and most of it falls on Salima’s shoulders.”

She felt a wave of affection for her chief engineer; he was the rock she could always hold onto in a storm. The thought of how he’d react if he ever learned of her connection to Cummings stabbed her like a Kabar.

“Thank you, Clay,” she said in a small voice, glancing at her phone calendar. “Can we do Thursday?”

“Let’s move it to next week. I want your full attention on this.” He dropped a wink. “After all, my bonus depends on it.”

Salima gave him a wan smile and apologized to them all as they left the meeting room. On the way back to her office, she stopped and told her assistant, Tina, to cancel the rest of the day’s meetings.

“Everything okay?” Tina asked.

“Sure,” she lied. “I’m behind on a lot of stuff and that’s distracting. I just need to catch up. I’ll definitely be good by next week.”

As the door to her office closed behind her, Salima collapsed into her chair, fighting to simply breathe. She glanced at the coffeemaker on the sideboard before quickly deciding that wouldn’t cut it. Instead, she pulled an open bottle of Hennessy from the bottom drawer of her desk, a leftover from the previous year’s office Christmas party.

You really think that’s going to help? her inner voice sneered. The thought of being miserable and drunk was enough to make her place the bottle back in the drawer.

The sudden warble of her desk phone startled her back to the here and now. She glanced at the caller ID and saw her boss’s name. She took a second to compose herself before answering.

“Philip,” she said in what she hoped was a normal tone. “What’s up?”

“I sent you a link. Call it up on your tablet, starting at the two-minute mark.”

She did as she was told. It was a video file from one of the national news networks. The host, a woman named Hannah Boyd, was sitting across the table from a smiling Johnna Smythe. The billionaire’s bright magenta pantsuit was an assault on Salima’s eyes.

“So what’s next for Beyond?” asked the host. “It’s been an unpredictable eighteen months, to say the least.”

Smythe threw back her head and roared with laughter. “That’s one way to put it, love!” she said. “We’ve been up and down more often than a whore’s drawers.”

Boyd cleared her throat, no doubt thinking of the network’s censors, and looked at the camera. “For those just joining us, the FBI announced earlier this week that the investigation into the mysterious death of Beyond employee Frank Sheehan has been officially closed after the body of Richard James Powell was discovered in Great Falls, Montana, last month. DNA evidence from Sheehan’s body implicated Powell, who was a technician at Beyond before quitting and disappearing shortly after Sheehan’s body was found. According to officials, Powell and Sheehan had exchanged angry emails prior to the attack at the company’s testing site in Mojave. Powell’s mother, Cynthia, told investigators her son had relocated to Montana shortly after resigning, which led them to his home in Great Falls. In a bizarre twist, FBI agents discovered Powell dead on the bathroom floor, having apparently choked on his own vomit after drinking heavily.”

Smythe’s expression turned somber. “I’m just so glad that Frank’s family can finally have the closure they deserve,” she said. “He was a wonderful man, and we all miss him. He would have wanted us to continue with the mission to Mars. He believed in the mission.”

“Of course, that wasn’t the only issue Beyond has had to deal with,” Boyd replied. “The failure of your most recent test launch was well documented, but I suppose that’s to be expected in the aerospace industry. No one can win every time.”

“Wish my investors felt the same as you,” Smythe said, grinning again. “But seriously, you’re right, of course. You have to accept your failures—all of them—and learn from them. That’s how society evolves.”

Way to steal Philip Barnhart’s philosophy. Salima frowned at the screen, wondering why her boss had her watching a puff piece about one of their competitors. Smythe had been all over the news cycle since the FBI closed the file on Sheehan.

“But you can’t let failure keep you down,” Smythe continued. “That’s why I’m here today.”

Hannah Boyd nodded. “You teased our producers that you had an exclusive announcement. Are you ready to let the cat out of the bag?”

“I sure am, and you’re gonna love it.” Smythe turned her head so she was facing the camera. “I hereby issue a direct challenge to me mate Philip Barnhart and the good folks at StarSeeker.”

The host raised her eyebrows. “Challenging the richest man in the world? Well, now. Tell us more.”

“It’s dead simple, actually: a head-to-head test launch on the same day, streamed live around the world.”

Salima’s mouth dropped open. “She can’t be serious.”

“She is,” Barnhart said. “Keep watching.”

Smythe went on to explain that she was eager to use the Mojave test stand again now that the investigation had wrapped up. Sending up two rockets at once would tax the military’s tracking assets, which always followed civilian launches, but she said Arlen Becker believed it was possible. “I’ve learned over the years that anything’s possible if you throw enough money at it,” she said with a laugh.

“What the hell does she think she’s doing?” Salima asked. “She can’t possibly expect you to agree to this.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “We’re absolutely doing it. You yourself said the latest X9 is ready to test.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. Between the Sheehan investigation and the problems over at One World, we need to generate some good press and a ton of public interest. You saw the crowds in Houston last month. We can do that on an international level with this challenge.”

She swallowed hard. “Philip, the last time we did that—” The memory of the explosion was still fresh in her mind, and probably would be for every launch far into the future.

“The last time we did it, we learned from it.” His voice softened. “I know what you’re thinking, Salima, but you need to remember our talk. Always move forward. Time is of the essence.”

“What about Beyond? Do you really believe they’re ready for another launch?”

“I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. Johnna’s a big girl, let her deal with the consequences of her actions. As long as we’re ready, that’s all that matters to me.”

She sighed. “You’re the boss.”

“No, you’re the boss,” he countered. “But you’re smart enough to listen to the sage advice of the richest man in the world.”

Salima surprised herself by laughing. “Are you sure about that? Peroni might be ahead of you today.”

“I’m not about to contradict the renowned journalist Hannah Boyd.”

“All right, then,” she said. “I’ll have Chris Butler set up an interview so you can officially accept the challenge. And seriously, I’ll do everything in my power to make this one successful. I appreciate your confidence, Philip.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Now stop watching videos on your tablet and get to work. You have a company to run.”

She snorted, shook her head, and hung up, amazed at how her mood had changed in the matter of just a few minutes. But it didn’t last as she realized that this challenge would put her and Gideon Wagner in each other’s paths once again. This time, she would have to eat a heaping serving of crow—after all, she’d accused him of a lot of things that were dispelled by Matthew Cummings’ suicide note. She knew damn well that Gideon would be an utter prick about it.

That’s life in the big leagues, she told herself as she picked up the phone to call Chris Butler. Time to get used to it.

26

Johnna Smythe’s easy smile was as much a part of her persona as her eccentric sense of style and boisterous personality, but the smile faded as the Beyond, Inc. rocket shredded itself on the huge projection screen on the blistering tarmac of Space Force HQ outside Houston.

Salima felt instant sympathy for the woman, despite their professional rivalry. She of all people understood what Smythe had to be going through. The StarSeeker X9-D and Beyond’s new Genesis prototype had lifted off simultaneously from their respective test stands in Reno and Mojave, both climbing steadily through the first stage until Genesis exploded over the desert some two minutes in. There was a collective gasp among the massive crowd watching live, followed by a long, stunned silence. It was as if a thundercloud arrived and unleashed torrential rains, instantly casting a pall over the festivities while everyone watched the fallout in real time.

Through it all, Smythe maintained a neutral expression. But from her vantage point some twenty feet away, Salima could see the bleak look in her eyes. Smythe clutched her husband’s hand so hard that he grimaced, while a handful of Beyond board members began a furious conversation in hushed tones nearby. Arlen Becker, who had been the honorary “referee” of the event, appeared somewhat embarrassed as he stood between the Beyond and StarSeeker camps on the VIP dais, clasping his hands behind his back and steadfastly avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Salima’s gaze landed on Gideon Wagner’s wounded expression, and she felt that same twinge of sympathy. Two months ago, the idea of feeling anything but contempt for the man would have been laughable. But ever since they’d met to discuss Matt Cummings’s death a few weeks earlier, their relationship seemed to be on a whole different footing. Gideon immediately forgave her accusations that day in Compton and admitted to his own paranoia. He suggested the two of them start over from scratch as friendly rivals, which had been the prevailing mood leading up to today’s contest.

“Well, that’s that,” Philip Barnhart said, watching his rocket continue its journey to space. He was seated next to Salima under a portable awning, eyes still on the right side of the split-screen projection that showed the X9 climbing while the Genesis was nothing more than a cloud of debris raining to the desert floor. “Get ready for some new duties, young lady.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

Just then, Smythe and Preston crossed the dais toward them, pausing briefly to shake Becker’s hand along the way. Johnna had regained her smile and wore it as if it were carved from marble. On the tarmac in front of the dais, the reporters with their cameras were already starting to gather. Meanwhile, Barnhart rose to greet the Smythes, and he stunned Salima by pulling Johnna into a hug. In all the time she’d known him, the billionaire had never hugged anyone.

“That better be a bankroll in your pocket, Phil-o,” Smythe said with surprising good humor.

“You know it is,” Barnhart said, beaming.

Preston reached out to Salima in an awkward hug of his own. “Good job, Sally. Y’know, CEO to CEO, I mean.”

The whole thing felt utterly surreal to Salima. On the screen, the X9 was on the verge of reaching orbit. To her right, the reporters were already trying to climb the dais, but Becker’s security detail slowed them down.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Smythe told Barnhart. “I figured I could count on you, Phil. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “It’s what’s best for everyone,” he said. “I mean that literally.”

Smythe chuckled and gave him another quick hug. By that point, the media had made it past security and were headed toward them. The first ones to arrive went straight for Smythe while Barnhart quickly bowed out and escorted Salima a respectable distance away. Cameras flashed in Smythe’s eyes and microphones bobbed under her nose.

“We don’t have a lot of time before they come for me,” Barnhart said. “What’s my message?”

Salima, still unsure of what was going on between him and Smythe, considered the question. Chris Butler had come up with a statement for every scenario. In this event, it was Barnhart’s typical line about the veracity of failure, that a single test doesn’t make or break a company, yadda, yadda, yadda. But right now, in the moment, it didn’t seem quite genuine enough.

“The message is that you know how Johnna feels,” she said. “You’ve been there, and it sucks. But life goes on, and so does the race for Mars.”

Barnhart peered at her for a moment, then smiled. “Well done. I think you may have finally understood me, after all.”

He stepped past her just as the first wave of reporters arrived. Salima took the opportunity to slip away and find Gideon, who was standing near Smythe and Preston. His expression had brightened somewhat, but she thought she saw something looming behind his eyes, like a storm on the horizon.

“For whatever it’s worth, I know how you feel,” she said, hoping it didn’t sound trite.

Gideon nodded. “Wish I’d learned your lesson about not inviting every media source in the world to follow a launch. I suppose I should be thankful Ennis wasn’t here to witness it in person. I’d never hear the end of it.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes while Smythe and Barnhart did their interviews. Finally, Smythe extricated herself from the reporters and strolled over to where they were standing, still sporting a wide grin. Preston was close behind, followed by Barnhart. She acknowledged Salima, then turned to look Gideon in the eye.

“Not exactly what we wanted, was it?” she asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “It was my fault.”

“You’re fucking well right it was,” she said, still smiling. “Pack up your desk and be gone before the end of day.”

Salima’s cheeks grew warm with sudden embarrassment. Something like that was supposed to be done behind closed doors, not out in the open. Gideon frowned, confused.

“You firing me?”

“I always said you were a genius.” Smythe’s eyes were hard as diamond. “You told me flat out that you were staking your career on this launch. And you lost. I’ll pay out your contract, of course, but you don’t need to keep showing up to the office. It’d just make everyone uncomfortable.”

Gideon blinked, looking from Smythe to Barnhart and back to Smythe. For just a moment, Salima thought he might launch into a fiery rant, as he’d been known to do. Instead, he just looked at his feet and nodded.

“I understand,” he said. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Smythe surprised Salima again by reaching out and stroking Gideon’s arm. “It’s for the best, Giddy. Time for a new direction.”

“I’ll miss ya, mate.” Preston shook Gideon’s hand. “You were a great second-in-command.”

A muscle twitched in Gideon’s jaw at that, but he simply nodded. Salima couldn’t help but feel sorry for him—everything that was happening right now was exactly what she feared would happen to her after the failed StarSeeker launch. She wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy, and she no longer thought of him as that.

Barnhart watched it all with keen interest. He extended his own hand to Gideon, who, to Salima’s surprise, accepted it.

“No hard feelings,” Barnhart said. “I wish you all the best in whatever you do next. With a mind like yours, the world really is your oyster.”

Gideon nodded. “I appreciate that, Philip, though I’m not sure I share your confidence. I doubt many potential employers will come knocking after an epic fail like this.”

“Then make your own opportunities,” Barnhart said. “Stop working for other people and work for yourself.”

With that, he left Gideon and the Smythes and motioned for Salima to follow. When they were out of earshot, she said, “You constantly surprise me.”

“Grudges are counterproductive,” he replied. “I truly hope he gets some help after this. Gideon has the potential to change the world if he can just get past his personal issues. If not…” He shrugged. “Then I feel sorry for him. In any case, we have work to do.”

“So you said. What did you mean by new ‘new duties’ earlier? In case you hadn’t noticed, I already have a lot on my plate.”

Barnhart held up his hand to stop her as they came within earshot of Arlen Becker. “I’m buying Beyond’s assets,” he said distractedly. “I thought that was obvious.”

Salima’s eyes popped. “What?”

“I knew this was Johnna’s last shot, and so did she. Beyond has never been a real contender for Mars, and she finally acknowledged it.”

“I was there for your whole exchange with her,” Salima hissed, trying to keep her voice down. “I didn’t pick up on any of that!”

Barnhart glowered and held up a hand to silence her. “You weren’t supposed to. Now be quiet.”

Before she could give it another thought, she overheard Becker talking fiercely into his cell phone.

“Christ on a crutch!” he snapped. He took a deep breath to calm down. “Have you checked in with NORAD?” A pause. “All right, get the intel together and get it over to the joint chiefs. POTUS will have to be briefed.” Another pause. “I want all command in my office in thirty. We have to bring that thing down now.” He ended the call with one hand and curled the other into a fist. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

That was when he realized he wasn’t alone. Becker’s lips curled into an angry snarl when he saw Salima and Barnhart standing nearby.

“You should forget you heard that,” he said tersely.

Barnhart closed the gap between them until he was right next to Becker. “General,” he said quietly, “with all due respect, I would hope you could trust my discretion at this point. Does this have something to do with the Genesis’s rapid, unexpected disassembly?”

Becker eyed him intensely for a moment before finally shaking his head. He looked around to make sure no one else was nearby. “A surveillance balloon has been spotted straight above us,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “Picked up by the equipment tracking the launches.”

“Good lord,” Barnhart breathed. “Can you bring it down?”

“I honestly don’t know. It’s incredibly difficult to control an interdiction of this sort when it’s above a populated area. We don’t have the resources for a surgical strike.”

Barnhart cast a glance at Salima, and she immediately knew what he was thinking. She nodded her agreement.

“General,” he said, “I think we may be able to help.”

27

The bottle of Asbach Uralt lay empty on the floor of Gideon Wagner’s living room. He’d bought it two years ago for a dinner party he hosted, and it had sat almost full in his liquor cabinet ever since—until today. Gideon sat slumped on the sofa, his red eyes not focused on anything in particular. For a moment, he wondered if this was the kind of drunken fog in which Richie Powell had spent the last year of his life before he died.

Before Smith killed him, he corrected himself. While you stood and watched.

As if on cue, the house’s smart system told him the front door was open. Maria was still on vacation—Gideon had given her two months off to go see her daughter in Las Cruces—so he knew it could only be one person who just entered.

“Get out,” he muttered as the man called Smith emerged from behind the fireplace.

Smith arched an eyebrow at the empty bottle as he sat down. “I didn’t take you for a drinker.”

“I didn’t either,” Gideon said, glaring through bleary eyes. “Then again, I didn’t think today would be the worst day of my life, either.”

“Why do you say that?” Smith crossed his legs and leaned back like a therapist listening to Gideon’s imagined slights.

Gideon scowled at Smith. The bastard actually had the nerve to act as if he didn’t know what Gideon was talking about. If he wasn’t already drunk, he might have made the mistake of jumping up and taking a swing at his unwelcome visitor.

“I was fired after a very public humiliation,” he said. “As if you didn’t already know.”

“Of course you were.” Smith shrugged one shoulder and looked indifferent. “Your Genesis rocket blew apart while the whole world was watching. You convinced your employer to launch it even though your own engineers were telling you it wasn’t ready. Did you honestly expect to go back to work tomorrow as if nothing happened?”

Unbelievable. “You promised me a guaranteed win,” Gideon said, gaping at him. “You fucked me, Smith. You fucked me royally.”

Smith remained unperturbed. “You seem to have some trouble with strategic thinking for someone with your claimed intellect,” he said mildly. “Today’s outcome was never in doubt. Did you really think the win I was talking about was sabotaging the X9? Don’t be obtuse.”

Gideon bristled at the slight. Who did this man think he was talking to? “What the hell else was I supposed to assume?” he growled.

“That you would be fired.” Smith leaned forward and fixed his gaze on Gideon’s. “We’ve been observing you for months, Mr. Wagner. I chose to approach you right after you set up the competition with StarSeeker precisely because we recognized you were at a low point. Your idea was desperate and stupid, and Johnna Smythe knew it. Deep down, she was glad to have the opportunity to back out of the race for Mars today, though she’d never admit it publicly.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Gideon said.

“We’ve been observing her for longer than we’ve been observing you,” Smith said. “I told you before, our resources are vast. Believe me, Smythe saw you as a scapegoat from the moment you suggested the head-to-head launch. Sometimes, the only way to extricate yourself from an impossible situation is to blow up everything around you. You gave her, and yourself, that opportunity.”

That hit Gideon like a slap. “What exactly are you saying?”

Smith stood and went to the stereo cabinet, turning up Miles Davis’s Kind of Blues several notches. Gideon watched in mild horror as he sat down next to him on the sofa, leaning in close enough for the two to kiss.

“I’m saying we predicted everything that happened today,” Smith said softly. “And we helped it along. You’re now free from the impending failure of Beyond, Inc. just like Smythe but in a different way. You’re much more useful to us as a free agent.”

“I don’t understand,” Gideon breathed. The brandy made it hard to concentrate. “What good is an unemployed engineer?”

“You’re much more than that, Mr. Wagner. Have you been brushing up on your Russian as I asked?”

“I don’t need to; I’m fairly fluent.” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Smith grinned. “Because there’s an opportunity on the horizon that you never expected. Things are about to get much more interesting for you.”

28

“Five thousand meters and closing,” the young man behind the portable control console said. “All systems nominal.”

With his shoulder-length hair and neck tattoos, Arnie Jeong was the polar opposite of the type Arlen Becker liked to see at the recruitment centers, but at the moment, the general was more than grateful for the StarSeeker employee’s abilities. He was also grateful for his own First Lieutenant Marla Roth, who sat next to Jeong at the controls to observe and assist, if necessary. Together, they were piloting the most advanced civilian drone in the world toward the huge, high-flying balloon that had consumed all of Becker’s attention for the better part of the last twelve hours.

The console had been set up in Becker’s own office for security reasons. Aside from Jeong, Roth, and himself, the only other occupants were his security consultants Jim Koski, Jason Wolfe, Adam Robertson, and Philip Barnhart himself. Even Becker’s aide-de-camp had been left in the foyer to keep away any prying eyes or ears.

“Lieutenant Roth seems quite intense,” Barnhart said to him quietly. “I think she’s making Arnie nervous.”

“Well, she’s used to remote-piloting a Boeing X37B through orbit,” Becker said, keeping his eyes on the display screen. “Although if you repeat that, I’ll be forced to deny it.”

“One thousand meters,” Jeong said. “Deploying arms.”

Becker took a few steps closer to the console as the StarSeeker drone’s robotic tentacles extended in front of the camera lens. In the distance, the spy balloon looked no bigger than a child’s version that had been left to sail into the sky, despite the fact it was almost two hundred feet tall.

“This is why we couldn’t use one of our own?” asked Jim Koski. “The arms?”

“I told you, we can’t risk shooting it down,” Becker said. “The equipment on that thing is big and heavy. It could cause a lot of collateral damage on the ground under the right conditions.”

“Plus, our MQ-1 Predators are designed to fly ten thousand feet below this one and deliver missiles,” Roth pointed out. “And they can’t hover. If not for StarSeeker, we would have had to wait a lot longer to bring this target down.”

“And each passing minute increases the chances that it would be spotted,” Becker said. “That’s a public relations nightmare we do not want.”

He glanced at Barnhart, wondering whether the billionaire would take the opportunity to remind everyone that it was his generosity that allowed this operation to take place. Even if a military drone had been able to down the balloon, the odds of recovering any useful intel would be slim.

Barnhart didn’t take the bait. Instead, he continued to watch the scene play out with clear fascination, no doubt excited to have a role in a major covert operation. The drone’s speed dropped as it closed in on its target, until fewer than a hundred meters remained. When it reached fifty meters, Jeong handed over the pilot controls to Roth and took over the robot arms. Becker saw a trickle of sweat run from behind the man’s ear to his jawline, while Roth was cool and methodical as always.

All eyes were on the screen as the glossy black arms extended toward the white material of the balloon. Jeong tested the pincers at the end, opening and closing them several times as the drone matched the airspeed of the balloon, roughly twenty-five knots. At this distance, the apparatus under the balloon was clearly visible: a long, black box that looked a bit like a casket, covered in antennae and other sensor equipment.

“Yeah, that’s a spy balloon,” Adam Robertson said sardonically. “Just in case anyone had any lingering doubts.”

“Ten meters,” Roth said as the balloon filled the screen. “Five.”

Two seconds later, the pincers were digging divots into the material of the balloon. “I recommend tearing it open,” Roth said. “This thing is just an oversized helium balloon, except it’s made of Mylar, not latex, so it won’t pop. It should just deflate.”

“It’s not quite that easy,” Jeong snipped. “Have you ever tried to grab a beach ball with your fingers?”

“It’s not exactly easy on my end,” Roth pointed out. “The drone’s turbines are actually pushing the damn thing away from us.”

After several tense minutes of silence, Jeong finally snared a length of the Mylar in one pincer. The other pincer managed to grip a fold created by the first. “Uh, orders?” he asked tentatively. “I mean, you know, officially?”

Becker peered at the screen. “Open it like a Christmas present, Mr. Jeong.”

“Fucking Russians,” Wolfe grumbled as he sipped his scotch.

Fourteen hours later and only Wolfe, Koski, Robertson, Becker, and Barnhart remained. Roth was back at her regular duties and Jeong was on Barnhart’s jet to Los Angeles with the portable console, having flown the drone back to its base at the Hangar in Reno. The balloon and its payload were currently locked away inside a secret storage room in a remote corner of Space Force HQ, with two guards posted around the clock. Only Becker and his private security team had seen the surveillance equipment up close. The files had been downloaded and were currently being decrypted by a top group of subcontractors, but it was clear who was behind the balloon.

“I don’t get it,” Koski said. “I mean, did they really think you wouldn’t see it just because you were monitoring simultaneous launches?”

Robertson shrugged. “Maybe they just don’t give a shit anymore.”

Becker considered that. The trio had eventually managed to track the surveillance drone that was watching his office back to a Russian source. It stood to reason that whichever intelligence agency was behind it knew they’d been uncovered. Their president had a predilection for wagging his private parts at the west lately, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

“Do you mind if I offer an opinion, General?” Barnhart suggested. There was a deference in his tone that Becker had never heard before.

“Go right ahead,” Becker replied. “That’s why I gave you ad hoc security clearance for this. I’m sure I’ll be answering to President Sloane for it as soon as I let him know what we’ve been up to for the last thirty-six hours. Either he’ll give you an off-the-books commendation for your help, or he’ll fire me.”

Barnhart nodded. “I appreciate that, General. For what it’s worth, I believe Mr. Robertson is right. The Russians are mocking the Space Force.”

“And what do you base that on?” he asked, bristling.

“It’s clear that they’re behind at least some of the sabotage efforts of the past eighteen months. And it’s quite possible that whichever agency is doing it, likely under the direction of the Foreign Intelligence Service, also set up the cyberattack on One World, precisely to force Al Peroni into the waiting arms of Roscosmos.”

Wolfe frowned. “I thought a One World employee was behind that attack.”

“You know about that?” asked Barnhart.

“It’s their job to know things,” Becker said. “And I’m glad for that, because Mr. Peroni and Mr. Wright weren’t exactly forthcoming about the matter.”

Barnhart arched an eyebrow. “Why would they be? They’re running a private enterprise. It’s not their job to keep the government in the loop on their internal matters, especially since they are a foreign company. They don’t owe you anything.”

“If you recall, I made sure to keep you in the loop about the drone surveillance on our HQ.”

“For all the good it did.”

“What’s your point?” Becker asked, growing agitated.

“My point is that Space Force has done nothing to prevent these acts of espionage and sabotage, even against your own former R-and-D facility as well as this new headquarters. For all your talk about the importance of the space race, I see very little coming out of the Space Force that’s of any use.”

Becker was growing angry, but he couldn’t exactly show it, given the enormous favor the billionaire just extended. “Like you said, it’s a private enterprise,” he said. “Besides, intelligence work is outside of our mandate. And there’s no actual evidence to back up your suppositions.”

Barnhart took a sip of his scotch and scanned the other four men as if to size them up. It was an annoying habit of his, but Becker knew better than to second-guess the man. He would just have to keep his temper in check and let Barnhart have his say. After all, he’d opened the door for it.

“That might lead one to ask what exactly is the Space Force mandate,” Barnhart said. “Let’s not mince words, General. We both know it isn’t space exploration. Your so-called Prometheus Project is comically behind the private sector. As for a military branch, you just proved woefully unprepared for the events of the last twenty-four hours. If not for your personal security contractors and my company’s technology, you’d have no idea how deeply the Russians may have infiltrated U.S. space efforts.”

Becker worked hard to keep his expression stony. The others were casting glances at each other, clearly aware of the tension in the room. “And what would you suggest?” he asked tightly.

“If you chase after two rabbits, you won’t catch either one.” Barnhart’s voice was steady, philosophical even. “Space Force can’t explore space and protect it. I suggest you convince President Sloane and Senator Kane that the United States, and the world itself, would benefit from a Space Force that offers protection and logistical support to those who actually have a shot at reaching Mars.”

“Meaning you, I assume?”

Barnhart frowned. “This isn’t a dick-measuring contest, General. It’s the future of the human race, and I think we learned today that we don’t have the luxury of navel-gazing. Time is of the essence, particularly now that we know at least one enemy is actively interfering. StarSeeker is enhancing an already aggressive agenda to speed up the race to Mars, and One World is following suit.”

“What about Beyond?” asked Koski.

“StarSeeker is in the process of acquiring its assets,” Barnhart said. “I ask that you keep that to yourselves, just as I’m doing with everything I’ve seen and heard here today.”

Becker knocked back the last of his drink in a vain attempt to quiet his thoughts. As much as he wanted to argue with Barnhart, he couldn’t. Everything the man had just laid out was absolutely true. If the U.S. government were truly serious about the space race, there would be people living on the moon by now. And it wasn’t just rampant government inefficiency. He knew better than anyone that the nature of the budgetary cycle meant all your plans could be upended every two years, depending on who was in power after each election. He was keenly aware of the fact that he himself could be ousted if Patrick Sloane wasn’t re-elected.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll take your words under advisement. But I have to say—”

At that moment, Koski’s tablet chimed. He flipped it open and said, “Sorry, it’s our subcontractor. I told them not to contact us unless they had something that couldn’t wait.”

“They’re all former NSA,” Wolfe pointed out. “Cost us a fortune.”

“Go ahead,” Becker said, leaning forward. “This is sooner than I expected.”

Koski decrypted the message and scanned through it. Judging by the time it took, Becker assumed it was lengthy. When Koski was done, he let out a long breath and ran his hand over what remained of his hair. “Whoa,” he said quietly.

“Spit it out, man,” Becker urged. “What is it that can’t wait?”

“They managed to track the server that the balloon’s array was uploading to,” said Koski. “It looks like Mr. Barnhart was right. It’s got SRV code written all over it.”

Barnhart’s eyebrows went up. “Fascinating.”

“That’s not the half of it,” said Robertson, leaning over on the sofa and reading the text for himself. “They were able to hack the server and download a shit-ton of SRV intelligence data.”

“Good lord,” Becker breathed, sitting bolt upright. “That’s incredible.”

Koski looked him in the eye. “That’s still not the half of it, Arlen. They’re reaching out because of a specific piece of intelligence. I’ll let you read it for yourself.”

Becker took the tablet and began to read. By the time he was six paragraphs in, he knew that, exhausted as he was, he wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.

Worse, he would be forced to admit that Philip Barnhart was right.

29

“Your call came as a bit of a surprise,” Al Peroni said, motioning for his guest to take a seat. “As the young people say, I didn’t have ‘Gideon Wagner job interview’ on my bingo card for this month.”

Gideon surprised him with an easy laugh. “Hey, you’re the only one in the Space Race Big Three who hasn’t fired me yet.”

Peroni smiled politely as he peered at Beyond, Inc.’s former chief engineer across the big antique desk in his Palermo office. Under other circumstances, he probably would have laughed along, maybe even taken Gideon for lunch. At that moment, however, he was still processing the top-secret information that Philip Barnhart had passed along to him—no doubt with Arlen Becker’s tacit approval—a few days before. It kept Peroni from being his usual genial self.

“I wouldn’t call it a job interview,” Gideon said. “I mean, sure, I’m hunting for work, obviously, but I didn’t come looking for a position with One World.” He flashed a half-smile. “Ennis would never agree to that, particularly after my parting piece of work with Beyond.”

Particularly since it was a carbon copy of the stunt that got you fired from StarSeeker, Peroni thought. “You obviously know Ennis well,” he said. “So, then I have to ask: what exactly did bring you here today, less than a month after you and Johnna parted ways?”

Gideon shrugged. “I was in Munich visiting family, so it was a quick flight to Palermo. I was curious to see how things had progressed since I toured the facility last year with Matt Cummings.” Suddenly, he looked as if he’d just said a dirty word. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to bring him up. That was careless of me.”

Peroni winced at the mention of the name. As if he didn’t already feel betrayed by his former employee, Barnhart’s intel from the downed spy balloon had rubbed salt in the wound. To think that Cummings had been working for the Russians, and that those Russians might still be looking to sabotage the orbital unit, was enough to make his gut ache. As the launch of the main orbital unit approached, he found it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Not being able to talk about it with anyone made it that much worse.

“Let’s put the niceties aside and get to the point,” he said, trying to change the subject. “You’re looking for contract work at One World, then?”

Gideon sighed and nodded, looking sheepish. “I am, if you’re willing to consider me.”

“I’ll consider anyone who’s qualified, including you. Did you have something in mind?”

“Actually, I have a very specific job in mind,” Gideon said. “One that I believe I might be uniquely suited for.”

“Is that right?” Peroni leaned forward, intrigued. “And what might this job be that I apparently didn’t think of myself?”

Gideon grinned. “You would have soon enough, I’m sure. It involves a trip to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.”

Over the next ten minutes, he laid out a plan that kept Peroni listening with rapt attention. Despite his failures with StarSeeker and Beyond, Inc., Gideon Wagner was still one of the world’s top aerospace engineers, and he had extensive experience with systems analysis. On top of that, he spoke Russian. He could inspect the cosmodrome, talk to the people involved, perhaps even look into bribing some staff into giving him any dirt on the project. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he had an outsider’s perspective.

It all combined to make Gideon Wagner the perfect third-party oversight consultant for the orbital launch out of Kazakhstan—and he was ready to go at a moment’s notice.

“Whew.” Peroni sat back and shook his head, chuckling. “All right, that was one hell of a sales pitch.”

“Does that mean you’ll consider it?” asked Gideon.

“I’d be a fool not to.” Peroni kept his response low-key, but in reality, he couldn’t believe his luck. Gideon had given him the magic bullet he needed to get One World out of the morass in which it was currently stuck.

The deal with Roscosmos had become untenable the moment he learned that Russian agents were likely behind the cyberattack. According to the intel from the downed spy balloon array, they had engineered the very situation that forced One World to approach Roscosmos in the first place. That left him with two options, neither of which was viable: have Becker bring in the CIA to deal with things or break the contract with Roscosmos. The last thing Peroni or Barnhart wanted was the U.S. Government anywhere near their operations, at least not more than they already were, and breaking the contract would lead to an international incident that could potentially put One World out of business.

But once the unit was in orbit, everything would be easier. The CIA could covertly reveal their intel about the Russians, which would give One World the leverage to quietly break the contract with Roscosmos. Behind the scenes, it would be a political snake pit, but that was for Patrick Sloane and Harry Kane to deal with. The first stage would be complete, and One World could work collaboratively with StarSeeker to begin the race to Mars in earnest.

Everything depended on that crucial first launch, and that first launch could very well depend on Gideon Wagner. Did Peroni dare bring him in on what was happening behind the scenes? Would the job even be possible if he didn’t tell him everything? Gideon’s job would, essentially, be looking for sabotage and countering any he might find.

“That’s all I can ask,” Gideon said, rising to leave. “Thank you for your time today, sir.”

“Sit down,” Peroni said quickly. “We still have a lot to talk about.”

And I have to figure out a way to keep Ennis from quitting when I tell him about this while also keeping Gideon on a short leash without him also quitting.

It was a quick stroll from the Villa Igiea hotel to the marina that serviced the boats of the rich and famous guests who stayed there. Villa Igiea was renowned for its luxury, charm, and genteel discretion, plus the staggering prices that came along with it, which was why Gideon Wagner had chosen it.

The sun set in a sparkle of reds and oranges over the Tyrrhenian Sea behind him as he walked along the palm-lined path from the hotel grounds to the marina’s seawall. His deck shoes and rolled-up trouser cuffs marked him as a member of European society, which meant none of the locals paid him any attention. He was, after all, their kind of person, the kind who belonged there, as opposed to, say, some loud-mouthed American tourist who should be shooed away by security.

The marina was packed with boats, from tiny skiffs to huge power cruisers and everything in between. Smith had told Gideon to look for a forty-foot catamaran named the Apparition. When he found it, he saw Smith sitting on the rear deck with his sandaled feet propped on the railing, drinking beer from a green bottle. If Gideon didn’t know the man’s deadly serious nature, he would have mistaken Smith for just another piece of vacationing Eurotrash.

When Smith caught sight of Gideon, he got up and went below decks. He came back out as Gideon climbed the rear staircase and offered him a bottle of beer from an ice-filled cooler.

“This isn’t a social call,” Gideon said, waving away the drink.

“Shut up and take it,” Smith said amiably. “And smile. We’re just two friends going for a cruise around the bay to watch the sunset.”

Smith threw off the lines.

The boat pulled out of its slip. Gideon looked around, alarmed. “Who the hell is piloting this thing?”

“Take the fucking beer, and don’t worry about the things that you have no control over,” Smith said, his tone icy. “These are life lessons, Mr. Wagner.”

Gideon did as he was told, sipping from his bottle while the boat sailed into the waterway and out of the marina, heading north along the shore at a leisurely pace. When they were on open water, Smith motioned for him to take a seat on one of the two sofas that faced each other on the deck.

“Was this really necessary?” asked Gideon. “Couldn’t we have just talked in the hotel garden?”

Smith fixed him with a steely glare. “Mr. Wagner, my associates and I put together a fake Russian spy balloon and sent it into American air space, not to mention creating a server full of fake intelligence that Becker’s stooges could hack into. I’d say you’re capable of putting up with a brief cruise on the Mediterranean to ensure we’re not overheard, wouldn’t you?”

Gideon clamped down on his anger at being dismissed like a child. “I got the contract. Your plan worked exactly as you said it would.”

“Of course it did. Peroni had no choice. He just needed someone to point it out to him. How much did he tell you?”

“Mostly that he had serious concerns about possible sabotage before the launch, just as you said he would. I’m supposed to keep a keen eye out for anything or anyone suspicious.”

Smith grinned. “That should be easy, since the only suspicious person will be the one looking back at you in the mirror.”

The sea breeze blew Gideon’s hair back from his brow. It was longer now than at any point in his adult life, mostly due to the fact that his routine had been completely upended since he met the man sitting across from him. Smith was an enigma, but Gideon had to admit the man was a master strategist. There was no sabotage going on at Roscosmos, just aerospace professionals doing their job. By inserting suspicion, then securing the oversight contract, Smith was putting Gideon into position as a saboteur while placing a target on the backs of everyone around him.

“What’s the timeline?” Smith asked as the catamaran veered right to skirt around another large marina at Porto Arenella.

“Peroni wants to be ready to launch the orbital within a month. I don’t envy him having to tell Ennis Wright about bringing me on board.”

“Peroni knows it’s the only way,” Smith said with a dismissive gesture. “He’ll convince Wright.”

“Mm.” Gideon finished his beer and fished another from the cooler. “It all boils down to a narrow timeline. I need to know exactly what you expect from me at Baikonur.”

Smith raised his bottle in a salute. “That’s why we’re out here on the open water, Mr. Wagner. We need to discuss the most important phase of this entire operation.”

“Pardon my arrogance,” Gideon said snidely, “but I think I know a little more about spacecraft than you or your mysterious colleagues.”

“I don’t doubt that in the slightest. But as I’ve pointed out before, you’re a bit lacking when it comes to strategic thinking. Whatever presumptions you may have about what we want from your assignment at Baikonur, you’re wrong.”

The moon was high in the night sky when the catamaran finally returned to the Igiea marina hours later. Gideon was, indeed, entirely wrong about Smith’s expectations. He had significant preparations to make and very little time in which to make them.

As he walked back along the seawall to the hotel in the moonlight, he steadfastly refused to think about the human toll of what he was expected to do.

30

“Are we live?”

Salima watched Gideon Wagner’s larger-than-life image appear on a wall-sized screen in the viewing room set up at Space Force Headquarters. It was a bit unnerving to see him there, almost as if he were in the room with them instead of 7,000 miles away in Kazakhstan. It must have affected Barnhart, Peroni, and Smythe in a similar way because they all took a step back from the screen. Arlen Becker didn’t seem to notice.

The general said, “Five by five, Mr. Wagner. How about your end?”

Gideon’s eyes narrowed, peering at the screen on his end at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. “Good enough. Roscosmos equipment doesn’t quite compare to what we have access to in the U.S.”

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence,” Peroni noted.

“I’m only referring to audio-visual,” Gideon replied with a grin. “Trust me, everything else is optimal, as per my report.”

Salima had read the report during the flight to Houston, and she couldn’t argue with him. Taken at face value, at least, Gideon had done an exhaustive job of auditing every aspect of One World’s launch effort, from the orbital module itself to the brand-new Angara 2.1 rocket that would lift it to orbit, to the cosmodrome facility itself and the Roscosmos staff. She had to admit she didn’t know of anyone else who could have possibly done such a broad range of work on such a short timeline. He truly was the genius he so often claimed to be, though she would sooner eat a live spider than say that to his face.

Surprisingly, Barnhart and Smythe both endorsed Peroni’s decision to send Gideon to Kazakhstan. Becker himself said if One World had no choice but to partner with the Russians on the launch, at least they had someone on the inside. Barnhart himself told Salima he believed Gideon had finally learned his lesson about letting his competitive nature consume his better judgment. Smythe didn’t seem to be holding a grudge, in spite of the fact that Gideon had played a key role in bringing down Beyond, Inc. Even Ennis Wright seemed to be okay with him taking on the job.

So why was Salima feeling uneasy about the launch?

On the screen, Roscosmos Director Yelena Krutov stood next to Gideon. Behind them, space operations staff sat at consoles as the clock counted down to liftoff. From what Salima could see, the cosmodrome was considerably less advanced than StarSeeker’s Hangar, but that was to be expected. Director Krutov looked uncomfortable, which didn’t help Salima’s anxiety. What if Krutov and Gideon were somehow working together to sabotage One World?

Stop it, she scolded herself. You’re being paranoid. She wondered for the thousandth time if she would ever truly break free of the guilt and shame of her past. Gideon seemed to be doing fine, so why wasn’t she?

Ennis appeared by her side, looking concerned. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said sheepishly. “It’s just— Well, you know how it’s been between Gideon and me.”

He scoffed. “It wasn’t just you, Salima. But Al got this one right. I wouldn’t have been able to do the job that Gideon’s done at Baikonur. Still, I don’t know that I would be as quick to forgive as your boss and Johnna Smythe seem to be.”

“I guess that’s why they’re billionaires and we’re not.” Salima shrugged. “They can keep their personal feelings from interfering with business.”

“I suppose. I guess we’re all going to do whatever it takes to get to Mars. If we weren’t obsessed with it, we would have pursued much easier careers.”

Salima giggled. “Boy, did you hit that nail on the head.”

The sound of her laugh attracted Connie Peroni away from her husband’s side. “What’s so funny?” she asked as she joined them. “I could use a laugh. Al and the other Space Cadets are going on about payload and thrust and geostationary orbit. Even Johnna is in on it.”

Ennis raised an eyebrow. “So you came over here to talk to the aerospace engineers?”

“I came to talk to Salima,” Connie said with a playful smack to his arm. “You can get lost.”

“Yes’m.” He nodded. “I better go do my job. It’s getting close to countdown.”

Salima scanned the room after Ennis left. Aside from the “Space Cadets,” as Connie had called them, there were a handful of Space Force personnel and a few people in suits. It was the polar opposite of the last watch party here in Houston, with its cast of thousands.

“Your daughter and son-in-law couldn’t make it?” she asked.

“They wanted to,” Connie replied. “But ultimately Al decided against it. The kids had a prior commitment to a foundation event, and if they backed out, it might draw attention that Al doesn’t want.” She sighed wistfully. “It’s a shame, really. This was supposed to be a huge celebration, the crucial first step toward Mars. But now because of all this cloak-and-dagger garbage, we have to keep it out of the public eye.”

Salima winced inwardly at the cloak-and-dagger line, wondering just how much Connie knew about the intel Becker had gleaned from the spy balloon. She herself didn’t know much, just what little Barnhart had told her.

“History will remember today,” she said, trying to sound comforting. “That much I can guarantee.” It was true, one way or another. She desperately hoped it would be because the orbital unit made it to space and not because it blew up on the platform, a victim of sabotage.

She pushed away that thought as the room hushed. Ennis, Gideon, and Krutov were conferring and nodding. The last built-in hold would soon be lifted, allowing the final countdown to begin.

“I’d better get back to Al.” Connie waved. “I’ll catch up with you after the launch.”

She playfully held up crossed fingers, and Salima did the same with a smile she didn’t feel. Barnhart motioned for her to join him and Johnna Smythe next to the screen wall as the clock rolled to T-minus five minutes. Smythe favored her with a smile as she approached.

“Here she is,” said the Australian. “My company’s new step-mum.”

Salima smiled awkwardly. Smythe had been calling her that ever since she divested herself of Beyond’s assets. Barnhart, as usual, was lost in his own thoughts. Becker was keenly watching a bank of monitors on the wall next to the screen showing the orbital unit. Ennis and Gideon were also focused intently on readouts as the T-minus clock dropped to one minute, then thirty seconds, and finally to ten seconds. As each moment ticked by, Salima’s unease grew exponentially.

Then came liftoff. The split-screen showed the command crew in the cosmodrome and the rocket itself as it rose on a huge cloud of fire and exhaust. The orbital unit wasn’t nearly as massive as SkyLab, the largest object ever lifted into orbit, but it was still a huge, heavy payload, and the Angara 2.1 hadn’t been tested to the level they would have preferred. That was the reason for Salima’s anxiety, or so she told herself.

Then why are you looking at Gideon instead of the rocket? her inner voice wondered.

The silence around her soon turned into hushed chatter as the rocket rose higher and higher into the clear blue sky above Baikonur. With each passing moment, the mood in the room became less somber until the camera attached to the Angara’s nose began to broadcast the blackness beyond Earth’s atmosphere. By the time the stars began to materialize in the distance, Salima was surrounded by cheering people. She saw a wide grin spreading across Arlen Becker’s weathered features while Smythe let out a whoop and threw her hands up in triumph. Connie Peroni swept her husband into a fierce embrace and kissed him passionately.

Relief swept through Salima like a cooling breeze. The orbital unit was up. Soon, it would be manned by crews sent up on StarSeeker rockets. Those crews would build the One World ship in orbit, and when it was done, the mission team would begin the long, momentous journey to Mars. StarSeeker would beat them to the red planet, she was sure, but she couldn’t help the feeling of childlike optimism she felt at that moment. For the first time in a very long time, all felt right with the world.

The only sober face in the room belonged to Philip Barnhart. He continued to watch the launch intently, but Salima couldn’t tell which screen he was looking at—the one showing the rocket or the one showing Gideon laughing and high-fiving the Roscosmos people around him.

After long seconds, her boss finally nodded and turned to her. “We’re officially out of the starting blocks. It’s time to put on our game faces.”

Gideon Wagner kicked off his shoes and collapsed onto the too-soft bed. Even though it was only noon, he was exhausted. The launch had taken place at 6 a.m., which was 8 p.m. Houston time, but Gideon had been up since the previous morning in preparation. In all, it had been almost thirty-six hours since he’d slept. Despite the early hour, Krutov had insisted on a celebratory post-launch party with catered food and top-shelf Beluga vodka that he suspected came from the Russian president himself. By the time the driver dropped him off at his hotel, he could barely walk.

The presidential suite at the Astana Sheraton was surprisingly posh for a city like Baikonur, which was nothing more than a speck in the middle of nowhere. Although Gideon was still dressed, the bed called to him. The curtains were drawn against the midday sun that threatened to heat the room to unbearable temperatures, but the air conditioner fought the good fight.

Gideon had a profound sense of accomplishment. It combined to draw him to the very edge of slumber…and then his cell phone buzzed, amplified by the glass tabletop on which he’d placed it.

With a heavy sigh, he forced himself from the bed’s embrace and padded into the living room. He thumbed the phone to life to see a single text on the encrypted messaging app: Well done.

“Go fuck yourself,” Gideon muttered, shutting off the phone and shuffling back to bed. This time, he took off his clothes and climbed between the sheets. Less than a minute later, he was asleep.

He dreamed of huge explosions in space and of astronauts screaming all around him.

31

It was well past midnight when Salima and Barnhart boarded his jet for the flight back to L.A. Salima had polished off three cosmopolitans during One World’s post-launch celebration in Houston’s Garden District, something she rarely did and had never done in the presence of her boss, who didn’t drink. Unfortunately, the booze had done the opposite of what she hoped it would.

“Have a good time tonight?” he asked, glancing up from his tablet as the jet took off.

“Sure,” she said absently, her stomach lurching at the motion.

He set his tablet on the table next to his seat. “No, you didn’t. I know you, Salima. You weren’t drinking to celebrate, you were trying to calm down. There was something off about you all night, especially before the launch.”

Salima slumped in her seat. As always, he was right. Her mood had gotten blacker as the night went on. Despite the celebration going on around her, she couldn’t shake her misgivings, first about the launch and then about herself.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

Barnhart frowned. “Do what?”

“Read me like a book. You know me better than anyone else in the world.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said, obviously uncomfortable. “Yes, we spend a lot of time together, but obviously your parents—”

“My parents don’t know me at all,” she said. “They talk about me all the time, but they never talk to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My parents have been consumed by their own careers my whole life.” She swallowed a lump rising in her throat. “The only reason they had me was because our culture demanded it. The first time they took an interest in me was when my first-grade teacher recommended that I skip straight to the third grade. Ever since then, they’ll take any opportunity to brag about me to others, but they never actually ask me about my life. Even when you gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, they only saw it in terms of how it would raise their social status. ‘Our daughter works for the richest man in the world, you know.’” She rolled her eyes. “I see them maybe twice a year, and it’s a chore each time.”

Barnhart gazed at her in silence for a few moments. “I suppose I should have realized that. You do have a tendency to crave my approval as you might from a parent.”

“God, if you only knew,” she sighed, running her fingers through her hair.

“What does that mean?” He leaned forward and locked his eyes on hers. “Something’s been going on with you, Salima, and I want you to tell me what it is. I meant what I said earlier. The race to Mars has begun in earnest, and I need to know all of your attention is on that goal.” He paused. “Is this still about your obsession with security and sabotage? I told you that was the reason Peroni put Gideon in place at the cosmodrome. And now that the orbital platform is in place, the CIA will be using back channels to warn off the Russians. It’s time to let it go and move forward, Salima.”

His last words resonated deep down in her soul. It’s time to let it go and move forward. Whether it was that or the alcohol, or both, she would never know. All she knew at that moment was that she had to let out what had been festering inside her for so many months. She clutched her hands together for strength as she sat forward, gazing at him through a shimmer of tears.

“Philip,” she said hoarsely, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

Forty minutes later, Salima sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, waiting silently for Barnhart to speak. She had never felt more despondent in her life, but at the same time, she finally understood the saying about a weight being lifted from one’s shoulders. She felt lighter now than she had in almost two years. Whatever happened next, she could at least face it with a clear conscience.

She just hoped she wouldn’t face it in a prison cell.

Barnhart avoided her eyes for a long time, instead staring at the wall between the cockpit and the cabin. His index fingers were tented in front his nose, as they often were when he was in deep thought.

Finally, he spoke. “Are you satisfied now that Gideon isn’t a saboteur?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“And the man you paid to infiltrate One World, this ‘John Quincy’ fellow, does he know who you are?”

That was not the question Salima was expecting. She shook her head. “I made sure there was no connection to me or StarSeeker; he only ever knew about Cummings.”

“And Gideon never knew about Quincy?”

“No.”

Barnhart nodded. “Good.”

She blinked. “Good?”

“All ties to Quincy died with Matt Cummings, so we don’t need to worry about him. That, at least, is a positive.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Your obvious mistake was bringing Gideon into it, but that worked out in the end.”

Salima couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had expected, at the very least, a lecture and immediate dismissal. At worst, she feared that Barnhart might have the FBI meet them on the tarmac at the private terminal at LAX. But this?

“What exactly are you saying?” she asked. “Maybe it’s the booze, but you sound as if you’re okay with what I did.”

“For the record, I’m not okay with it,” he said sternly. “I’m certainly no stranger to industrial espionage, even with the mistakes you made at your attempt.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Salima, you don’t become the wealthiest person on the planet by following the rules. I would have thought you’d picked up on that by now.” He fixed her with a look. “Just make sure you have it out of your system. We’re far beyond the point where espionage is useful.”

She nodded, still gobsmacked. “No more cloak-and-dagger shit,” she breathed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Barnhart let out a heavy sigh. “I know you were trying to make up for what you saw as a mistake in the first X9 launch when you approached Quincy. You felt you needed to prove yourself to me. That was my fault for allowing you to think that way.”

For a moment, Salima almost believed that she’d fallen asleep and was dreaming all this. “Philip, your only fault was in hiring someone who wasn’t up to the job.”

“Nonsense. You were the only person I considered for the position. We’ve been over this before.”

“And I still don’t understand it!” she cried. “Even after everything I’ve done, you still want me to run StarSeeker?”

Barnhart pursed his lips in thought. “Actually, no,” he said. “I think it’s time for that part to be over.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s obvious that running the company has become a distraction for you. I’ll find someone to take on the position.”

Salima peered at him. “And…what will I be doing?”

He shocked her by reaching out and taking her hand in his. For one wild moment, she thought he might propose to her.

“That all depends on whether you agree to what I’m about to ask of you.”

Her heart thundered in her chest. He was proposing! Salima felt herself reeling, and it had nothing to do with being drunk. She couldn’t deal with this. Hell, an hour ago, she was telling him he was a father figure, and now he was going to ask her to marry him? Was he insane?

“Salima,” he said, looking into her eyes.

“Philip,” she breathed.

“Will you lead the mission to Mars?”

She stared at him, mouth open, for a long time. It was the sensation of her tongue drying out that finally broke her out of her stupor. “Wh-what?” she croaked.

“You don’t have to decide right this moment,” he said. “Obviously, I’ll give you time to think about it—”

“You want me,” she interrupted, wide-eyed, “to go to Mars.”

“Of course.”

Salima’s thoughts were like hummingbirds whizzing around inside her head. “You’re talking crazy, Philip! I'm the last person you want on the mission!”

He let out a dry chuckle and shook his head. “Don’t you get it, Salima? This is why I hired you: so that you could ultimately lead this mission and be the first human to set foot on Martian soil.”

“But you told me months ago you hired me because you had confidence I’d get you to Mars first.” Salima shook her head, which set it to swimming more than it had been. Her vision grew hazy.

“And that’s true. It was your passion, misguided though it may have been, that drove you to do what you did with Cummings and Gideon. You demonstrated that nothing will stand between you and your goal of reaching Mars. That’s the final key that I’ve been waiting for, that I knew was inside of you.”

Salima took a moment to process what she just heard. “But, Philip, there must be countless other people who are more qualified than I am.”

Barnhart threw his hands up in frustration. “If by ‘more qualified’ you mean ‘don’t have a massive inferiority complex,’ then yes, there are!” he snapped. “Get this through your head, Salima. You have all the qualities necessary to lead this mission. You’ve proved your intellect to me countless times, in your work with Clay Newton, your recruitment of the dream team from Marshall Space Flight Center, and more. And you’ve proven to me time and time again that you’re a leader.” He flashed her a wry grin. “Add to that your complete lack of a personal life and you’re the perfect candidate.”

She laughed at that, but quickly turned serious. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it a thousand times.”

“I know.” He took her hand again. This time, it didn’t feel weird. “I’m offering you the greatest opportunity in the history of humanity, Salima. And I know with every fiber of my being that you’re the right person for the job. Do you accept?”

She squeezed his hand. “I do,” she said.

Barnhart nodded and pulled his hand away. “You could have just said ‘yes’ and not made it weird.”

That sent Salima into a laughing fit that lasted on and off until the jet landed at LAX an hour later.

32

As Gideon Wagner was ushered into Al Peroni’s office for the first time since he left for Kazakhstan five weeks earlier, he popped another mint into his mouth and chewed it quickly. The last thing he wanted was for the billionaire to smell the lunch martinis on his breath. It had become a habit so quickly—both the midday drinking and the mints—that he barely even realized he was doing it.

Peroni welcomed him warmly and offered him a seat. Ennis Wright, who had rarely smiled at Gideon in all the years the two men had known each other, was actually doing so now. It was almost enough to make Gideon suspicious, but he decided to simply accept it. After all, the point of this meeting was to make sure everyone was happy with him, and to show them that he was on the same page, as the businesspeople said.

“Are you still in the Villa Igiea?” Peroni asked as he sat down.

“I am.” Gideon nodded. “It’s not the presidential suite at the Astana Sheraton, but it’ll do.” In truth, the Sheraton paled in comparison to the charm of the Igiea, but flattering the old man cost him nothing.

“Well, with any luck, we can move you into the One World complex soon,” Ennis said, still grinning.

Gideon feigned confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“Free housing in the apartments is one of the perquisites of working for One World,” said Peroni. “All you have to do is accept my offer.”

Perqs. Gideon held back an urge to sneer. He may not have been a billionaire, but his own net worth—thanks to his trust fund, his many patents, and the buyout he’d received from Johnna Smythe—was more than enough to allow him to live out his days in modest luxury. A free apartment in the company’s utilitarian complex was practically an insult.

He made an effort to look appropriately humble. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise.”

“Sure it is,” Peroni said sardonically. “Don’t try to shine me on, Gideon. We both know you took that contract in the hopes of getting on steady, as they used to say. Well, here’s your chance. You did an exemplary job.” He reached into a drawer in his desk and withdrew a bank envelope. “That reminds me, here’s your bonus.”

This actually was a surprise. Gideon opened the envelope and glanced at the check inside: fifty-thousand euros. If Peroni had even an inkling what Gideon had actually been up to at the cosmodrome, he would have brought in the FBI to arrest him.

“This is very generous.” Gideon stared at the check. He was wealthy in his own right, but no one turned down fifty grand. “Thank you.”

Ennis said, “Basically, we need someone to take over Matt Cummings’ position.” He must have seen the sour look on Gideon’s face because he quickly added, “With a raise and several more duties, of course. Cummings was one of my assistants; you would be more of my second-in-command.”

None of this came as a surprise to Gideon—in fact, it followed Smith’s plan exactly—but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. Working under Preston Smythe had been painful, but at least he left Gideon alone. Ennis Wright would micromanage him until he wanted to throw himself off Mt. Pellegrino. Still, he smiled and went along.

“That sounds like a great opportunity,” he lied.

“You sure?” Peroni asked pointedly. “It would be a step down for you.”

You think I don’t know that, you brainless wop? “It’s more than I deserve.”

“Not at all,” said Peroni. “You’ve done right by me so far, and I have no doubt you’ll keep it up once you’re on staff. Despite everything that’s come before this, I really have a good feeling about you here at One World, Gideon.”

“So do I, sir.” He forced himself to smile.

“It’s Al from here on out,” said Peroni. “I like to think of us as a family.”

Of course you do, Gideon thought acidly. “I appreciate that, Al.”

The men stood and shook hands. Ennis set a meeting for the next morning to discuss salary and other details, and Peroni offered to take Gideon to dinner with his wife, Connie. Gideon declined with all the humility he could muster, making up an excuse about a prior commitment. They parted amiably, all smiles. Gideon continued to grin as he passed through the outer office, and then to the pathway that led from the office complex to one of the front gates and the parking lot beyond.

As soon as he was behind the wheel of his rented Audi SUV, he pulled a silver flask from the inner pocket of his blazer and downed two swallows of vodka.

You can do this, he told himself as he fired the engine to life. As much as you don’t want to, you don’t have a choice.

Gideon pulled the bottle of Muscadet from its bucket and poured himself another glass. They were on the deck of Smith’s catamaran, far enough out on the water that the mountains were barely visible. The setting sun was just beginning to leave a hint of orange on the surface of the azure sea while a large flock of seagulls swooped and whirled overhead. Under other circumstances, it would have been a lovely evening.

“Now that you’re one of Peroni’s employees, you can get out of the Igiea,” Smith said. “You still have another six weeks before the final phase of the plan. No need to live in a hotel that whole time.”

“I turned down the apartment,” Gideon lied. “I’m fine where I am. If your people don’t want to keep paying the bill, I’ll do it myself.”

“You didn’t turn it down,” Smith said evenly. “As a matter of fact, you didn’t discuss the apartment with Peroni and Wright at all.”

Hot anger flashed in Gideon’s chest. “How the hell do you know that?”

“The same way I know everything I know. We’re always listening, Mr. Wagner. The sooner you internalize that, the better off you’ll be. Now, you’re going to move into the apartment complex ASAP, and you’ll act as if this new job is the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

Gideon turned his head and stared out at the water, no longer able to stomach the sight of the man. “Sure,” he said with a bitter grin. “I’ll suck it all up and bend over for Ennis Fucking Wright for six weeks. Hell, I’ll make sure I get employee of the month. And then, when Barnhart’s rocket ferries the first One World crew to the platform, the Trojan Horse I installed during my time at the cosmodrome will activate. The result will be a cascading failure that destroys everything—the rocket, the orbital unit, the crew. It’ll be the biggest setback in the history of space exploration, and your masters will be happy as pigs in shit.” He downed the rest of his wine and pitched his empty glass over the railing into the sea.

Smith frowned. “Are you trying to back out?”

“What if I am?” Gideon rounded on him, furious. “What the hell am I supposed to do after the supposed ‘accident’?”

“Any evidence that might be left will burn up on re-entry, and you’ll never hear from me again. You can get on with your life.”

“What life?” he exclaimed. “A worker bee at One World while they spend the next five years recovering from this? Spending the rest of my career in Wright’s shadow? You call that a life?”

“That’s not my concern,” Smith said.

“Yeah? Just for the sake of argument, what if I decide I don’t want to do it? Your so-called evidence of my connection to Cummings is circumstantial at best. It would never hold up in court.”

Smith’s eyes narrowed. “We would bring other pressure to bear.”

“I’m somewhat essential to your plan,” Gideon said with a harsh laugh. “If you kill me, who’s going to carry it out?”

“We wouldn’t kill you, Mr. Wagner.”

The ice in Smith’s tone was enough to cut through the fog in Gideon’s head and land right in his belly. His parents were still alive in Munich, along with a favorite uncle and some young cousins. He saw them infrequently, yes, but he certainly didn’t wish them dead.

He cleared his throat. “I see.”

Smith stood and stared at him for several seconds before going below deck. When he returned, the boat was in motion, turning back toward the shore.

“I take it this meeting is over?” Gideon said.

“You’re a smart man, Mr. Wagner.” Smith’s face was as blank as always. “But you’re nowhere near as smart as you think you are. Maybe that’s savvy. You’re not savvy at all, which is good for us. You won’t ever be savvy enough. Just do what you do best.”

The two didn’t speak for the rest of the trip, and when the catamaran was back in its slip, Gideon disembarked, pausing only to surreptitiously palm a small object he’d stuck to the stair railing when he boarded the boat. He headed back to his hotel without another word.

The sun was behind the mountains when he reached his suite. He flopped down into an armchair and opened his tablet, pulling up a European news network’s website, which he often did after dinner. He scrolled through the headlines absently and was almost ready to pour himself a drink when an image caught his eye. It was Salima Patel’s smiling face. She looked happier than Gideon had ever seen her. The headline above the image read, StarSeeker CEO to Take the Lead on Mars Mission.

Gideon’s stomach dropped. He tapped on the sideways triangle to call up the video. It was Salima standing next to Philip Barnhart at a news conference at StarSeeker’s Hangar building, where he’d watched a rocket explode and fall from the sky some eighteen months earlier. Could that have been the work of Smith and his associates as well? At the moment, he couldn’t have cared less.

“—twenty-nine-year-old was considered by many in the field to have been a controversial choice for CEO two years ago,” a reporter told the camera. “And now, no doubt those same critics will say the same about her selection as lead astronaut on what will be one of, if not the, first manned mission to Mars.”

The camera switched to a smiling Barnhart. “Salima has been a star since day one,” he said, beaming. “She’s a leader, she’s passionate about space exploration, and her hands-on engineering knowledge will be invaluable on a multi-year return mission.”

Back to Salima talking to a group of teens. “Ms. Patel was born in India,” the reporter voiced over, “but moved to Florida as a young girl. She says she hopes to be a role model to young girls around the world.”

“There aren’t a lot of people who look like me going into space,” Salima told the reporter. “I hope that by seeing me do this, other girls might realize that, ‘hey, you know what, maybe I could do that, too.’”

Gideon tapped the X in the corner of the video before raising the tablet above his head and slamming it down on the edge of the dining table with all his strength. The impact sent a jolt up his arm and shattered the screen. He stared at it on the floor for the better part of a half-hour, then called up the email app on his phone. He sent Salima a note dripping with unearned praise, congratulating her on her well-deserved date with destiny and telling her he couldn’t wait to catch up with her in person. He thought about telling her that he'd been named Ennis Wright’s new assistant, taking over for Matt Fucking Cummings, but he just couldn’t bring himself to type it. She would find out soon enough. He didn’t have to debase himself even more by being the one who told her.

Then he polished off a pint of straight vodka and half a bottle of Chianti before finally dropping into a dreamless stupor on the sofa.

33

Gideon’s heart was pounding harder than it ever had before a launch. The ironic part was that this was the first launch where he was absolutely sure of what was going to happen. In fact, that was the reason for his anxiety.

He stood next to Ennis Wright on the observation deck of the Hangar where a StarSeeker X9 had launched and risen into the sky, carrying a crew of four One World technicians to be dropped off at the orbital unit to initiate the first phase of building a ship in space. The launch itself was practically standard. StarSeeker had ferried a half-dozen crews to and from the International Space Station over the years. It wasn’t the flight itself that consumed his thoughts, but what was going to happen when it reached the orbital unit.

“You all right?” Ennis asked, looking at him sideways.

“Just excited,” Gideon lied. “This is history in the making, even if it’s just a small part.”

Al Peroni and Philip Barnhart stood nearby, talking money. Freeing One World from its obligations to Roscosmos had been fairly easy—the CIA was involved, if Smith was to be believed—but One World’s alliance with StarSeeker, while more reliable than the Russians, involved what Americans called a shit-ton of money. Both companies were leveraged to the hilt with this and the upcoming missions to build the orbiting ship.

But the windfall for the first group to Mars would be immense, along with the ego-stroke heard round the world.

Then again, what was about to happen could very well change all that. Gideon took a deep breath as the rocket broke through Earth’s atmosphere and entered the blackness of low Earth orbit. Cameras on the rocket’s nose showed the orbital unit in the distance as the two began the approach and rendezvous stage. The next step, he knew, would be the capture and docking confirmation, where the ship’s docking probe would make contact with the orbital’s docking port, a series of latches and hooks that would tether the two together.

He swallowed hard as he watched the two craft come together. Gideon had built a feature into the subroutines that governed the latches; it would activate once the procedure began and cause the latches to suddenly open halfway through the process, resulting in explosive decompression. It would most likely destroy both space vehicles and kill the crews, even while in their spacesuits.

The plan was that, no matter the outcome, One World would blame StarSeeker and StarSeeker would blame One World. The great partnership between the leaders of the space race would be torn apart, with the flames fanned by pundits and TV news hosts. In the wake of all the failures of the previous year, it would give the U.S. a bloody nose in the eyes of the world, which was exactly what Smith’s masters wanted.

Gideon tuned out everything around him as he watched the procedure unfold. No one around him seemed even mildly anxious. When it happened, it would hit them like a physical blow. He could feel cold sweat trickling down his own spine in anticipation.

The cameras showed the two vessels getting closer with each passing second.

“Something doesn’t look exactly right,” Gideon heard himself say.

What the hell was he doing? The words had come out independent of his brain, it seemed.

“What are you talking about?” Ennis asked, frowning. “What’s the problem?”

“Those latches don’t look right.” He pointed to the orbital unit on the screen. “I don’t trust them.”

“You signed off on that unit when it left Baikonur,” Ennis said.

“Well, I’m saying I have a gut feeling about those latches. The pilot needs to slow down.”

Ennis glared at him for long seconds before yelling, “We need to slow that ship!”

He and Gideon trotted off the observation deck and down a bank of dozens of computer screens being attended to by StarSeeker command staff. Ennis pointed out the one in charge of the crew transfer, and Gideon relayed his concerns.

“If what you say is right, we could be looking at explosive decompression.” The technician chewed his lip. “Are you calling to abort?”

“What the hell is going on?” Barnhart snarled from a dozen meters away. He and Peroni were striding vigorously toward the station.

“Gideon thinks he’s seeing a potential problem,” Ennis said.

The tech explained the situation to them. Peroni looked at Gideon. “You’re sure of this?”

Time was growing short, and Gideon suddenly realized that he had committed to stopping the process. If he didn’t, he’d be an accessory to murder. Worse, he would be known as the man who didn’t stop it from happening. His career would be over.

“Just stop the rendezvous,” he urged. “I may be totally wrong, but if I’m not, I don’t want to be responsible for what happens.”

“Stop the rendezvous now,” Barnhart ordered without further question.

“Yes, sir,” the tech replied, sitting down to relay the command to the ship. They watched on the screen as the docking procedure came to a halt.

“Now what?” asked Peroni.

Gideon’s brain took off at full speed, trying to come up with a solution. He cursed himself for waiting so long to come to his senses on this. He would have to figure out a way to get out of the situation without coming off as suspicious.

Finally, it came to him, and he turned to Ennis. “Are your crew’s suits capable of a spacewalk?”

“In an emergency.”

“Have them go out and manually check on the latches. If I’m right, they’ll either already be open or they’ll open around the time the crew get there. It will be simple enough to override the controls and open them again, then get in position for hatch opening and crew transfer. One of them stays behind to manually close the latches while the others transfer. Once inside, they can follow my instructions on how to analyze the system from inside. It should be an easy fix after that.”

Peroni and Ennis shared a look. “If what he says is right, we have to do it,” Ennis said. “At worst, the crew gets some spacewalk practice.”

“And at best, we save lives and a historic black eye for U.S. space supremacy,” said Peroni.

Barnhart nodded. “All right, then, let’s get on with it.” He turned to Gideon and looked him up and down, as if measuring him. Gideon’s stomach turned at the thought of being judged by the man he hated most in the world.

“Good work,” Barnhart said.

Gideon forced himself to nod humbly. “Thank you, Mr. Barnhart.”

“Al made the right choice in hiring you. I’m glad you’re seizing the opportunity.”

And I’m glad I no longer work for you, Gideon thought blackly.

34

Gideon was forking an escargot into his mouth when he saw the first flash go off. He turned to see three people standing on the sidewalk in downtown Reno, pointing cameras at the restaurant patio and waving for him to react. The hostess quickly ran out to shoo them away, then appeared next to the table to apologize and offer a private room inside for them to finish their meals.

Connie Peroni waved dismissively. “I’d get used to it if I were you,” she told Gideon. “You’re going to be the story of the week.”

The afternoon had been a flurry of media interviews, so many that Gideon could barely remember all their faces, let alone the names. It had taken him a few hours to grasp the fact that he was in the spotlight for something other than his spectacular failures with StarSeeker and Beyond, Inc. This time, he was the hero, not the scapegoat, and it felt good. Better, perhaps, than anything else in his life ever had. Al Peroni and his wife had brought him to one of the hippest and most expensive restaurants in Beverly Hills to thank him.

“It might last longer than a week,” Peroni said. “Maybe a lot longer.”

“Do you think so?” Gideon asked, trying to keep his growing excitement contained. He knew what his new boss was about to say.

“Well, I suppose that’s up to you.” Peroni leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. “I’m not going to beat around the bush here, Gideon. Your quick thinking today really highlighted the need to have the absolute best and brightest on board the inaugural mission.”

“I’m sorry,” Gideon said, feigning confusion. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying.”

Peroni and his wife exchanged a glance and a nod before they turned back to him. Peroni said, “Son, I want you on that ship to Mars. My question to you is if that’s something you want?”

Gideon finally let his feelings rise to the surface. He had thought of little else since the spur-of-the-moment decision had changed the direction of his life some twelve hours earlier.

“Mr. Peroni…” he breathed.

“Al. Now more than ever, it’s just Al.”

“Yes, sir. I mean Al. I— I just can’t quite believe what I’m hearing.”

Calm down, he told himself. You’re not trying for an Oscar.

“Believe it,” Connie interjected, smiling. “What you did today was the very definition of what used to be called ‘the right stuff’ back in the day.”

He fought the urge to preen at her praise. Gideon Wagner was finally learning that one caught more flies with honey than with vinegar, and that humility would take him places that hubris never could. He looked down at the table. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You could start with yes,” Peroni chuckled. “I mean, assuming you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” Gideon replied, more loudly than intended and so quickly that it made Connie laugh out loud.

“Tell us how you really feel!” She giggled.

Peroni leaned back, his face turning serious. “I want you to be sure about this, son. You know as well as anyone what the mission entails. Are you willing to take the risks? To make the sacrifices? It’s a life-altering decision. I don’t want you to feel as if we’re pressuring you.”

“It’s been my dream to walk on the surface of Mars since I was a child.” Gideon may not have agreed with Salima Patel and Philip Barnhart on much, but they all had that in common. “I don’t know if I’ve ever completely admitted that to myself before this moment, but now that I have, it’s undeniable. And I don’t just want to walk on Mars; I want to be one of the first humans to do it.”

Peroni grinned widely. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. We had hundreds of top-shelf candidates apply for the mission team, but none of them had your unique mind. I believe that’s what gives us the edge in the race against StarSeeker.”

“And put us first in the history books,” Gideon added with a grin of his own.

Over the next three hours, they ordered two bottles of $5,000 champagne to celebrate, and when Gideon said good-bye to his hosts and began the three-mile walk to his riverfront hotel, he was feeling no pain.

It was full dark as Gideon reached Island Avenue and strolled along the tree-lined walkway that ran above the Truckee River. When he reached the corner, he thought about crossing the bridge and stopping in at a storefront pub on the corner of Sierra Street for a few drinks to continue his celebration.

That was when he felt the hand on his back. If not for the champagne in his system, he might have jumped out of his skin. His head jerked to his right to see Smith walking in step with him.

“Come with me,” the man said, pushing roughly with his left hand to guide Gideon to a staircase that led down to the river. At this time of night, the riverwalk path was deserted. Smith, dressed head to toe in dark gray, shoved Gideon along until they were under the Sierra Street bridge. He slammed Gideon’s back against the concrete abutment. Down here, they were just two amorphous shadows.

“You’re in a great deal of trouble, Mr. Wagner,” Smith hissed in his ear.

Gideon’s heart was racing, but incredibly, the booze in his system helped him keep his wits about him. He’d thought something like this might happen, but he never would have expected it to be so brazen, or so public.

He slammed his palms against Smith’s chest, drawing power and torque from his hips. It was enough to send the man backward several feet.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Gideon snapped. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m the person who has your nuts in a vise.” Smith’s voice had an edge to it that Gideon had never heard before. “Don’t try to tell me what happened wasn’t your fault. I know full well that the only way it could have happened is if you intervened somehow.”

Gideon was struck by a sudden revelation: Smith didn’t know exactly what had happened at the Hangar. Maybe whatever he used to listen in on private meetings couldn’t penetrate the StarSeeker building, or something had kept his people from spying. Gideon wagered it was the former, which meant Smith wasn’t as infallible as he pretended to be.

Gideon knew he’d be a fool to underestimate him despite the revelation.

“It doesn’t matter why it happened,” Gideon said. “It happened. It’s over. The crew is in orbit and they’re going to finish the next stage. There’s nothing anyone can do about that now.”

“Why did you do it?” Smith demanded.

“I have an aversion to murder,” he said snidely. “Sue me.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Smith hissed out some air, sounding frustrated. “All right, then, you’re going to sabotage the next supply mission. When is it?”

“I’m not doing that, Smith. I’m done with you. Peroni just appointed me to the mission crew. I’m going to be one of the first humans on Mars. Why would I want to destroy a mission that I’ll be on?”

“You’re going to be just another dead human in a grave,” Smith growled. “Get this through your supposed genius brain: no American will ever set foot on Mars.”

And there it was, finally out in the open, confirming what Gideon had suspected for months now. This wasn’t about which company made it to Mars first. It was about which country claimed the red planet, and there was only one in the running.

“Tell your masters in Beijing to go fuck themselves,” Gideon said. “If the only way to win is to hamstring your competition, you’ve already lost.”

“All that matters is who’s first, Mr. Wagner, and I guarantee it won’t be you.”

Smith’s shadow moved in a peculiar way and suddenly, Gideon saw the glint of a knife blade under the streetlight above them. His heart kicked in his chest. Until this moment, Smith had only been a vague threat, but now he was a very real danger.

“Smith, don’t—” Gideon began, but a kick to his midsection kept him from saying any more. He dropped to his knees and continued to land flat on his face.

“This is what I meant when I said you’re not as smart as you think you are.” Smith’s voice was coming from above, but all Gideon could see was a huge silhouette against the moon. Despite the ache in his gut, he managed to roll onto all fours. His breathing was shaky, as were his arms, but he pushed himself back on his haunches. He tried furiously to break through the pain and gauge the distance between himself and Smith, the angle of ascent from his current position.

Gideon muttered something weakly. Smith came closer, the knife gleaming again. “What did you say?”

At that moment, Gideon threw an uppercut with all his strength. It connected squarely between Smith’s legs, and the man toppled backward, landing hard. Gideon scrambled to his feet, but his sense of direction was skewed. He stepped on the edge of an uneven paving stone and electric agony shot through his ankle as he dropped back to the ground.

“Fuck this,” Smith grunted, back on his feet but staggering now. “You’re not worth the time.”

He reached down and hauled Gideon to his feet by his shirt collar while still in the throes of pain spasms. The knife stood out in Smith’s right hand as he wrapped his left forearm around Gideon’s neck from behind. The blade reflected one last slice of light before it disappeared to the left of Gideon’s head.

With his last ounce of strength, Gideon threw his head back in the hopes of striking Smith’s face. Smith dodged back far enough to miss the blow, but it was also enough for him to lose his balance somewhat. His foot found the same uneven stone that had sprained Gideon’s ankle, and Smith was flailing backward.

Gideon had the presence of mind to launch himself forward. He heard a loud thud and a muffled crunch in the dark, followed by a rasping groan. Gideon waited three beats, hearing nothing but labored breathing. Another three beats, and still Smith didn’t move. Without thinking, and ignoring his own pain, Gideon staggered out from under the cover of the bridge and saw Smith’s silhouette lying on its back on the paving stones.

“Help,” Smith growled, but Gideon was already on his knees. He grabbed a rock and smashed it down on Smith’s right wrist with all his strength. The bone crunched under the rock, forcing him to lose his grip on the knife. Adrenaline shot through Gideon as he grabbed the blade and scrabbled on top of Smith, his knees pressing down on the man’s shoulders.

Gideon thought he caught one last glimmer of moonlight in Smith’s eyes before driving the blade of the knife deep into the man’s throat. It was combat grade, razor sharp, and sliced through cartilage like butter. Without thinking, Gideon pulled it out and stabbed again, this time hitting the hollow of Smith’s throat. His heart was thundering in his chest, his pulse roaring through his ears. It was as if the world around him had faded into the distance and all that existed was himself, Smith, and the knife.

He lost track of how long it took to come back to his senses. Warm blood ran down his palms, but there was no more movement from underneath him. Gideon stood up, swaying, and steadied himself against the abutment. He followed through on the first cogent thought he had and kicked Smith as hard as he could. The force sent the man’s body rolling down an embankment and into the Truckee River. Even in the dark, Gideon could see that the current wasn’t deep or strong enough to carry Smith very far, but at that moment, he didn’t care. All that mattered was that he himself was alive.

He jogged back up to the walkway and saw that, by some miracle, the area was devoid of pedestrians. Thoughts of another drink were long gone. Instead, he lurched across the bridge, checking himself in the streetlights for blood. Amazingly, there were only a few spots on his blazer. He quickly shrugged out of it and carefully wiped the blood from his hands on the inside lining, dropping the knife into the inside pocket when he was done. It was a messy job, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. Finally, he stuck a finger through the coat loop and draped it over his shoulder while he walked through the shadows the rest of the way to his hotel.

A single clerk manned the lobby desk as he entered, barely bothering to glance up as Gideon crossed to the elevator. By the time the doors slid shut, he could see the man’s eyes were already back on his computer screen. As he rode up to the twentieth floor, he could feel the adrenaline that had been coursing through his system begin to ebb. When he reached his suite, he was trembling. It started with his hands and quickly grew to encompass his whole body.

Once inside, he immediately stripped nude and examined himself in the bathroom mirror. His hands were a vague ruddy hue from Smith’s blood, but otherwise, he looked unscathed. He removed the knife from his blazer pocket and washed it in the sink, then rolled it in the clothes he’d shed and stuffed it all into a laundry bag. Finally, he took a steaming-hot shower, using the time and warmth to calm down and think of what to do next. Come morning, he would find a store and buy a bottle of bleach to sanitize the bathroom, along with a few other items to avoid arousing suspicion. The laundry bag would go into his suitcase until he could find a place to burn the contents. If anyone asked, he would tell them he came to the hotel by a completely different route, nowhere near the river.

It would work. He would make it work. After all, he was one of the smartest people on the planet.

He took six little bottles from the mini bar, mixed them together in a tumbler, and downed them in a single swallow. Gideon thought he wouldn’t sleep a wink that night, but within twenty minutes, he had dropped into a deep slumber. If he dreamed at all, he didn’t remember it.

In fact, after a good sleep, he felt better than he had in a very long time.

35

“As you can see, we’ve been able to significantly increase the integrity of the bridge,” Salima said, pointing to a schematic on her office table showing StarSeeker’s upgrades to the MM-01 rocket. “In the future, the withdrawal process will be much smoother. Clay Newton and his team have run something like two dozen simulations, and all showed optimal results.”

“Mmm,” Gideon grunted. His eyes were on the papers, but Salima could see his mind was somewhere else.

“They also added a swimming pool and a tiki bar right here.” She ran an index finger along a section of the stage two fuel tank. “Weather permitting, of course.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

Salima snapped her fingers in front of his nose. “Earth to Gideon.”

“What?” He blinked at her.

“I can’t believe you actually let me get you with that line,” she said with a friendly grin, something she never thought would happen once Gideon had flaked out on her.

“Sorry.” He shook his head ruefully. “My mind is on a hundred different things at once.”

“Let’s take a break.” She motioned for him to take a seat and poured two steaming cups of coffee from the urn on her sideboard. She sat across from him and handed him one. “I think I know what you’re going through.”

He flashed her a strange look. “You think so?”

“Sure,” she said. “We’re media darlings now. Granted, it’s only been a few weeks since Al Peroni gave you the thumbs-up.” She smiled. “I’ve got about a month’s head start on you.”

It was the first time the two had been together since Gideon averted the orbital unit disaster. Salima had called to congratulate him and sent numerous emails, but nothing face-to-face. Gideon seemed distracted but was otherwise in good spirits. In fact, he hadn’t insulted her once. She was starting to believe this new, improved version of him had emerged from the ashes of the Beyond catastrophe. Gideon 2.0, as it were.

He chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. I’ve been interviewed so many times in the last few weeks that I barely had time to do my job. At least it appears to be winding down. We have a lot to do in the next couple of months.”

That was an understatement. One World needed StarSeeker to get three more units and two more crews into orbit in that time. After that, there would be several more crew changes over the course of ten months before they would be ready to go. Meanwhile, StarSeeker still had to work on getting its own mission ready to launch. It was almost certain at this point that One World’s ship would be the first out of the gate, but Salima was sure that StarSeeker’s ship would pass it fairly quickly and win the race. The goal was two hundred days from liftoff to touchdown on Mars. Ambitious, certainly, but they would pull it off somehow.

That was assuming they could avoid millions of potential problems that could arise during seven months of high-speed space travel, of course. No big deal.

“It’s winding down for now,” Salima pointed out. “Give it another seven or eight months, as we get closer to launch, and the media will be all over us again. Chris Butler, my head of PR, says we can expect the late-night talk shows to have us both on at the same time.” She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “Sorry, I should say StarSeeker’s head of PR, not mine. Not anymore.”

Gideon sipped his coffee. “I haven’t met the new CEO yet,” he said. “How’s it working out?”

“I’m not going to second-guess Philip,” she said with a shrug. “He thought Jordan Armstrong from finance would be a good fit, so that’s that. To be honest, I’m glad to be out of the big chair.” She swept a hand around the room. “Plus, I got to keep my office.”

“Until you go to space,” Gideon said.

“It’s still so weird to hear that,” she said. “Has it struck home for you yet? That you’re really going to spend a significant amount of your life in space?”

“Perhaps all of it. This could very well be a one-way trip.”

Salima grimaced. “Boy, you’re a riot, aren’t you? My parents said the same thing when I told them.”

He smiled. “They want grandchildren.”

“Well, they’ll have to settle for me making history,” she replied. “For now, at least. Who knows what the future has in store?”

At that moment, Gideon’s phone buzzed. He ignored it. “To answer your questions, I think I’ve internalized the idea. And I believe I know what the future has in store.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is that right?”

“Yes. I believe my ship will make it to Mars first, and I’ll take that first elevator ride down to the surface and plant a little flag there. Want to know what will be on the flag?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Three simple words: ‘Suck it, Patel’ in all caps.”

Salima sat in shock for just a moment before bursting into a fit of laughter. Gideon smiled for a few seconds and then started chuckling himself. It occurred to her that it was the first time she had ever seen the man laugh, which made it that much funnier to her. It was cathartic, and when she finally settled down and took a deep breath, she was ready to address something that had been eating at her since Gideon arrived.

“Are we good?” she asked. “I don’t mean this meeting. I mean you and me.” It was a ridiculous understatement, given all they’d been through, but there was no use in rehashing it here. “I told Philip everything. Which, in your case, really wasn’t much at all, outside of our own personal animosity.”

He looked at her for several moments before answering. “I’ve already let it go, Salima. We were both under a lot of pressure to produce back then, and I believe Cummings was to blame for escalating things between us.” He looked at his hands. “That and the fact I have a tendency to be a real asshole, obviously. But I’m working on it.”

She smiled. “Saving people from disasters in orbit was a good way to start. Philip can’t say enough good about you these days. It’s quite shocking.”

“I can only imagine,” he said, returning the grin. “It must be hell having to listen to it.”

“Not enemies?” Salima asked, leaning forward and extending her hand. Gideon took it and they shook.

“Not enemies,” he agreed. “But don’t think for one second that I’m not going to do everything in my power to crush you under my bootheel when it comes to reaching Mars.”

Salima glowered at him and stretched out a hand, palm up, waving the fingers back toward herself. “Bring it, blondie. I got moves you’ve never even—”

Gideon’s phone rang again. He fished it out of his pocket with a sigh and apologized as he answered it. “Yes?”

Salima barely paid attention for the first few seconds of the call, her mind quickly moving on to other matters. Then she saw the stricken look on Gideon’s face.

“Wie…wie ist es passiert?” he asked hoarsely.

That was enough to alarm her. She leaned forward intently as Gideon sat motionless, listening to whoever was on the other end. “Ich verstehe,” he said after what seemed like an eternity. He continued speaking in German for another two minutes or so before saying, “Danke, auf weidersehen,” and thumbing his phone off. The color was gone from his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Who was that?”

“Munich police,” he said flatly, not looking at her. “There was a fire at my parents’ home in Milbertshofen. They were hosting a sixteenth birthday party for my cousin.”

Salima’s stomach lurched. “Are they… I mean, is everything okay?”

“Neighbors said it went up in a matter of minutes. No one got out.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. “Gideon, I’m so sorry—”

He looked at her as if just now noticing he wasn’t alone. “I have to go,” he said. “The nonstop from L.A. to Munich leaves in six hours.”

“You can use Philip’s jet,” she said. “Let me just call—”

“Thanks, but no. I have some things to do before I leave. I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m back. Thanks for your concern.”

Salima took his hands. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

He gave her a wan smile. “You’ve done enough for me already.”

Gideon left without another word. She quickly phoned Barnhart to tell him the terrible news.

She couldn’t see Gideon several minutes later, when he was blocks away from StarSeeker’s corporate offices, as his upper lip curled in a snarl and his hands clenched painfully into fists.

36

“Jesus H. Christ,” Patrick Sloane muttered as he skimmed through the briefing file in front of him.

The president was at the head of the table in the White House’s Situation Room, with Arlen Becker at his right. To Sloane’s left, on the other side of the table from Becker, sat Emma Shipley, the Director of National Intelligence, and Peter Blakely, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. They were equally absorbed in what they were reading.

“Where did you get this, General?” Shipley asked as she placed the file back on the table.

He cleared his throat. “Anonymous email. My people are working to trace it.”

“You’re not serious.” Blakely looked skeptical, like he’d been conned.

“Settle down, Pete,” Sloane warned. “Given recent circumstances, I’ve let Arlen have some leeway this past year. His methods may be a bit unconventional, but he has my complete trust.”

Blakely scowled. “With all due respect, sir, my people worked very hard to pin this shit on the Russians a couple of months ago to get a multi-billionaire out of a private contract with the Russian space agency. I’d hoped we were past that kind of thing nowadays. Now we’re supposed to believe it was actually China? Based on an anonymous email, of all things?”

Becker bit down on his anger and frustration, more at himself than the intelligence officials. He couldn’t argue with Blakely. If the intel was true, and he had every reason to believe it was, then they’d all been played for suckers, and salvaging relations with the Russians would be even more of a challenge than they already were. When he’d received the email some two weeks earlier, his reaction wasn’t much different than theirs.

Then he’d taken a good, long look at it.

“As the brief details,” he said, “there is a distinct possibility it was all a false flag operation. The Chinese worked very hard to make it look as if Russia was behind a series of sabotage attempts, even going so far as to send up the goddamn spy balloon with a treasure trove of false intel.”

Shipley’s eyes narrowed. “If I may, General, that was all the more reason to run it past the intelligence community before directly approaching POTUS.”

“POTUS can hear you, Emma.” Sloane leaned back in his chair. “I’m not a fan of ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda.’ I don’t care about the past; I care about the future.” He turned to Becker. “Give us the executive summary and offer a plan of action, Arlen.”

Becker set up his laptop to stream to the big screen on the wall. It was a photo of a man, taken on the deck of a boat somewhere on open water. “This photo was attached to the email. One of my people in the National Space Intelligence Center enhanced it to a level where facial recognition software could map the points of the face.” He zoomed in and the face filled a large portion of the screen. It was a white male, thirties, with dark hair, an olive complexion, and a neatly trimmed beard.

“The supposed operative,” said Blakely. “Who is he?”

“We don’t know. His face only shows up in a single database out of the hundreds we searched.” Becker clicked again and a new image appeared. It was the same man, only he was lying on a morgue slab with a huge gash in his esophagus. His olive skin was now an ashy gray.

“So what?” asked Blakely. “A before-and-after of a murder victim. What’s the relevance?”

“A murder victim who doesn’t exist,” Shipley pointed out, clearly intrigued. “Where was he killed, General?”

“That’s the relevance,” Becker said. “The body was discovered in the Truckee River in downtown Reno the morning after the near tragedy at the One World orbital platform. StarSeeker’s launch HQ, the Hangar, is located three hundred miles northwest of Reno.”

Blakely frowned. “That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? It could be a coincidence.”

Becker took a breath to keep his cool. Blakely had been given the top job at the CIA by the former president as a reward for his political fundraising expertise. The man was never in the military or any sort of law enforcement; he was a corporate lawyer by trade.

Becker said, “Mr. Blakely, I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for six years, and a high-ranking Marine for two decades before that, much of which I served in an active combat zone. I’ve seen thousands of real-time intelligence reports from hundreds of different sources. I’m not in the habit of running down rabbit holes.”

The sour look on Blakely’s face told Becker he’d struck a nerve. Sloane glanced at both men, then motioned for Becker to continue.

“After we took down the spy balloon—”

“With Philip Barnhart’s help,” Blakely sniped.

“We all know how it was done,” Sloane said tersely. “Now let the general talk or I’ll have you escorted out of here.”

And maybe fire his ass while you’re at it, Becker thought. “We also know that the intelligence we gleaned from the surveillance equipment is highly suspect. Now, the best lies always contain just enough truth to make them seem feasible. Some of what we learned was, indeed, factual. Chief among that was the involvement of one Matthew Cummings, a One World engineer, in a series of sabotage efforts against space launches.”

He called up an image of Cummings’s gaunt face. “As you know, Cummings committed suicide several months ago. In his final note, he confessed to trying to kill Alvito Peroni, and to hacking the One World orbital unit, which could have allowed him to take over critical systems while it was in space. At the time, we believed he was being influenced by Russian agents. Now we have reason to believe that it was our nameless murder victim who was behind it.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Shipley.

Another image, this time of Cummings’ suicide note on a table with a pen beside it. “What of it?” asked Blakely. “It doesn’t implicate Russia or China.”

“This photo was attached to the anonymous email,” Becker said. “The note on the table was never released to the public. The only people who ever saw it are Italian authorities and the FBI. Cummings’ own family didn’t even ask to see it.” He zoomed out on the photo to show an entire living room. To the right hung a body, visible from the shoulders down. The rest of the room was empty. “The person who took this photo—our informant claims it was the man on the slab—was in the room before Sicilian police arrived.”

Blakely and Shipley exchanged a look, then turned back to Becker. “So not a suicide at all,” Shipley offered.

“That’s our new theory,” Becker replied. “Cummings was certainly a patsy, recruited to get access into One World. Our source claims he suffered from any number of neuroses and harbored a deep-seated jealousy for Ennis Wright, One World’s chief engineer.”

“That ties Cummings and the dead man to One World,” said Sloane. “What about the others?”

Becker nodded. “I was just getting to that, sir. As you know, the engine explosion at the Space Force R-and-D facility at Wright-Patterson last year was traced to a faulty fuel duct. It was delivered by someone who ostensibly worked for one of our contractors but didn’t show up in their employee database. My people conducted a thorough investigation at the time but weren’t able to connect the dots.” He called up a still from security footage of the delivery driver. “As you can see, the face is obscured by his hat, but he matches the build and swarthiness of our dead man.”

“Holy shit,” Sloane breathed. “You’re saying this has been going on for almost two years?”

“Yes, sir. The cause of the explosion of StarSeeker’s X9 prototype last year has never been conclusively proven, but it could very well have been sabotage.” This time, he called up a photo of another dead body. This one was a man in his early thirties, disheveled, lying on a dirty bathroom floor.

“I recognize that photo,” said Blakely. “It’s the kid who killed the old guy on the Beyond test stand at Mojave, right?”

“Richie Powell,” Becker said. “I’m sure you all remember the story: former Beyond technician, holed up in Montana, started drinking heavily to deal with what he’d done to Frank Sheehan. Police found him like this, choked to death on his own vomit.”

Shipley wrinkled her nose. “Ugh.”

“I assume there was more to the story?” the president asked.

Becker nodded. “This is where the clincher comes in, sir. My source claimed Powell’s death wasn’t an accident. Local police had quite a few questions during their investigations, but once the FBI took over and the story hit the media, they were pushed into the background.”

“What questions?” Blakely asked.

“Mainly how Powell managed to survive for over seven months without once tapping his bank account or using his credit card,” Becker said. “His landlord said he paid her in cash to the tune of some five thousand dollars. Local restaurants and liquor stores he frequented said the same: always cash. That would easily add up to another five grand and probably a lot more over seven months. Where did the money come from?” He took a breath and looked Sloane in the eye. “I confess I went a bit rogue at this point, sir.”

The president’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“The source claimed that Powell’s death actually resulted from an injection of insulin. It left him catatonic, which caused him to aspirate his vomit. I asked the FBI to have one of their forensic experts go over the toxicology report, and sure enough, there were signs of insulin overdose that were overlooked by the local medical examiner. You can’t really blame them when the cause of death appears to be obvious, and insulin can be difficult to detect if you’re not specifically looking for it.”

Blakely frowned. “Someone murdered the man who killed Frank Sheehan? Why?”

“A coverup,” Becker said. “Powell killed Sheehan in the wee small hours before a critical Beyond, Inc. engine test. The source claims Powell was hired anonymously and paid in cash to sabotage the engine. Sheehan caught him in the act, and Powell accidentally killed him. He took off with the cash and holed up in Montana. Our dead man eventually found him and took him out to tie up loose ends.”

Blakely leaned back in his chair and shook his head, tossing his pen on the tabletop in disgust. “You don’t honestly expect us to believe all this. Despite what you claimed earlier, General, your story sounds an awful lot like you running down a rabbit hole. And I’m not seeing any connection to China yet, other than the word of your source.”

“I strongly disagree.” Shipley shook her head to punctuate her statement. “I find this intel extremely alarming.”

“So do I,” said Sloane. “Do you have any leads on your source, Arlen?”

“No, sir. Whoever sent the email knew what they were doing. They used a TOR network to route it through a series of servers. I’m less concerned about who it is and more concerned about what they’re trying to say.”

“Which is?” asked Shipley.

“That we need to start taking this shit seriously,” said Sloane.

Becker shut off the screen. “You took the words right out of my mouth, sir. Permission to speak freely?”

“Always.” Sloane looked at the directors. “Emma, Pete, thank you for your input.”

Shipley nodded and rose while Blakely looked fit to spit nails, but he did as he was told. When they were gone, Becker took his seat at the president’s right side again.

“Do I want to hear this or will I be pissed off?” asked Sloane.

Becker chuckled. “I wish I knew, sir. I spoke with Barnhart—”

The president rolled his eyes. “So I’m going to be pissed off. All right, then.”

“All due respect, sir, I think what he said needs to be repeated. The Space Force can’t possibly hope to compete with the billionaires, especially now that StarSeeker has absorbed Beyond and is actively working to help One World’s own Mars mission. I know you had high hopes for the Force—”

“No, I didn’t.” Sloane sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not really. Deep down, I always knew it was a matter of time before Barnhart and the others showed us up. I was just trying to buy time until I could get the politics worked out. Never would have thought space exploration would be such a fucking hot potato.” He waved his hands erratically and made a face. “Can’t we just be happy that humanity is headed to the stars?”

Becker nodded. “One or both of the billionaires will be headed to Mars within the year. Our own efforts are a decade away, at the earliest.”

“I know. I took one of the biggest political gambles in history when I shuttered NASA, and it blew up in my face.” Sloane arched an eyebrow. “If you repeat that, I’ll have one of Blakely’s teams take you out. Midterm elections are coming up in November, and I don’t need both parties teaming up against me.”

“Sir, if I’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s that government is anathema to space exploration in today’s world. It would be like entering an M1-Abrams tank in NASCAR. That’s not what it was designed for, and it would never have a hope of winning.”

“China could pull it off.”

Becker chuckled. “Sure, by blowing up all the race cars and forcing the crowd to cheer the tank at gunpoint. That’s the only reason they’re ahead of the Space Force.”

“Still, if what you’re saying is true, they made us look like chumps.” The president looked more tired than angry.

“If I may, sir, that’s an anomaly in a competitive system. Everyone’s so busy keeping an eye on their opponents that they lose sight of threats to the entire contest.”

The president nodded. “Seems like Barnhart and Peroni were able to discover that on their own. Now we just have to figure out how to leave the race with our dignity intact. Harry Kane and the rest of the committee will have to be on board. We can’t risk going public about it for fear of a diplomatic firestorm.”

“With all due respect, sir, that’s your job,” Becker said. “And frankly, you can have it.”

“With all due respect,” the president scoffed. “Don’t rub it in. So, what’s your job now?”

Becker turned serious again. “Whoever killed that nameless operative, I guarantee Beijing is furious about it. Our intel on their Mars program is extremely limited, but it’s a safe bet they’re nowhere near One World or StarSeeker, even though they are undoubtedly well ahead of us. China’s only hope of being first on Mars is to stop their competitors. That means they’ll be stepping up their efforts, and soon. I firmly believe this was just the first salvo in a longer war. It could easily escalate into space itself, with drones targeting the ships after they’ve launched.” He paused. “Sorry, I have to bring up Barnhart again.”

Sloane sighed and made a rolling motion with his hand. Get on with it.

“He said he believes Space Force’s role needs to be like any other branch of the military: to defend America and her assets from our enemies. I agree. If we want the U.S. to be the first nation to set foot on Mars, we need to protect those competing. If that ends up looking like corporate welfare…” He shrugged. “I think we agree, the ends justify the means.”

“I do agree.” Sloane nodded. “I just hope it doesn’t cost me my job.”

Becker smiled and leaned toward the president. “History will remember you fondly either way, sir.”

Sloane stood up, and Becker followed suit. As they walked toward the door, the president clapped the general on the shoulder. “Tell that to Jimmy Carter,” he said. “I’m sure that and five bucks will get you a bag of peanuts.”

37

“Can we get the heat turned up a bit?” Hannah Boyd asked, looking up from the notes in her lap. “My teeth are chattering.”

Philip Barnhart fixed her with a quizzical look. “This is the Hangar,” he said. “It’s some thirty million cubic feet. You don’t just ‘turn up the heat.’”

Salima smiled, even as she groaned inwardly. The three of them were taking up three director’s chairs in a semi-circle of six. The other three were currently empty, and the whole area was surrounded by floodlights and cameras. Even so, it took up only a tiny fraction of the vast space that comprised the Hangar’s floor.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Salima told the TV host. “Philip will be the first to tell you that he didn’t become the richest man alive by turning up the thermostat.”

He glowered at her. “Or by keeping smart-ass divas on the payroll.”

“Second-richest man alive,” said a voice from behind the lights.

Salima blinked against the glare as the figures of Al Peroni and Gideon Wagner emerged. It had been nine months since Gideon’s family had perished. He was not yet fully recovered.

They all shook hands while Johnna Smythe called from the coffee station to wait for her. She jogged over and gave each of them a warm hug before they took their seats. Their skin practically glowed under the blazing bulbs while Boyd went over technical details with the filming crew.

“Crikey, Phil-o,” Smythe moaned. “It’s colder than a well-digger’s arse in here.”

“That’s what I said!” Boyd cried. “All right, are we ready?”

The director gave a silent thumbs-up. Boyd turned to the others and grinned. “Remember, we’re recorded, so if you screw up and let slip some state secrets, we can edit them out.”

They all laughed, even Gideon. Salima flashed back to his face the day he learned about the fire at his family’s home last year. At that moment, she wondered if he would ever smile again, let alone laugh, but he’d proved to be resilient and was back at work less than a week after the funerals. The two of them had grown closer as they took their astronaut training together in Los Angeles, learning the ins and outs of long-term space flight from former ISS astronauts. These days, as the clock ticked down to One World’s mission launch, he seemed to have a smile at the ready all the time.

Somewhere behind the lights, a voice said, “Ready Camera One.” A few seconds later, a red light went on over the camera facing Boyd. It was showtime. The first few minutes consisted of Boyd introducing the assembled guests, then bringing the viewer up to speed on the upcoming Mars missions. One World’s final mission crew was set to rendezvous with the ship in orbit in seven days, while StarSeeker’s ship and crew would launch from the Hangar ten days later.

“And I’ll be on the sidelines, drinking and cheering ‘em on!” Smythe hooted. “Safe in the knowledge that I didn’t lose me entire bloody fortune trying to keep up with these nutty buggers.”

There was a round of laughter at that, followed by Boyd asking about the difference between the two missions. For that, she turned to Salima and Gideon. He explained that One World’s ship, built in orbit, was larger and heavier, with an experimental propulsion engine that used ionized propellant and electrical fields to accelerate the ions. Once in orbit around Mars, it would use a geostationary “space elevator” to ferry the six-person crew and supplies from the ship to the surface and back.

“The advantage is that the system is quite efficient,” Gideon said. He grinned. “The disadvantage is that none of it could be tested on the ground, and it might not work at all, which would suck.”

Boyd laughed out loud. Peroni turned to Gideon and said, “If that happens, you can kiss your bonus good-bye.” That prompted another round of laughter.

“At least you’ll be able to say you’ve been to space,” Boyd told Gideon. “How many times now?”

“Strictly speaking,” he replied, “I’ve only been to orbit twice. I haven’t actually been to space.”

“Gotta love engineers,” Boyd said with a chuckle. “You’re so literal about everything.”

Next up was Salima simplifying StarSeeker’s plan for the general audience: the world’s most advanced chemical propellant rocket would carry a crew of four and a payload consisting of shelter, scientific equipment, food, water, and the components of a system designed to harvest rocket fuel from the Martian landscape, which would eventually allow for a return voyage to Earth.

“But I’m not fooling myself into believing this will be a quick roundtrip,” she said solemnly. “I’m sure Gideon would agree, we’re in this for the long term, and there are no guarantees to any of it. That’s the nature of space travel. The Apollo 11 crew had no idea if they would make it to the moon, let alone safely back to Earth. As for us, we know that even our best-case scenario means years away from home.”

Boyd nodded gravely, then quickly brightened. “Let’s be optimistic and assume that both missions are a complete success. What will the two of you do when you’re on Mars?”

Salima and Gideon exchanged a glance. He smiled and said, “Well, I suppose the loser will buy the winner a beer.”

After the laughter died down, Boyd turned to Barnhart and Peroni. “Your engineers are obviously friendly rivals in this race. Would you say that applies to you two as well?”

“Absolutely,” Barnhart replied. “Once NASA was dissolved, Al, Johnna, and myself entered into a fierce race to see who could make it to Mars first. We all believe the way forward for humanity is out there.” He pointed upward. “Of course, we want our names on it, but we want the bragging rights that come with bringing peace to Earth by showing we can work together across all borders to achieve something greater than ourselves. I’m a firm believer that competition drives evolution, and only evolution can move humanity forward.”

Peroni nodded. “But it’s cooperation that elevates us,” he added. “When it became clear that Beyond, Inc. was no longer viable, Johnna handed the company to Philip because she saw him as the best option to advance the race. I didn’t take that personally.”

Smythe placed a hand on top of his. “Oh, thank God,” she said with theatrical relief. “You and Connie put on the best bloody Christmas parties. I didn’t want to get kicked off the guest list!” More laughter, then she added, “No, it’s true, though. The race is just another tool, I reckon. Everyone will learn from these missions, through success and failure. Implement what works, toss what doesn’t.”

“Exactly,” Barnhart said.

“Agreed.” Peroni nodded.

Salima’s mind was suddenly cast back to a day almost two years earlier, when the trio sitting next to her had convened a top-secret meeting on a yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean. She, Gideon, and Ennis Wright hadn’t been privy to the discussion, but Salima had always known they were talking about the race to Mars. To think of how far they had come—how far she had come—in that time was humbling. She looked over at Gideon, only to catch him looking back at her. He nodded and smiled. She did the same.

Whatever the future held, she was glad that the underhanded efforts of the past were well behind them.

Around midafternoon, before ferrying Peroni and Smythe to Vegas, Barnhart’s helicopter dropped Gideon and Salima in Reno. They said their good-byes and were picked up in a pair of black SUVs driven by their personal Space Force guards. The men wore all-black fatigues. They were all business, terrifying even to the civilians, which, Gideon supposed, was their job. His anonymous email to Arlen Becker had produced even better results than he’d hoped—there was security around him twenty-four hours a day. None of Smith’s people had approached him since they torched his family’s home, thanks to Becker and his counter-intelligence efforts. And with no loved ones left, they had lost any leverage they had over him.

The new security also kept Gideon from doing something he desperately needed to do. Still, he supposed the trade-off was worth it.

As always, he asked his guard to take Riverside Drive to his building. Driving past the spot where he’d slid the blade of Smith’s own knife into his throat gave him a sense of power, a grounding of sorts that made it easier to continue his charade day in and day out.

Once they arrived at the apartment that had been his home for more than six months, he thanked his guard and went inside, knowing the sergeant from Space Delta 18 unit would sit on the chair outside his door and stand watch until another sergeant arrived at midnight to relieve him. Gideon reheated curry leftovers from the night before, then turned on the television. He knew from experience that the guard would be able to hear it in the hall and had made it his habit to play it most of the evening. Lately, he had been setting the channel to Major League Baseball spring training, even though he despised the game. It was the most American thing he could think of.

He took his meal into the apartment’s lone bedroom and punched a code into the locker at the foot of his bed. From it he took a series of technical manuals and some radio equipment he’d designed himself. For the next three hours, he fiddled with frequencies and power levels, logging his results and jotting down his thoughts. He was sure it would work, but he wouldn’t be able to test it. That bothered him, but he had no choice. It wasn’t like he could leave and go to Salima’s house to do what he needed to do. There were always two guards between him and her.

But that wouldn’t last forever. Soon, the only thing between them would be the vast expanse of space, and there would be no one to stop him from eliminating the stupid bitch from the race for Mars before it really got started.

38

“All systems optimal, Palermo.”

Gideon caught a glimpse of his crewmate, Stephen Webber, out of the corner of his eye. Webber was a test pilot, mixed martial artist, and ironman triathlete, the kind of man stupid people called an “alpha male.” The look on his face said he thought he should be the one communicating with the One World command center.

Gideon held back a grin. Under normal circumstance, the mission commander would be the one doing the talking, not the engineer. But today, with the world watching the live video feed from the ship in orbit, Al Peroni knew that it was Gideon’s face the people wanted to see. The rest of the crew was made up of an Air Force nurse practitioner named Lexie Hamilton; an MIT-trained aeronautics technician named John Rand; a South Korean former ISS astronaut and biologist named Annie Hwang; and Kingsley Okoro, a Nigerian research scientist with extensive experience in the Sahara Desert. In addition to their specialities, they all had six months of intensive training in every aspect of the mission ahead of them, every part of the ship and its equipment, and in how to survive in extreme conditions.

None of them had Gideon’s intellect, of course, but he was sure all of them would perform adequately. None of them had pissed him off to any real degree yet, which was all that mattered to him. As long as they continued to do as they were told, they’d be fine.

On the main viewscreen in the command module’s common area, Al Peroni’s face beamed back at them. Gideon noticed a considerable amount of gray had infiltrated his formerly raven-black hair over the past nine months, but the smile was genuine. Behind him, Connie chatted with Philip Barnhart via video conference. Soon the ship would reach the perfect point in its orbit to fire the engine and break away toward Mars. Each crew member took their stations in preparation for that moment.

With one minute left until launch, Peroni, his wife, and Ennis Wright appeared on the screen, side by side. Connie was openly weeping, and Peroni looked to be on the edge of tears himself. Even Wright was emotional. The maudlin display turned Gideon’s stomach.

“The whole world is watching,” Peroni said.

No shit, Gideon thought. Just get on with it.

“This moment is the culmination of a lifetime of dreams,” Peroni continued. “Mine, Connie’s, the entire One World staff. But also every generation that came before us, anyone who ever looked up and wondered what lay beyond that night sky. You people carry with you the hopes of the entire human race…”

Christ, Gideon groaned inwardly. As if that weren’t bad enough, Patrick Sloane came on after Peroni to offer his own boring homily. Gideon tuned out until he finally heard the words from the commander on the ground: “Ignition in T-minus ten…nine…”

The rest of the crew exchanged excited glances, so Gideon followed suit to blend in. He didn’t share their feelings. This would be nothing like the ground launch of StarSeeker’s Mars mission, with its thirty-three methane-powered engines and deafening cloud of fire. Their own ship would be far less glamorous, firing a small rocket to break them from orbit at around 25,000 kph. Once they were free of Earth’s rotation and pointed at Mars, the ion thruster engine would simply start feeding ionized xenon fuel into the acceleration grid and expelling it into a static plate to move the ship forward. While the ship would eventually reach speeds of more than 40,000 kph, it would take weeks.

Slow and steady wins the race, Gideon thought grimly. But it doesn’t thrill the mindless masses.

The countdown reached zero and Webber ignited the rocket. The acceleration was gradual but noticeable as the ship slipped the tether of orbit and started its journey toward the red planet. Gideon kept a close eye on the systems, watching the ship’s speed approach the 11.2 kilometers-per-second necessary to escape Earth’s orbit. When it reached the magic number, Webber gave the word and Gideon activated the ion thrust engine.

It was anticlimactic and unglamorous, but they were on their way to Mars. Every trip started with the first few pounds of applied thrust.

The video feed from Earth switched from Palermo Mission Control to a crowd of people watching in Times Square. The local time was 2 a.m. and people were cheering like it was the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.

“Pretty damn cool,” Webber said, grinning like an idiot. The others murmured their agreement.

“Pretty damn cool indeed,” Peroni echoed on the screen. He nodded somberly and gave them a mild fist-pump. “Godspeed, my friends.”

The video feed cut out soon after as the ship’s comms system lost contact with the broadcasting satellite. It would be their last view of Earth for years, possibly the rest of their lives. The mission would be constrained to radio contact only from that point on.

Great, Gideon thought. The last thing from Earth I see is Al Peroni’s stupid fist-pump. But he was glad for the switch to radio—it would eventually be critical to his plans.

The first few hours of the mission were devoted to monitoring systems and making sure everything was running properly. Gideon knew it would, because he’d made sure of it himself over the past several months. During that time, he had also carefully smuggled his special equipment aboard, piece by piece, and secreted it away in the locker on the floor of his personal quarters. Each crew member got the luxury of a room about the size of a small elevator, some seven feet wide by five feet deep by eight feet tall. The “cabins,” as they were called, allowed for private sleeping, since the crew would work in shifts, and served as a place where they could get away from each other during the months-long voyage to Mars.

Finally, after everything had been exhaustively reviewed, they settled in to have their first official meal together as a mission crew. It consisted of packaged food specifically designed to allow the most nutrition with the least waste—and, Gideon thought, the least flavor.

“I ate an entire extra-large pepperoni pizza on my last night on Earth,” Rand said wistfully before squeezing a blob of beef stew into his mouth.

“Okay, can we all agree not to call it our ‘last night on Earth’?” asked Hamilton. “And to not bring up food for, like, the next two years?”

“Hear, hear,” Webber replied. He had already finished his chicken chunks. “It’s going to be hard enough eating the same shit over and over without imagining everything we could be eating instead.”

Okoro snorted. “That is a first-world problem,” he said in his thick Nigerian accent. “Where I grew up, we did not talk about what we ate, but whether or not we did eat.”

Hwang looked at Gideon. “You’re awfully quiet,” she said as she deposited her empty package of rice and beans in the trash compactor.

“Just savoring my—” He looked at the label on his own MRE. “—meatballs, apparently.”

That drew a chuckle from the rest of the crew. It was a welcome reminder that Gideon had their confidence, which would be crucially important soon enough.

He wouldn’t be able to enact his plan without it.

39

“So, I’m guessing a bathroom break is out of the question?” Salima asked via her helmet radio.

Jason Cole grinned from his spot in the seat next to her. They were strapped into the ship’s cockpit facing upward, along with science officer Daniel Tremont, maintenance and repair specialist Thandy Krebbs, and logistics officer Don Liu.

“You realize you just broadcast that to the entire world, right?” said Cole, pilot and mission commander.

“Of course,” she said, returning the smile. “It was a shoutout to my TikTok fam. Hashtag ‘pee break’ was my first viral video when I was doing my astronaut training.”

“I remember,” Tremont said. “It was quickly followed by hashtag ‘vomit comet’ during your micro-G training.”

Philip Barnhart’s voice broke in over the radio in her ear, on the specific frequency assigned to her helmet so that only she would hear. “If you’re done being a Zoomer,” he interrupted, “there’s a historic launch in progress.”

She kept herself from muttering “party pooper,” mainly because that would have been broadcast to the world, too. Salima wondered how big the audience would be compared to the one that watched the One World mission launch from orbit the week before. Not that it mattered—it only served to remind her of that awful day two years earlier when the world watched the X9 prototype explode during its ascent.

It's not where you start, Barnhart’s voice said in her mind. It’s where you finish.

That helped to ground her. Even now, with the clock counting down to liftoff on the screens in front of her, she still had trouble internalizing the fact that her lifelong dream was about to come true. She was really going to Mars. Her thoughts turned to the last dinner with her parents, how their emotional dams finally broke down, leading to a tear-soaked conversation that went a long way toward re-earning her respect. Of her final meeting with Philip Barnhart three hours earlier, before she took the lift to the rocket’s cockpit with the rest of the mission crew: “You got this, kid,” he told her. Without thinking, she’d thrown her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely. After a time, he actually hugged back, and they stayed that way for a long time. She’d left him without another word, both of them misty-eyed, knowing that they might never meet in person again.

It was far more moving than the platitude-filled speech her boss gave over the airwaves as the countdown continued, certainly more so than President Sloane’s pep talk. The time for words was over; now was the time for action.

The cockpit went silent as the clock rolled down to T-minus ten…nine…eight… When it hit liftoff, all thirty-three engines ignited with a massive whoosh. Salima felt her stomach drop and her face begin to flatten as the incredible thrust drove them toward a clear blue sky. The heavy-lift rocket had been designed and tested for a single purpose: move heavy loads into space.

Salima heard Cole speaking into the mic, relaying info from inside the cockpit. All systems were go. They were on target for speed and altitude, steady as she goes. As the ship climbed, the G-forces increased, making her just a bit queasy. A glance at the rest of the crew indicated she wasn’t alone. The ship climbed and climbed, gaining speed with each passing second, until it broke through the atmosphere and into the blackness of sub-orbital space.

Salima’s anxiety disappeared with the arrival of darkness. She hadn’t realized how much she worried about the rocket blowing up.

“Max-Q achieved,” Cole said, confirming that they had reached the critical phase when the rocket experienced maximum aerodynamic pressure. He throttled down slightly to reduce stress on the frame, which was when Salima saw the red light. “Mission Control, we’ve lost one engine,” Cole reported. “All systems nominal.”

The procedure continued as the ship gained speed until main engine cutoff. Cole initiated stage one separation, dropping the first-stage engine and entering the coast phase. Salima and Don Liu worked their controls to confirm that the ship followed the correct ballistic trajectory. With the course set, Cole initiated the second stage, also known as the Trans-Martian Injection, firing another engine to break free of Earth’s orbit. Once that was achieved, the ship finally entered the third and longest: the cruise phase, which it would follow for the next two hundred days until it reached orbit above Mars.

“Well, now, would you look at that,” Cole said happily. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just hit our cruising speed of forty-four thousand kph. Almost seven percent more than we’d set as a theoretical target.”

The rest of the crew offered a chorus of mild cheers as they shed their pressurized flight suits and floated freely about the cabin. Like its One World counterpart, the StarSeeker ship featured a private space for each crew member, accessible from the central common area.

Salima couldn’t stop smiling. “Just did the math in my head. If my calculations are correct—and I know they are, because I’m super-smart like that—we should overtake One World and reach Mars a week before they do.” She didn’t bring up her rivalry with Gideon Wagner, or how he might react to the news. If it had been a year ago, she might have worried about how he’d take it, but these days, she knew he was far more concerned about the mission than about who made it there first.

“Assuming they actually reach it,” Tremont said.

“Assuming we actually reach it,” Krebbs pointed out.

“Belay that BS,” warned Cole. “Everyone is going to make it to Mars, and we’ll all have a big party when we get there.”

Salima said, “Hear, hear! I even brought some space corn to grow on the way so we can make nachos.”

“Some genius,” said Tremont. “Should have brought yeast so we could have beer.”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t trust you when you’re sober, Danny boy, let alone with one beer after not drinking for two hundred days.”

That set off more banter, which Salima appreciated, given the tension of the launch. They were past the most nerve-wracking stage of the voyage, but they were about to embark on the biggest challenge: living together. But she had high hopes with these people. For most of her life, Salima had difficulty making friends. This group, though, she’d taken to immediately during flight training, and they seemed to welcome her, too. She couldn’t imagine a group she would rather be with on this journey.

Later, as she climbed into her sleeping bag and gazed out the tiny porthole in her quarters, Salima feared she would wake up and find herself back in grad school, writing an article for Popular Science about the mission to Mars, and discover that it had all been just a dream.

40

Surrounded by green hedges and gazing into a small, manmade pond lined with flat stones, Arlen Becker stood with his hands clasped behind his back. The sun dappled hypnotically off the surface of the water. He was so deep inside his own head that he flinched when someone spoke behind him.

“General,” said a male voice. “Good to see you, sir.”

Becker turned to see a tall, well-built man a few years younger than himself. Malcolm Sweeney, assistant deputy director of the FBI, and he looked every bit the role. He’d built a thriving private practice before becoming a federal prosecutor, then spent ten years climbing the political ladder to his current position. Becker had no doubt the man had the presidency in his sights—eventually.

Becker offered his hand and the two shook. “Thanks for choosing Tudor Place for the meeting,” he said. “I have a certain affinity for the gardens here. They’re peaceful. They help me think.”

Sweeney sighed wistfully. “I know what you mean. Spending too much time in the halls of power can give you a skewed perspective. And Georgetown is an equal drive from the Hoover Building and the Pentagon, so I figured it worked for both of us.”

They made small talk as they strolled to a bench and sat down. Becker waved away his driver/bodyguard, who retreated to a spot under a nearby tree, out of earshot.

“Pardon my bluntness, Mr. Sweeney, but I’d appreciate it if you got right to the point. As much as I enjoy the location, the fact that we’re here means you need to talk about a sensitive subject, and my time is limited.”

Sweeney’s expression turned dour.

That set off a quiet alarm in Becker’s head. “Well, now that our two Mars missions are safely underway, I suppose I have some extra bandwidth. Go ahead and jump into it. I’m quite curious to know what this is about.”

Sweeney took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Becker was starting to lose patience.

“It has to do with a murder I’m told you had an interest in,” said Sweeney. “In fact, I was told that some folks high up in the intelligence community were also involved. To be honest, General, I wasn’t exactly sure who to approach with this situation, because it’s all above my paygrade, so I asked the director. He sent me directly to you.”

“I see.” That, at least, told Becker why he was here—the unnamed Chinese operative found dead in Reno. “So you’ve uncovered something new in the case, I take it.”

“That would be an understatement,” said Sweeney, looking sheepish. “I’ll start by offering you my apologies, General. I wasn’t directly involved in the snafu, but it’s a poor leader who blames others for the organization’s mistakes.”

“I appreciate that,” Becker said. “I also appreciate ripping off the Band-Aid, so if you discovered the victim’s identity, please get to it.”

Sweeney nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry to say, we haven’t identified the victim.”

Becker frowned, disappointed. “Then what did you find?”

“Well, sir, I— I think we actually found the killer.”

“What? That’s great news!”

“You may not think so when you’ve heard it all,” said Sweeney. “As you know, the case was kicked up the ladder to the FBI by the locals a while ago. Our people took custody of the evidence and re-examined the case. They did their best to discover the victim’s identity, but it was a dead end.” He looked Becker in the eye. “The agents were very eager to track down the man who didn’t exist, General, because it was a challenge, and they love a good challenge. In the process, some critical evidence got…overlooked.”

“What evidence?” Becker asked. “From what I saw, there wasn’t much evidence at all.”

“A civilian in Reno had come forward shortly after the body was transferred to the field office in Vegas, about a month after the killing. She was walking her dog along the river near where the body was found, and the dog sniffed out a rock with blood on it near a bridge abutment. Local police sent it up the pipe to our team—to be honest, I think the Reno cops sat on it a while, embarrassed that they missed it in their initial investigation—and it got lost in the shuffle on our end for months. In any case, when it was finally discovered a week ago, our people examined it and found a print in the blood.”

“The killer’s or the victim’s?”

“It was the victim’s blood but not his print. The agents ran the print through every law enforcement database in the country and got nothing, but they did get a match in an unusual place: Citizenship and Immigration Services, under the Department of State.”

“A foreign national?” Becker’s alert level rose.

Sweeney nodded. “Anyone with a work visa in the U.S. has to be printed before they start work here. This one has been on file for more than a decade.”

Becker’s mind swirled with possible scenarios. Was the killer a deep-cover agent for China, activated to eliminate the unknown operative? Ten years was a long time to be active without drawing any attention.

“So who does the print belong to?” Becker twirled his finger to encourage Sweeney to get to the point.

Sweeney’s gaze dropped to the grass in front of the bench. “That’s the hard part, General.”

“Just spit it out, man!” Becker snapped.

“Yes, sir.” He looked back up again. “The print belongs to Gideon Wagner.”

A sense of vertigo hit Becker then, enough that he had to sit back and grip the arm of the bench for a moment. He felt his heart rate rise and took a deep breath to calm himself.

It didn’t work. He wasn’t calm by any stretch. “You’re sure?” he asked huskily.

Sweeney nodded. “I deeply apologize for the chain of fuckups that led to this moment, sir. If the evidence had been logged in a timely manner, if it hadn’t been ignored in favor of a wild goose chase… Hell, if a half-dozen stupid errors hadn’t been made, we would have had this to you months ago.”

“Before a possible killer escaped in a rocket ship to Mars,” the general breathed.

Could Wagner possibly be the killer? Was he the anonymous source of intel, sending it to Becker to throw everyone off his own trail? To what end? Sabotage? That made no sense, given how he’d stepped in to prevent the destruction of both the One World Orbital and a StarSeeker rocket. Was he working for China? The idea was chilling.

Becker swallowed hard as an even more horrible thought occurred to him: could Gideon Wagner be mentally unstable? Was such a man currently on his way to Mars, trapping six other souls in a confined space with him for the next seven months?

Sweeney put a hand on Becker’s shoulder. “General, I understand the stakes here. The director and I are ready to put the entirety of the bureau’s resources towards this situation.”

“And do what?” Becker asked bleakly. “Are you going to find a rocket that can chase them down, because the last time I looked, the Space Force doesn’t have one.”

Sweeney’s face flushed red. “Again, sir, I take full responsibility—”

“I don’t have time for this.” Becker pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit a number in his contact. “This is Major General Arlen Becker,” he told the person who answered. “I need to see the president immediately.”

41

“Scotty, I need full power!” Webber hooted.

“Ah cannae do it, Captain!” Rand hollered back in an abysmal Scots accent. “I’m givin’ her all she’s got!”

Hwang clapped. “Congratulations! That is the absolute worst Scotty I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’ve been to more than two dozen Star Trek conventions.”

Gideon stared blankly as the others chortled at the mindless theatrics. None of them seemed to be the least bit affected by the news they’d received over the ship’s radio. Perhaps they’d lost their wits even now, less than two weeks into their seven-month voyage to Mars.

“Doesn’t it bother you even slightly?” he asked, genuinely curious despite his disdain for them all.

“Doesn’t what bother us?” asked Okoro, sucking freeze-dried coffee through a straw.

Gideon peered at him. “We just learned that StarSeeker reached forty-four thousand kph.”

“And?” Hamilton asked. She was working out with the resistance equipment built into the wall.

“The speeds they achieved in each stage were higher than the estimates they were using as a baseline,” Gideon continued. “I did the math. They’ll reach Mars a full week before we will, even though they left ten days after us. The margin might be even wider, depending on our own circumstances.”

“That was the joke,” said Webber, floating through the common area. “We cannae beat the enemy, Captain! Even if we give’er fool pooower!!”

“God, you’re as bad as Rand,” Hwang groaned.

“So it doesn’t matter to you at all?” Gideon resisted the urge to shake his fist at them.

“It is months from now,” said Okoro. “I, for one, could not care less. Our mission is my focus, as it should be yours.”

Gideon felt a flash of rage at the slight against him, but he kept it from showing on his face. He’d become good at hiding his true feelings, but twelve days locked in a capsule with these buffoons was already testing that ability. The idea of spending another six months with them was daunting, to say the least.

He forced himself to smile. “I know that. I’m just naturally competitive.” He looked at Webber. “Steve, you’re a jock, you must know what I’m talking about.”

The pilot shrugged. “Eh. I’m more about competing with myself. Using other people as a benchmark for yourself will just drive you crazy, know what I mean?”

An image of Salima flashed in Gideon’s mind and his thoughts were suddenly inky black. He struggled to keep his composure. This cretin had no idea what he was talking about, with his vapid pop culture psychology talking points.

“Oh, of course,” he said dismissively. “I was just thinking it would make for a good thought experiment. I find myself needing something to occupy my mind so that I don’t start lecturing you all on the finer points of metallic additive manufacturing.”

Hamilton, who had finished her workout and was wiping away a sheen of sweat with a thin towel, nodded. “I suppose we can forgive you for that,” she said with smile that Gideon might have found attractive under other circumstances. “You’re on a different level from the rest of us. Like, with figuring out that we’ll end up behind StarSeeker. I read once that your IQ is something like one-eighty—”

“It’s one hundred and ninety-six.” The words were out before he even realized he was talking. Stop showing off, he warned himself. You need these idiots on your side.

Hamilton lifted a palm to indicate he proved her point. “That’s crazy high,” said Hamilton. “If I were as smart as you, I’d be bragging about it to everyone, but you never even mentioned it when we were all in training.”

Gideon shrugged. Bragging got me nowhere, he thought bitterly. I learned that lesson too late.

“Anyway,” Hamilton went on, “I can’t imagine what it must be like to keep that brain of yours occupied. I bet you’re one of those geniuses who can think about two different things at the same time, right?”

Five, but who’s counting. “Sometimes,” he said. “And yes, it can be difficult to use up the nervous energy that comes from your mind always working overtime. That leads to frustration. It’s why I do thought experiments; they’re therapeutic. Sometimes, it’s the only way I can get to sleep.”

Rand arched an eyebrow. “Is that why you brought that radio equipment on board? To keep your mind occupied?”

“It’s just a mindless activity,” Gideon lied. “I’ve done it since I was young. Kind of like playing solitaire, I suppose. I take it all apart and then put it back together, fiddle with frequencies, take it apart again.”

“So, this thought experiment you are proposing,” said Okoro. “What does it entail? What are we supposed to be thinking about?”

Tread carefully, he told himself. “Just possible ways to slow the StarSeeker crew,” he said with a shrug. “My first idea was to come up with a way to eject some debris in their path and force them to alter course.”

“Except, of course, doing that could destroy their ship.” Okoro’s words sounded like an accusation. “At the speed they are traveling, even the smallest obstacle could cause severe damage. And altering their course could potentially send them on a trajectory that would miss the window for Mars entirely and leave them stranded in space.”

“Which is why I discarded it,” Gideon said. “As I said, it was the first thought that came to me.”

“I do not see a scenario where an interdiction would simply slow them down,” said Okoro. “Any such effort would have a catastrophic effect.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” said Hwang. “No offense, Gideon, but StarSeeker has a genius of their own on board. I’m sure Salima Patel could come up with a way to counter anything we thought up to stop her.”

Gideon smiled, but inside, his jaw was clenched. Get out of this right now, he told himself in frustration. It’s not worth the risk.

“You’re right,” he said, sounding contrite. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s my mental challenge to deal with, resolve, and discard.”

He felt Hamilton’s hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we can think of a different scenario for an experiment,” she offered, smiling sympathetically. “One that’s a little more positive. There must be a hundred ideas we could focus on for when we reach Mars.”

Gideon forced himself to return the smile. He knew for certain now that the rest of the crew had no interest in trying to interdict StarSeeker. They were perfectly content with coming in second, like the sheep they were.

“I’m sure we can come up with something,” he said. “But don’t worry about it too much. Like John said, I have my radio equipment to keep my mind occupied.”

And soon I’ll be making practical use of it, he thought, whether the rest of you like it or not.

42

Alvito Peroni felt as if he might throw up.

He and Ennis Wright were in a small chamber beneath the One World observatory, a room built specifically as a SCIF for any top-secret communication that might arise from the Mars missions. It was the first time they had used it, and until today, Peroni didn’t honestly believe they would ever need it.

“I know how crazy it sounds,” Arlen Becker said, videoconferencing from inside a SCIF of his own in the Pentagon, “but it’s undeniable. Wagner’s print was in the dead man’s blood on a rock found at the site of the murder. Reno police set the time of death as the night of the crew launch, where Wagner saved the day. His hotel was less than a mile from the crime scene, and video footage from the lobby shows Wagner getting into the elevator around twenty-one hundred hours that night. The quality isn’t great, but he was carrying a sport jacket that had dark patches on it that could very well be blood. When I asked his Space Force guard if he’d seen anything unusual, he mentioned that Gideon always wanted him to take the road that runs directly past the crime scene. That’s circumstantial, obviously, but it begs a few questions.”

“Fuck me,” Ennis breathed as he paced the floor of the small room. “This— I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.”

That was the understatement of the decade. Peroni took a deep breath to steady himself. “General,” he said, “when you briefed us on the anonymous email months ago, you said you had no idea who the victim was. Has that changed?”

“No, but the fact that even a special FBI team couldn’t identify him means he was almost certainly a covert operative.”

“Which backs up the intel from the email,” said Peroni.

Becker nodded. “Exactly. But at the same time, that fingerprint muddies everything. Wagner was most likely behind the email? Could he have had a role in Cummings’ suicide? How could he know everything he knew unless he was working with the covert operatives? And if he was, why would he kill one of them?”

Ennis stopped mid-stride and spun to face the camera. “Maybe Wagner is a fucking psychopath,” he spat. “Has that occurred to anyone?”

“Calm down,” Peroni warned. “We need to get to the bottom of this. Go on, General.”

“Let me talk through this. There are a lot of questions surrounding Wagner. What happened to him after Johnna Smythe publicly fired him the day of the botched launch competition? How long was it before he came to you looking for work?”

“More than a month,” said Peroni. “And come to think of it, that was when Gideon Two-point-Oh first showed his face.”

Becker frowned. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Gideon Two-point-Oh,” Ennis repeated. “Salima Patel came up with the name to describe the changes in him after he was fired. He seemed to have overcome his narcissism and neuroses and started acting like a normal person.” He scowled. “At least, that’s what we all believed.”

Peroni dug the heels of his palms into his eyes in frustration. “We wanted to believe it,” he said. “After his excellent work in Baikonur, when we were all fearing that the Russians would sabotage the launch—” He paused as realization struck like a punch to the gut. “But the Russians were never involved in any of it. You said so yourself, General. Could it all have been planned that way just to get Gideon inside the cosmodrome with free access to everything?”

Ennis’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit,” he hissed. “The docking incident, when Gideon stepped in to be the hero—what if he set that up in Baikonur for exactly that reason? He could have installed something, a remote charge of some sort, that could have caused the breach.”

“That would explain how he knew exactly how the crew could fix it,” said Peroni. He slammed a fist against his desk. “And I was so impressed, I invited him to join the goddamn mission crew! The bastard played me like a fiddle!”

Becker held up a hand. “You couldn’t have known any of this at the time, Al,” he said. “But what if he had a change of heart? I’m suggesting the covert agent confronted him. I have no idea how Wagner got the upper hand, but he did, and the agent was killed. Maybe the agent thought Wagner was a putz, which is what everyone thought. Nothing more than a petulant child with a big brain. After Wagner ends their boy, they retaliate by killing his parents. What if the person on your spaceship is Wagner Three-point-Oh? A new and driven version with no earthly encumbrances.”

“Then he might be even more of a decent human being,” Peroni replied, visibly relaxing with the general’s theory.

“We don’t tell the crew anything, because there is jack dick we could do about it besides stir up a pile of shit for no reason. No matter what Gideon Wagner is, the crew is stuck with him. End of story.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Ennis Wright asked.

“Ennis, I wouldn’t have proposed it if I thought there was any other way, so yes, it’s fucking wise.”

Wright held up his hands in surrender.

Peroni was amused by the exchange. “We’ll keep a close eye on them all. It’s important that we monitor vitals. If we see Wagner get too excited, we’ll link in and take a look. Notifying Webber to take action is a last resort, and they’ll probably know before us, even though we absolutely cannot stoke the crew’s paranoia. What is it the young people say? Keep on keeping on.”

“I think that was Bob Dylan, but it works. No one breathes a word. Period. Do I make myself clear?”

“You don’t have to threaten me, Arlen. The whole world is watching everything we do.”

43

“What the hell are you doing, Wagner?” Webber demanded.

Gideon flashed a sheepish grin from inside his cabin. The rest of the crew were floating through the common area with their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to keep out the keening noise that filled the ship.

“Apologies, all,” Gideon nearly shouted, manipulating the controls of the radio equipment he’d brought on board. “I was just fiddling with frequencies and I somehow managed to start drowning the ship’s system with feedback.”

“Turn it off!” Okoro bellowed.

Gideon did so after a brief delay. There was no point in keeping it going since the experiment had worked exactly as he’d hoped. “Sorry again,” he said after the feedback disappeared.

Hamilton offered him a half-grin. “Won’t need any coffee this morning. That was more than enough to get the adrenaline pumping.”

“More than enough to cause hearing damage,” Okoro grumbled.

“Can we put a moratorium on that equipment for a few days?” Hwang asked. “I promise I’ll help you come up with a thought experiment later if you say yes.”

Gideon nodded. “Absolutely.” As if she could possibly challenge my intellect.

The feedback had been the first real change to the routine they’d settled into for the past several days. The routine duties aboard the ship were set in stone, and while none of the crew would admit it so early in the voyage, the jobs were boring as hell. Like Gideon and his radio, the others spent a significant amount of time working on their own projects. Okoro and Hwang were focused on a vegetable garden, Hamilton had her workouts, and Rand was studying the schematics of the elevator, since he would be taking the lead on the project when they arrived.

Webber, meanwhile, seemed to think his job was to supervise everyone else. The look on his face right now gave Gideon the distinct impression that the commander didn’t trust him. Webber floated over to Okoro on the other side of the room and the two of them began talking in hushed tones. That wasn’t unusual—the crew would often have private conversations with each other, keeping their voices low for the sake of decorum—but right now, Okoro’s gaze kept turning back toward Gideon in his cabin.

He kept his expression neutral, but inside, Gideon felt alarm bells going off. Okoro’s disdain for him had been clear since the early days of their training, but this was different. There was new, real hostility in the Nigerian’s eyes. Why? Because of the feedback? Or was it somehow more? Gideon casually went about securing the radio equipment in its container while keeping an eye on the main cabin.

A few minutes later, Webber and Okoro floated over and stopped in the doorway. Gideon suddenly cursed himself for staying inside and allowing the two of them to block his exit. Calm down, he told himself. You’re reacting over nothing.

“Hey, Gideon,” Webber began. “So, Kingsley and I were talking, and we think it’s probably best if you gave me that equipment for now. You know, so we don’t have a repeat of what just happened.”

Anger flashed in Gideon’s belly, but outwardly, he kept his cool. “Do you really think that’s necessary?” He shrugged. “I shut it off immediately. No harm done.”

“This time. What about next time?” Webber pressed.

“I just told you, there won’t be a next time. How about you fuck off?”

“Do you have a spine behind that sharp mouth of yours?” Okoro slow clapped.

Webber gripped Okoro’s arm. “Let him be. We can’t afford any friction this early in the mission, or actually ever.” He bowed his head. “Gideon, please accept my apologies. If you want to test check your radio again, please make sure we know about it first, just in case.”

Gideon breathed a sigh of relief. “I appreciate that. I will be more respectful of your aural pathways.”

Webber gave Okoro more than a gentle shove away from entrance to Wagner’s private space. The Nigerian kicked off the wall halfway through a somersault to launch himself back to where he’d been working. He glanced over his shoulder at Gideon.

It took every bit of Wagner’s self-control not to blow a kiss. He waved and secured the access to his private space.

He might have been cooped up, but his mind was still free, and that was Gideon Wagner’s greatest weapon.

44

Salima checked the data for the fourth time, not because she doubted it but because she had nothing better to do.

It was a week into the 200-day journey, and she was already trying to find things to occupy her mind during the long and artificially created days. The ship needed no immediate attention, and she was beginning to wonder if it ever would. With the initial launch stages out of the way, the ship consisted of two main modules. The energy module in the rear contained the fission reactor and fuel that powered it. That module was connected via a latticework structure to the front command module, where they were now. It contained the crew quarters, controls, electronics, and everything needed to keep the mission moving. The surface equipment—such as their collapsible quarters, environment suits, oxygen tanks, and other paraphernalia—were compressed in a compartment on the port side. The starboard side carried the components to build a methane extraction station, which would be Salima’s chief occupation once they had settled on Mars.

They were currently traveling at 100,000 kph, which would be the speed for the majority of the 480-million-kilometer journey. That made for a 200-day mission, and all systems had been optimal so far. They would approach Mars in a looping intercept that would put them in the ideal position for landing on the surface. After that, of course, a huge portion of their mission would be producing enough fuel for the return trip.

Piece of cake.

Salima and Thandy Krebbs had gotten into the habit of analyzing the things that could go wrong on the voyage and might require repair. It was a good way to prepare for the unexpected, and a good way to pass the time, but problems so far had been nonexistent. “It’s like the design team was filled with geniuses,” Salima quipped.

“We haven’t done comms yet,” Krebbs suggested, her bare scalp gleaming in the bright interior light. Salima admired the woman’s courage to shave her head for the voyage. Salima herself had to tie up her own ebony tresses to keep them from floating in front of her face.

“Good enough,” she replied, calling up schematics on the computer screen. “What’s our emergency?”

Krebbs shrugged. “We lose radio contact?”

As if on cue, the ship’s radio came to life, announcing an incoming communication from Philip Barnhart.

“The boss himself?” Don Liu floated over from the station where he’d been reviewing plans for the methane plant. “He hasn’t gotten in touch personally since we left the second stage behind.”

Salima wondered the same thing. She honestly hadn’t expected to hear from him until they reached Mars. They had discussed as much prior to the launch, with Barnhart vowing to let the people who understood the mission take care of the mission while he stepped into the background.

“Am I on?” came the billionaire’s voice. “How long until they hear me?”

“About nine seconds,” Salima replied.

The crew counted to eighteen—nine seconds for their response, another nine for Barnhart’s. “Well, that’s far from ideal,” he said, “but at least it works. Just checking in to make sure everything is well. I know, I get updates from everyone here at mission control, but I wanted to hear it from you personally. How are everyone’s spirits?”

That was the last thing Salima had expected to hear on the call. She looked around at the others, who all shrugged and nodded. “We’re doing great,” she replied into the mic. “It’s a little boring, of course, but we were prepared for that. We’re coming up with strategies to cope. After the race to get off the ground, sitting in the spaceship and watching everything work as it’s supposed to is a little bit mind numbing.”

She muted the microphone, looked around at the others, and said, “Okay, this is weird. I’ve known Philip for a long time, and he rarely makes social calls unless he wants something in return.”

The pilot, Cole, shrugged. “I don’t know what we can offer him. Maybe he wants us to sing him a song. Is it his birthday?”

“Hey, I’m up for a rendition of Major Tom if the rest of you are,” Daniel Tremont said.

“That’s good to hear,” Barnhart said several seconds later. “Very good. Listen, I know I made the big speech when you launched, but that was for the world. This is just for you. I want you all to know how tremendously proud I am of each and every one of you.”

Salima thought she heard something odd in Barnhart’s voice, but the others were happy with the message. Then again, none of them had the relationship with him that she had. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him in front of the crew and mission command, but she was also concerned. And if she had learned anything in preparation for the mission, it was that they weren’t guaranteed another day.

“Philip,” she asked, “is everything all right?”

The others looked at her curiously as she sent the message. “I’m just asking,” she said. “He may be the richest man on Earth, but we’re not on Earth. I’ve known him for a long time, and this isn’t normal.”

They waited uncomfortably. Finally, Barnhart said, “I always said you were too big for your britches, Patel. So before this can get all mushy, I’ll sign off.” There was a brief pause. “I enjoyed this. I think I’ll keep doing it every once in a while.”

The crew members exchanged bemused looks, but they all agreed that hearing from Barnhart had at least broken up the monotony. If he wanted to keep in personal contact with his ship, who were they to say no?

But for a long while, Salima couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong back home and with Philip Barnhart personally.

Barnhart thanked the comms technician in the command center for facilitating the call, then motioned for Arlen Becker to follow him. Once the two men were inside his office, Barnhart poured two cups of coffee and they took seats opposite each other. Becker was grateful for the coffee. He was still bagged from his trip to the Hangar.

“Did that help ease your mind?” he asked. The billionaire was more agitated than Becker had ever seen him.

“I honestly don’t know why I did that,” Barnhart said, an odd look on his face.

“I do. You see that crew as your children, particularly Salima, and you were worried about them. It’s what any father would do.”

“Children?” Barnhart looked as if he’d never heard the word before. “I— I suppose that’s as good a description as any. Those young people are putting their lives on the line for this mission, to fulfill my dream for me. I can’t let anything happen to them.” He paused. “I can’t let anything happen to her.”

Becker leaned forward earnestly. “We’ll get to the bottom of whatever is going on with Gideon Wagner, Philip. You have my word.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” Barnhart said. “I hope Wagner Three-point-Oh isn’t going to do something we all regret.”

“There’s nothing any of us can do about the past,” Becker said. “And there’s nothing we can do about the future, either. That is in their hands.” Becker pointed at the ceiling.

45

The glance from Okoro had been enough. It was time. Gideon had to do what he had to do before StarSeeker passed One World.

He floated over to the door, where he waited. When the door finally opened sometime later, it woke Gideon from a shallow sleep, sending a wave of adrenaline through him that came in handy when Webber’s head poked into the small space from behind the door. Gideon braced his feet against the wall behind him.

“Gid—” was all Webber got out before Gideon’s hands closed around the man’s head and spun him to the side. The momentum threw Webber’s body outside the room into the door frame, where it came to a sudden stop. Unfortunately for Webber, his head kept moving against the edge of the door until Gideon heard a sickening crunch.

Wagner pushed off from the wall, launching himself past Webber’s body and into the common area. As luck would have it, Okoro was floating in the space right behind Webber. Gideon met him head-on watching as the Nigerian’s eyes widened with surprise. A moment later, Gideon’s fingers were around Okoro’s neck, and his thumbs were pressing against his Adam’s apple. Gideon’s momentum drove both men farther into the common area, sending the other crew members scattering. Gideon brought the lower half of his body forward and wrapped his legs around Okoro’s midsection. A moment later, he yanked forward and brought his own forehead down with all his strength on the bridge of Okoro’s nose. Droplets of dark blood flew in straight lines, unaffected by gravity. Some of the droplets landed on Annie Hwang’s face. She screamed like it was the end of days.

“Asshole!” Rand cried from Gideon’s right. He turned to see an awkward haymaker looping toward him. It took almost no effort to intercept the swing and grab Rand’s arm, using the momentum to slam the man’s back against the workout equipment set into the wall. Rand cried out in pain and floated off, writhing and twisting.

“Help!” Hamilton screamed. “Help! He’s going crazy!”

“Who’s going to hear you?” Gideon asked, seeing panic in her eyes as he floated toward her.

“Yes, they will!” cried Hwang. “It’s an open channel!” The radio blinked.

Gideon took hold of the wall he’d just used against Rand and braced his feet on it. He pulled himself closer to the wall, then pushed off again, heading straight for the women like Superman to the rescue. Unlike Superman, he grabbed both of them and threw them forward with his momentum, sending them sailing into Webber’s personal quarters, where they both struck the far wall. Gideon immediately pulled the cabin door closed.

“What’s going on?” Al Peroni demanded over the radio. Okoro had answered the call but then said nothing because of the struggle on the ship. “Report!”

“Wagner is taking over this ship,” Gideon said evenly. He took hold of Okoro’s unconscious body and hauled it through the open door of the man’s cabin, then closed it.

All the while, Rand had been screaming in pain. Gideon took his head in both hands and knocked his face off the metal wall, throwing himself backward in the process. He hit the wall and caromed back toward Rand, snagging the man’s now unconscious body and stuffing it through the door of Webber’s quarters. Webber wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

“Who is screaming?” Peroni asked in a calmer voice.

“I appreciate the opportunity to come on this mission but know that this isn’t personal. We’re going to get your team, which means me, to Mars first.” Gideon floated to the control panel near the food station and found the access he was looking for: a manual override for the personal quarters. It was specifically designed to lower the oxygen flow to the outer chambers in the event that the main common area lost pressure or was lacking in oxygen for any reason. There were a number of redundancies designed to stop what he was about to do, but he’d secretly overridden them long before the ship launched from orbit.

He entered the override code into the keypad and turned the three knobs that corresponded with the occupied cabins. The oxygen dropped below fifty percent of its normal level, which would be enough to keep the occupants stupefied and out of his way.

A handful of seconds later, Al spoke again. “Gideon, we can work this out. Obviously, there’s been some misunderstanding. Tell me what’s happening, please. Let me talk to Commander Webber. We need to know that everything is all right.”

“Everything is fine,” Gideon replied. “Tell Phil you need to be worrying about what’s happening on Earth right now and leave me to worry about Mars.”

He retrieved his radio equipment from his cabin while he waited for the reply to come. When it did, he was halfway through powering it up and connecting it to the ship’s comms system.

“Gideon, it’s Ennis.”

Oh great, he thought acidly. I’m sure you’ll bring lots to the table.

“You need to let the rest of the crew take over this mission. Step back and let them do their work. Let us talk to Webber.”

“I hate to rain on your parade, Ennis, but I’m afraid no one will be talking to Steve Webber again. He can go down in history as the first casualty of the race to Mars. The others…well, they’re incapacitated for the time being. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with them.”

The equipment lit up, showing that the override system had fully integrated with the ship’s, and that Gideon’s plan would work. Good. Now he could put an end to this pointless, drawn-out back-and-forth with Earth.

“Wagner, this is your last warning.” It was Al’s voice again. “I know you’re capable of turning that ship around and returning to Earth. It will be incredibly difficult, but then again, I’m quite sure that your once-in-a-generation mind can figure out the math and physics involved. If you don’t respond immediately, the Space Force will have no choice but to stop you. Acknowledge.”

Gideon let out a long sigh. He didn’t have the time or the patience for this. Earth was his past, a past he meant to leave behind. There was no longer anything there for him, if indeed there ever had been besides developing a means to get away.

“These are the last words you will hear from me,” he said, “so please pay close attention. Gideon Wagner will be the first person to set foot on Mars, not Salima Patel. It will take more than a prattling dilettante who had everything handed to her on a silver platter to tame the red planet. I alone have the will and the intellect to complete this mission. All of you know this, but you refuse to acknowledge it. I alone have done the work, I alone have made the terrible sacrifices, and I alone will be given the credit.”

He waited until the message was sent before shutting off all incoming radio communication. It would only distract him, and from this point, the radio would only be focused outward. His plan hinged on it.

46

“Two calls from the boss in as many days,” Cole said as he switched on the receiver. “I’m going to get a swelled head.”

“Pfff,” scoffed Krebbs. “It’s really Salima he’s calling for. He’s got a crush on her.”

Salima slapped her on the shoulder as she floated past. “God, if only you knew how utterly wrong you are about that.”

“Yeah? Well then, put in a good word for me. I’d be more than happy to have a billionaire calling me up on the daily.”

“Sure,” Salima said. “Assuming we actually make it to Mars, and back, and that we’re not in our eighties by that point, I’ll definitely talk you up.”

They had been in a playful mood that day. It was early in the mission, and they still liked each other. Salima had no doubt that would change over the course of the next several months—how could it not?—but for now, she was going to enjoy it. She’d found a sense of camaraderie among these people that she’d never experienced before. It was ironic that she’d finally found her tribe by leaving the rest of the world behind.

“Attention,” said a familiar voice.

Dan Tremont frowned. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

“That’s Becker,” Salima said, suddenly alarmed.

“Oh shit,” Liu joked. “The principal caught us!”

“This is General Arlen Becker. I’m here with Philip Barnhart and Alvito Peroni, along with Ennis Wright and members of the StarSeeker and One World ground command crews.”

Salima’s previous mood evaporated, and she could tell by the looks on the others’ faces that they shared her alarm at the formality of the introduction.

“We regret to inform you that there has been an incident aboard the One World ship. We have reason to believe that Gideon Wagner has taken control and incapacitated the rest of the mission crew. We believe he will take some action against your vessel and crew.”

Salima’s stomach seemed to be in freefall, and it had nothing to do with the microgravity environment. The moment became too much. She pulled out her always-available puke bag and ejected the contents of her stomach into it. It looked worse the second time around.

She gathered herself before requesting the general continue. They listened as Becker relayed their suspicions about Gideon and his involvement in sabotage and more. Shock became disbelief, which turned to horror and, finally, to fear. Everything she’d believed about Gideon—that he’d changed, that the loss of his family had given him a new perspective, that she could actually trust him—was all a lie.

When the message finished, they stared at each other, too stunned to speak.

“We have to answer,” Coe said after several seconds. “What do we say?”

“We ask for suggestions,” said Liu. “None of us are military. What are we expected to do? What can we do?”

They returned the message, asking for help, and waited. Fifteen seconds passed, then thirty. After a full minute, Salima’s pulse began to quicken. “Why aren’t they responding?”

Krebbs scanned the radio control panel. “What the hell… We’ve lost radio!”

“You lost the message?” Cole asked.

“No, we lost the radio system! There’s no signal coming through.”

“That’s not possible,” Salima said, looking over Krebbs’ shoulder. “Switch to the backup system.”

Krebbs did so and shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tremont muttered.

“What is it?” Cole looked at the science officer’s console and saw the answer. “Nav and guidance are down now!”

“I’ll do a reset on the systems,” Krebbs stated. Before she could touch the control panel, she stopped. “They just reset on their own. Radio is still down. Wait, nav and guidance are down again. What the hell? The system keeps going offline and then resetting.”

“This isn’t a coincidence,” Salima said, her mind racing.

“What are you talking about?” Cole asked. “Krebbs, we need to fix this! We can’t keep going without guidance.”

“This has to be Gideon.” Salima took the position next to Krebbs. “This is an attack of some sort.”

“An attack?” Krebbs frowned at her. “How? What the hell is he doing?”

She ran through a dozen possibilities while she scanned the systems, but only one seemed plausible. Could he have smuggled the necessary tech on board? Or maybe jury-rigged it from his ship’s own system? It seemed crazy, but it was the only answer.

“He must be using a radio frequency weapon,” she said. “He knows our frequencies as well as I do. We shared all of the engineering info of our ships with each other in the lead-up to the launch.” Hot tears threatened behind her eyes. “I can’t believe I trusted him!”

“How the hell is he doing it?” asked Tremont.

“He must have tapped into One World’s power and used special equipment to send bursts of high-powered microwaves.” Salima watched as the systems continued to reset, over and over.

Krebbs looked at her, wide-eyed. “He can do that?”

“He is doing it. He knows that if he knocks out our comms and guidance, we’re essentially adrift.”

“Should we shut down the systems?” Krebbs asked. “I mean, our course is set, our momentum is carrying us forward and we can fly on direct visual.”

Salima nodded. “Shut down all EM systems for now, but it’s only a stop-gap solution. We need our automatic guidance for the long haul. A simple solar wind could send us grossly off course.”

She began to hunt around the various consoles set into the wall and tables in the central space. Each served a specific purpose, and she knew what she was looking for, but she couldn’t remember where.

Crisis was a window into her soul. Failure exposed the weaknesses that success did not. She clenched her teeth. This was life or death.

“We’re going to figure this out and protect ourselves against Gideon Wagner. Buckle up, people, this is the trial we’ve spent our lives preparing for.”

“What do you need, Salima?” Tremont asked.

“We have to get a message back to mission control to give them our status,” she said. “It’s time to re-establish communication.”

“But you just said we can’t,” Krebbs pointed out. “It’s shut down.”

Salima’s heart jumped as she finally came across the panel she needed. “Our cutting-edge radio system is down,” she said, “so we need to go in the opposite direction.”

“What is that?” Krebbs asked, peering over her shoulder at a small device that looked something like a keyboard, but with only two keys.

“Morse code,” Salima said. “It was installed as a Hail Mary back-up system of communication. It was just another redundancy on top of a redundancy. I never would have believed we would use it.”

Cole floated over. “You know Morse code?”

“I learned it at my first computer coding class when I was five. They taught it as a way to introduce the concept of code.”

“And you remember it?” asked Liu.

She glowered at the small black screen with its green readout. “Gideon Wagner isn’t the only genius on their way to Mars,” she said. “And I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit around and let him fuck with us.”

47

“Looks like the Space Cadets are back together again.”

Johnna Smythe offered a wan smile to go with her quip, but Philip Barnhart simply stared at her. “The what?”

“Space Cadets,” Al Peroni said distractedly. “It’s what Connie calls the three of us when we go off on our own and talk about Mars. She says we have a common bond that only the three of us truly understand.”

They gathered in a conference room at Space Force HQ in Houston, waiting on Arlen Becker. Peroni had left Ennis Wright in Palermo, trying in vain to reach the One World ship. He would be ready to connect on a moment’s notice, depending on what they heard from Becker.

Smythe had flown in from Los Angeles to offer moral support. She was wearing a simple sweater and jeans, a stark contrast to her usual flamboyant outfits. Then again, this situation was more serious than any she’d encountered during her time in the race, including Beyond’s disastrous final test launch. She had stayed in touch with Barnhart and Peroni, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to give up her obsession with the Mars missions, accepting a secondary role.

“Hard to believe it wasn’t even two years ago,” she said quietly. “The three of us, in the middle of the ocean, challenging each other to reach this moment. And now look where we’re at.”

“I couldn’t have imagined this in a thousand years,” Peroni said. “And make sure you don’t mention that meeting around Becker.”

Barnhart scoffed. “This is just another challenge to be overcome. Salima immediately overcame the loss of the comms system with the Morse code backup. It’s slow as molasses, yes, but it works. The veracity of failure.”

“It’s a lot more personal this time and you know it.” Smythe frowned. “The stakes are unbearably high.”

At that moment, Arlen Becker arrived, carrying a briefcase that was handcuffed to his wrist. They greeted each other and sat around a conference table while Becker’s aide entered a code in the case and unlocked the cuff. He left the room and Becker opened it, revealing a stack of files with the words EYES ONLY stamped on them.

“I know I don’t need to stress how incredibly sensitive this information is,” he said as he flipped them open. “First, we’ve found StarSeeker’s ship with one of our EM telescopes, thanks to Salima’s tireless efforts with the Morse code system. As you know, we can’t track Wagner because he shut down his comms system. All we have is the ship’s last-known location. He likely didn’t change trajectory, but he almost certainly altered speed to put himself close enough to attack StarSeeker’s systems with whatever weapon he’s using.”

“So what can we do about it?” Barnhart asked tersely. “Every second that passes is another step toward a potential disaster for my crew. If what Salima deduced is correct, and we have every reason to believe it is, Wagner is continuing to jam their systems remotely from the One World ship. God alone knows what happened to the rest of the crew.”

Becker flipped open one of the files to reveal a series of schematics. “This design is a prototype that our R-and-D department has been working on for the past nine months. It’s a tactical directed energy weapon to counter spy satellites by overloading their electronic systems with concentrated blasts of electromagnetic energy.”

Barnhart scanned the papers, frowning. “An EMP,” he said. “It’s far simpler than I would have thought.”

“Our researchers said the same thing when they discovered the principles behind it. We’re hoping that our enemies haven’t discovered the same thing yet, which is why these plans came in here chained to my wrist. There’s a charge inside the case that would have blown it up if it were separated from me without entering a code.”

“Have you built one yet?” asked Smythe.

“That’s classified,” Becker said.

“So you have built one.” Peroni looked frustrated. “What good is it? We can’t send it out into space to somehow stop Wagner.”

“No,” Barnhart said, realization dawning in his eyes, “but we can send the specs to Salima and she could build one.”

Becker touched the tip of his nose. “Obviously, it would be an incredible challenge even if the ship’s comms systems were still operational, let alone sending via Morse code, but it’s the only hope they have.”

“Then we need to get to work immediately,” Barnhart said. “Tell your people that my every resource is at their disposal. They need only ask, and it will be made available to them.”

Peroni nodded. “Same here. Whatever they need.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m in, too,” said Smythe. “No questions asked.”

Becker nodded to each of them in turn. “My people will start immediately and work around the clock. President Sloane has given me his assurances that those two ships are America’s top priority at the moment.”

“Then let’s go,” Barnhart said. “And pray that, together, we can pull off the greatest remote operation in history.”

48

Gideon looked at the face in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize himself. It had only been a few days since he took control of the ship, but the lack of sleep and attention to personal hygiene in that time had taken its toll.

The fact that the rest of the crew members were dead didn’t help matters, either.

Not my fault, he told himself for the umpteenth time as he worked the ship’s controls. I was distracted. Who could possibly have calculated how long they would live with reduced oxygen? There were too many variables, and he had other, more important things to do.

The worst part was the smell that hit him when he opened the first door and realized Okoro had expired. For some reason, the smell had made him think of his parents in their burning house in Munich. Again, nothing he could have done about that. It wasn’t his fault.

None of this was his fault. It was Salima Patel’s fault. She still had parents and she didn’t even appreciate them. She was the golden girl, the apple of Philip Barnhart’s eye. No one ever broke into her house and forced her to do things, even though she was the one who recruited Matt Cummings in the first place. Salima didn’t get a photo of his suicide note. She wasn’t attacked by Smith. She wasn’t forced to kill anyone.

But she was chosen to join the mission that would have reached Mars first. Was that fair? No, it was not. Only his genius was going to make the difference.

So he would keep directing his weapon at her ship, and he would increase his own speed to make sure he got to Mars first. Salima would not catch him. She would not overtake him. It was only right, after all. Gideon deserved it.

As he gazed at his instruments, his mind engulfed in thoughts of Mars and Salima and the injustices of life, he didn’t even realize that he was humming Elton John’s Rocket Man to himself.

Salima was exhausted, but she forced herself to focus. She and the rest of the crew had barely slept in the two days since they started receiving the instructions for building an EMP. She took care of the translation and passing along the information to Krebbs and Tremont, then, during the gaps in transmission, she helped them work it all out. The concept was deceptively simple, using the ship’s external satellite dish to transmit the electromagnetic pulse. It would require a great deal of power, and it would have to be precisely timed and targeted, but it could be done.

The biggest challenge was their inability to see their target, of course. Even with a working weapon, they would have to know where to direct it. It would consume an inordinate amount of power. At the speed they were traveling, they would get one shot.

With the correct directions, they would be able to align the dish by remote control, but without knowing the position of the One World ship, they would be firing blind and wasting their chance.

All of this went through her mind as she translated, as she worked on the schematics, trying to decipher them from the Morse code instructions. The crew tackled the challenge together. None were as versed in engineering at Salima, but they were the smartest in their fields.

None of us is as smart as all of us, Salima thought, and it comforted her.

She thought often of Philip Barnhart’s faith in her, and it drove her onward.

Becker was half-asleep at his desk when the call came in from the top-secret crew working with StarSeeker. Salima and the others had finally translated the entire schematics. They were working around the clock to modify the transmitter and boost the power to it for the EMP. It wouldn’t be long before they had a working weapon.

Now came the hardest part of the process: the targeting data.

His team had finally managed to track the One World ship using advanced telemetrics and one of the advanced deep-space telescopes that tracked interstellar phenomena. It came at an immense cost to the scientific community, but the president had lived up to his word in supporting StarSeeker and their battle against time and a relentless enemy.

Becker was awestruck as his experts worked with counterparts from both StarSeeker and One World to do the astounding mathematical gymnastics necessary to extrapolate the ship’s probable location, then translate it all into Morse code and transmit it to Salima.

But just knowing the location wouldn’t be enough. There was one final move that was necessary, and it required a level of finesse that would be a near-insurmountable challenge to StarSeeker’s beleaguered crew. If they could pull it off, they had a very good shot at reaching Mars. If they didn’t, they would almost certainly drift off course and spend what remained of their lives in a multi-billion-dollar tomb traveling through deep space for infinity.

As his technicians sent the final data across the millions of miles to the spaceship, Arlen Becker did something he hadn’t done for a very long time. He prayed.

49

The rest of the crew looked like Salima felt—utterly spent. They had been pushed to their mental and physical limits, deciphering countless lines of code, applying math that could have been translated wrong and wouldn’t work, or worse, could blow up in their faces. Some of it was already starting to feel like a fever dream instead of reality.

But they were finally done. The EMP was ready—or at least, that’s what they hoped.

Salima brightened for a moment. “At least we’re not bored,” she offered.

The others looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and then they started to laugh. The tired laughter that enriched their souls. Only they would appreciate the jibe because they had become closer than family.

Now came the hard part: they had to put what they had built into operation.

Daniel Tremont said, “I feel like I just relived my entire post-grad experience in the space of a few days, minus the fun parts.” His eyes had a haunted look to them.

“I hope those magnificent bastards get a parade,” Thandy Krebbs croaked. “Those wonderful geniuses on the other end of that fucking Morse code receiver. I hope I never hear another dot-dash in my life.”

“The unsung heroes of the space race,” Don Liu added. “I imagine there were hundreds of people involved in the Apollo 11 mission whose names no one ever knew. Thousands more put in the research before that to make sure it was even possible. All these folks who put their heart and soul into their jobs just so they could play a supporting role in putting a man on the moon. It’s humbling.”

The others nodded gravely.

Salima noted that there were empty food and drink containers floating within the compartment. They were evidence that the crew had, indeed, eaten in the last few days, but she couldn’t remember doing so.

“Let’s collect the trash. We don’t need it hitting any buttons we don’t want it to hit.”

She checked the time. They had just over five hours until the One World ship would be in range of their modified satellite dish, according to the data Becker had sent about its position. She went over it again, making sure that she’d compensated properly for their own current position.

Jason Cole smiled at her. “I can see the wheels turning behind your eyes,” he said. “You’ve done everything you can at this point. We all have.”

Salima nodded. “I know. I just hate waiting. If another calculation needs to be made, let’s do it now while we have time. My old prof used to tell me, if you want it bad, you get it bad.”

“Maybe we should sleep,” Krebbs offered.

“Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep,” Liu suggested. “He waits with his eyes open.”

The others stared at him for a moment before bursting into a fit if giggles. High-stress humor was usually the best, but only in the moment.

They watched the clock, another countdown that was every bit as critical as the one before the ship launched.

When it reached T-minus three minutes, Cole placed a hand on Salima’s shoulder. “Just breathe. I know you can do it.”

I’m glad one of us does, she thought. Her belly was in knots, but at least her hands were steady. The dish was in position; it was just a matter of activating it. It was Krebbs who had the difficult job. She was in the rear of the ship, in her emergency spacesuit. With the radio still turned off instead of cycling, they couldn’t communicate. They would just have to ensure that they did their assigned jobs at exactly the same moment.

Gideon and his ship were somewhere directly in front of them, though it was impossible to detect them without their collision alarm radar. Their own ship was barreling through space, its speed carefully calculated, and would overtake their quarry in two minutes. There would be a window of only a few seconds to aim the dish precisely at the One World ship and activate the EMP.

Just in case that wasn’t difficult enough, their own ship would need to power down completely or risk being destroyed by the very pulse it was sending out. That was why Krebbs waited at the generator. She would physically disconnect the power, then reconnect after the pulse.

That was the plan, at least. And the clock was ticking.

“Prepare to fire,” Salima intoned, removing the emotion one should feel when preparing to take a life. There was nothing to prepare for. She only needed to discharge the capacitor through the dish and hit the One World ship with a pulse that would cripple the ship.

One button.

50

Gideon watched the figures on his readout and smiled. He could practically smell Salima’s perfume as the numbers sped by, the mathematical “image” of StarSeeker’s ship coming up his tailpipe, as it were, about to overtake him. This was the nature of competition. Not sport, but true competition in the evolutionary sense. The old line about how only the strong survive wasn’t true. Darwin had actually said that the one who was best able to adapt and adjust to its changing environment was the one who ruled the day.

That was him. His ship couldn’t match the sheer speed of his competitor, but he could adjust. He could alter. He could win, despite his disadvantage. All it would take was one final blast from his equipment as the ship drew close enough. Up to this point, he’d only been disrupting their electromagnetic systems. Now, as the two ships finally came together—relatively, of course, given the vastness of space—he would hit them with the most concentrated blast of microwaves yet. It would permanently disable their systems, leaving them blind, deaf, and unable to navigate for the rest of their voyage. They would continue hurtling through space, but their mission would be over. Without their systems, even if they could fly manually to Mars, they couldn’t get to the surface.

His hands were steady on the controls. His mind was clear, perhaps more than it had ever been in his life.

Gideon Wagner was going to win.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Salima took a deep breath and initiated the powering sequence.

Five.

Four.

Her palms were slick with sweat as her fingers worked the controls, powering down every system in the capsule. Finally, the lights lowered, leaving only the readout on the screen in front of her.

Three.

Two.

One.

The interior went black. Krebbs had disconnected them. Environmental systems would begin to fail within two minutes. The crew stared at the readouts for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality, was less than a second.

Then they saw the power levels, and they all held their breath.

Gideon was hunched over, gazing lovingly at the screen that showed the concentration of microwaves climbing in his transmitter. It was only a matter of seconds now. He noted the exact time, making sure to remember the moment when he changed the course of human history. He smiled as he recalled something he’d said months ago, in what seemed like another lifetime.

“Suck it, Patel,” he said aloud.

Salima closed her eyes and whispered as her finger tapped the button.

“Fire.”

51

The blast of pain went right through his brain. It felt as if his face exploded.

Gideon heard a shriek, then realized it was him. Searing pain filled his entire head, blazing and hard and sharp. He was hurtling backward through the capsule, spinning like a circus acrobat until he slammed into a wall, which only magnified the agony he felt in his face.

That was when he realized he couldn’t see.

His hands clawed at his face and came away wet. Warm. Blood. His blood. Hard chunks were set into the flesh, and he realized with horror that it was shattered glass embedded in his face. In his mouth. In his eyes.

“Fuugghk…” he gasped and gagged.

Even in the shock and agony of the moment, Gideon’s analytical mind continued to work. The screen…it had exploded in his face. That couldn’t be. He pushed himself away from the wall, pushing away the pain, trying to focus. His fingers worked gingerly, plucking the shards of glass from around his eyes. His view was blurred by blood and tears, but even so, he could see that it was dark inside the capsule.

Why was it dark?

He floated toward the nearest console, looking for data. The ship would tell him what was wrong. It had dozens of sensors, system checks, artificial intelligence to tell him what happened. Why had his screen blown out? He wiped at his eyes again and peered closely at the screen.

It wasn’t there. It had blown out as well. He looked around at the other consoles. Two more were shattered, and the rest were black. There was no data stream being displayed anywhere. Gideon floated there for long moments, sure he must be dreaming.

“Initiating generator,” said an artificial voice.

Suddenly his eyes were filled with blinding white light. He threw his hands over his face, trying to shade them from the glare. Finally, he could begin to make out blurry shapes. There were diamonds flashing all around him, floating through the air. No, not diamonds. Glass. None of the remaining display screens were lit. Everything around him was dead.

“No,” he breathed. “It can’t be.”

He floated through droplets of his own blood as he made his way through the capsule. His attention was focused entirely on the systems, or lack thereof. Nothing was working. If not for the emergency generator, he would still be in the dark. Something had somehow wiped out every one of the ship’s electronic systems. Had blown out several screens.

That was impossible. Only an electromagnetic pulse could have done that.

She won, a voice said from deep inside his mind.

That seemed to re-ignite the pain in his face. “Nuh,” he muttered. “Din win. M’possibuh…”

You’re done, the voice said. The ship is dead. Your face is gone. You’re bleeding to death and then you’re going to freeze, if you haven’t already run out of air.

“Not done…” he croaked.

His thoughts began to swim as blood loss dragged him down into unconsciousness. In the back of his mind, he thought he could hear someone laughing.

He thought it sounded like Matt Cummings.

52

The whole universe seemed to hold its breath as seconds passed. Five, then ten, then twenty. Salima’s mouth was dry, and she realized she could feel her heart pounding inside her chest. Still dark.

“Are we… Are we dead in space?” Cole breathed.

Salima didn’t know. They had completely powered down to ensure they weren’t affected by the EMP, but any of a hundred things might have gone wrong in the process. Their calculations could have been off, the timing could have been wrong, a mistranslation in the code. All that mattered was they were floating in silence, in the dark. Would this be the end of it? Was this how they would spend the rest of their lives until the oxygen inevitably ran out?

It started with a small sound. A fan was spinning somewhere in the cabin. Then two fans and small LED lights. One after another, the systems rebooted and came back to life. The cabin lights were the last to come on but were bright as floodlights.

A cacophony of sounds tore through the silence as various alarms and system indicators ran through their boot-up sequences.

“—you read?” It was Krebbs’s voice. “Repeat, do you read?”

Salima shaded her eyes against the light and saw the others doing the same. She could feel her hand trembling, then her whole body.

“Holy shit,” Cole breathed. “We did it.”

“Will you motherfuckers answer me!”

Salima finally realized that Krebbs was trying to communicate with them via the radio. She tapped the nearest radio control and activated it. “We hear you, Thandy! It worked! Are you all right?”

“I’ll be more all right when I’m back inside,” she said wearily.

“I’m on it.” Liu made his way to the rear airlock.

With full power restored and no more interference in their systems, the ship seemed to have hummed back to life. After more than a week of silent running, it was almost overwhelming. But it was a good kind of overwhelming. The ship’s ambient noise was far louder than any of them had remembered.

As Krebbs and Liu came back into the main capsule, Tremont said, “Anyone else feel like they’re waking up from a nightmare?”

“You have to have actually slept to have a nightmare,” Cole replied. “But yeah, I know what you mean.”

Krebbs floated over to Salima and wrapped an arm around her neck. “Good work,” she said, her voice thick.

“You too,” Salima replied, openly weeping. “Good work, all of you.”

They sat there in silence for a time, simply breathing and processing. Finally, Cole cleared his throat. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but right now, I wish we’d brought some booze along on this tub.”

Salima snorted. “I can’t imagine what it would be like being drunk on board a spaceship hurtling toward Mars. And we’re not going to find out.”

Cole nodded. “You know that I tried to smuggle some on board, don’t you?”

Salima shook her head.

“The loadout chief found it. It seems every cubic centimeter of space was accounted for. He didn’t even flinch and told me that it happens every time and then berated us upstart astronuts, emphasis on the nuts.”

“Every time someone tries to fly to Mars, they attempt to bring booze? No shit,” Salima scoffed to another round of laughter.

Twelve hours later, they were awakened from a dead sleep. Salima was the first to climb out of her cabin and head straight for the provisions. Despite protocol and SOP that someone remain awake at all times, none of them could. They violated standard guidance, and all slept at the same time.

She blasted a container of coffee with steaming hot water, then pulled three MRE packages without even looking at what they were. Krebbs joined her, downing orange juice and a breakfast burrito.

“I feel like that didn’t really happen,” Krebbs said. “Like it was some crazy simulation, you know? We never actually saw or heard anything. I guess I’m just used to space battles having lots of ‘pew-pew’ sounds and ships screaming while banking, which is ridiculous if you think about maneuvering in a near-zero friction environment.”

Salima pointed to the screen on front of them. “I know what you mean,” she said. “Except for this transmission that came in from Becker an hour ago.”

“What does he say?”

“One World’s ship is gone.”

Krebbs almost choked on her juice. “Are you for real?”

Salima nodded. She was still trying to deal with the news herself, almost an hour earlier. “Their telescopes lost track of it a few hours after we ignited the EMP. After we passed it by and were safe from further interference.”

“Did Gideon alter course?” asked Krebbs.

“It’s possible, but unlikely. Al Peroni and Ennis Wright believe he somehow sabotaged it, probably messed with the plasma interactions in the thruster.”

“What do you think?”

Salima sighed. “I think they’re right. Gideon always had a problem with losing, and he’d never go out on someone else’s terms.” She sucked in the last of her coffee. “Especially if that someone else was me. We…had a history. I think he might have exploded the ship with the thought that if he couldn’t reach Mars first, it definitely wasn’t going to be me.”

“You gonna tell me about it?” asked Krebbs.

Salima gave her a wan smile. “No.”

“Thank God,” her friend sighed. “We all have more than enough shit to worry about as it is. I’m looking forward to being bored.”

53

Jezero Crater loomed large on every screen as Jason Cole did his best to maneuver the ship toward it.

It had been one-hundred and seventy-four days since StarSeeker had launched from Earth, beating the initial estimates by more than three weeks. Philip Barnhart had sent along his congratulations, which was nice, but they hadn’t landed yet. Salima hoped the premature celebration didn’t jinx the final part of the voyage.

The entire crew held their breath as they continued their slow descent to the surface of Mars. They were entering conditions that were far from ideal. A typical dust storm was kicking up around the rim of the crater. High winds would have limited effect on them because of the lack of atmosphere—unless the dirt was propelled. In that case, it could damage the ship.

As they broke through the almost nonexistent atmosphere, the wind became more severe, pushing Cole slightly off course. He adjusted using the tiny thrusters mounted around the ship.

“Wouldn’t be any fun if it was an easy landing,” Daniel Tremont said, his voice sounding shaky over the radio. They had all donned their spacesuits as a precaution.

Once on the surface, they would switch to the much lighter environment suits that would be their daily attire for the duration of the mission. Of course, first they had to get to the surface.

A sudden crosswind driving dust and debris hit the ship. They were jerked sideways. Krebbs screamed.

A six-month journey. They’d been attacked in space, and it still came down to this. Stick the landing or die.

“Break a leg, Cole,” Salima said out of the blue.

Cole regained control of the ship and continued slowing their approach. “We’re going to miss our target by one hundred, no, two hundred meters. Standby.”

The ship’s forward momentum came to an abrupt end, and the orientation changed from rearward facing to use the main engines to slow the ship, thrusters to change orientation to vertical, and the main engines to descend in vertical landing mode. The gimbaled thrust system allowed him to maneuver downward with the cameras, almost as if he was backing up a particularly long, heavy truck using mirrors.

Salima gripped the arms of her seat. Inside her gloves, her knuckles turned white from the strain.

Cole began the count to touchdown. Salima practiced the breathing techniques they had learned in training, losing herself in the process. At this point, she was only a passenger. The pilot was here to do his job.

Land the ship. Land the ship, she chanted in her mind.

When the ship finally made contact with the ground, the resulting jolt was still tremendous. It reminded her of the time she’d been rear-ended by a delivery van on the I-4 Expressway in Orlando.

After a moment of recovery, Salima began to clap. The others joined in immediately, hooting and pumping their fists. They had arrived.

“Well done, Cole.”

“Your eyes were closed, weren’t they?” He looked from face to face to confirm his suspicion. “Good thing. Mine were, too.”

“Are you absolutely sure that’s what you want?” Barnhart asked.

It was three days later, and Salima still felt like she was carrying another person around on her back. The crew had spent much of their waking time since touchdown staggering around the command module, trying to get used to walking again. Fold-down seats in the walls that had never been used before were now in constant use, as Salima and the others found themselves often on the verge of falling on their rearends.

“We’re sure,” Salima replied. “For now, at least, it makes the most sense.”

They sent off the message. At this point in Mars’s orbit around the sun, they were as close as they were going to get to Earth, some thirty-four million miles by line of sight, which meant their transmissions took about three minutes to get to the command team.

They had decided soon after landing that they would continue to use the ship’s reactor to provide heat and energy while they stayed in the command module. There was enough space in each cabin for an inflatable mattress on the floor. Ultimately, they would construct the inflatable module that they could use for housing, as well as for the permanent garden and other experiments. But it would be a long process and wouldn’t allow much time to work on building the methane harvester to synthesize fuel for the return voyage.

Several minutes later, Barnhart’s voice came through again. “Al agrees with you. One World is well into construction of its new ship, and he’s positive it will arrive within the year. And we all agree that you’ll be able to accomplish more by working together.”

Salima grinned. It was heartening to know that Barnhart and Peroni had fully moved past their competition and were focused on collaboration. The race had served its purpose, and now it was time to start building a team based on the technological foundation produced by that very competition.

“I’m glad you two are still playing nice,” she said in response. “It gives me hope for the future.”

They continued the communication for the next forty-five minutes, with the crew listening to messages from family and recording their responses, along with the technical minutiae that needed to be dealt with. It ended with a final message from Barnhart.

“What should I tell Al to send with his next ship?” he asked. “He says you can have whatever you want.”

“Beer!” Cole blurted immediately.

“How about a toilet seat warmer?” Krebbs said. “I have a feeling the outhouse in that inflatable shack is going to get mighty cold.”

Liu and Tremont asked for a pizza oven and three-ply toilet paper, respectively. Finally, Krebbs turned to Salima. “What about you, hon? What do you need?”

Salima sat back and took in the view on the screens, showing the ruddy surface of Mars in all its desolate glory. It gave her a sense of grounding that she’d never had before. As if, crazy as it sounded, she had finally come home.

“I’m good,” she said with a smile. “This is Mars One, out.”

.

THE END

.

Please leave a review on this book, because all those stars look great and help others decide if they’ll enjoy this book as much as you have. I appreciate the feedback and support. Reviews buoy my spirits and stoke the fires of creativity.

Don’t stop now! Keep turning the pages as I talk about my thoughts on this book and the overall project called Veracity of Failure.

You can always join my newsletter at https://craigmartelle.com or follow me on Amazon so you get notified when the next book comes out.

Author Notes - Craig Martelle

Written November 2023

Veracity of Failure started as a cover that I purchased in a premade sale from Vivid Covers, Inc (Rebekah Haskell). From there, it blossomed into a long and detailed outline (something I don’t usually do) in order to build a race to the stars that is scientifically sound. I wanted a near-future technothriller that fit the hard science fiction genre. For those who wanted the math to work.

It took almost a year to get this book finished with much back and forth between Scott and me. A couple rewrites as it wasn’t going in the direction I wanted and then some more smoothing and polishing. In the end, I think we have a great story for all to enjoy.

As an added bonus, I just watched, minutes ago, the latest launch of the SpaceX heavy lift system. The first stage took the ship high, but the booster exploded after stage separation. But it worked! A commercial venture can boost heavy loads to space, repeatedly is one step closer. The race to Mars is underway. I hope that doesn’t make this story obsolete too soon.

Veracity of Failure is a standalone novel. There won’t be a sequel about life on Mars. This book was about learning through failing. Fail faster to achieve more through application of lessons learned. I hope you liked this book. If so, I recommend Starship Lost (the series – ) as it is also hard Science Fiction with good math and physics, although it has a military SF slant.

Being close to the wonders of space is how I live in the interior of Alaska. We can see the northern lights from our driveway. It is an epic show. I now have a camera that can capture it (my wife has an expensive DSLR with a way pricey lens to take the best shots, but my iPhone 15 is working quite nicely.

As for me, summer has wound down and we race through our one month of fall toward winter. By the time you read this, it’ll be the dead of winter (if you pick it up when it first publishes). I live in the Alaskan interior, about 150 miles from the Arctic Circle. We have six months of winter, a month of spring, four months of summer (with three of those months having twenty-four hours of daylight), and one month of fall.

During the winter, we hit the solstice where we have less than four hours of daylight, and it is grim daylight. The sun rises in the south, stays on the southern horizon, and then sets in the south. In the summer, the sun stays in the northern sky. It’s odd and difficult for those not used to it to accept it as the norm. Everything depends on the time of year for little things like daylight. We are considered high desert here and that means we don’t necessarily get a lot of snow. Temperatures can get down to -50F in the winter and we get a handful of days in the 80s during the summer. Nobody has air conditioning up here, but everyone has multiple sources of heat. I have four – electric, fuel oil, kerosene, and pellets with the fuel oil boiler doing the heavy lifting. The pellet stove saves some money when we run it.

Otherwise, it’s a beautiful time of year right now. Stanley, our pitbull, and I spend a lot of time in the woods beside our home. Also, we’ve had some great northern lights already this year. We can watch them from the privacy of our own driveway. We don’t have any light pollution where I live. When the sky is clear, we’re rewarded with an incredible view.

We have to watch out for the porcupine that has been hanging out around our house. I’ve got some great security video of the fat beastie waddling around.

As a reminder, —need to keep that acceleration calculator close at hand. That’s it, a bunch of rambling thoughts and a finished book.

Peace, fellow humans.

If you liked this story, you might like some of my other books. You can join my mailing list by dropping by my website at , or if you have any comments, shoot me a note at craig@craigmartelle.com. I am always happy to hear from people who’ve read my work. I try to answer every email I receive.

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Thank you for joining me on this incredible journey.

Other Series by Craig Martelle

#—available in audio, too

(#) (co-written with Michael Anderle)—a post-apocalyptic paranormal adventure

Gateway to the Universe (#) (co-written with Justin Sloan & Michael Anderle)—this book transitions the characters from the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles to the Bad Company

The Bad Company (#) (co-written with Michael Anderle)—a military science fiction space opera

Judge, Jury, & Executioner (#)—a space opera adventure legal thriller

Shadow Vanguard—a Tom Dublin space adventure series

Superdreadnought (#)—an AI military space opera

Metal Legion (#)—a military space opera

The Free Trader (#)—a young adult science fiction action-adventure

Cygnus Space Opera (#)—a young adult space opera (set in the Free Trader universe)

Darklanding (#) (co-written with Scott Moon)—a space Western

Mystically Engineered (co-written with Valerie Emerson)—mystics, dragons, & spaceships

Metamorphosis Alpha—stories from the world’s first science fiction RPG

The Expanding Universe—science fiction anthologies

Zenophobia (#) (co-written with Brad Torgersen)—a space archaeological adventure

Battleship Leviathan (#)– a military sci-fi spectacle published by Aethon Books

Glory (co-written with Ira Heinichen)—hard-hitting military sci-fi

Black Heart of the Dragon God (co-written with Jean Rabe)—a sword & sorcery novel

Starship Lost – a hard-science, military sci-fi epic published by Aethon Books

End Times Alaska (#)—a post-apocalyptic survivalist adventure published by Permuted Press

Nightwalker (a Frank Roderus series)—A post-apocalyptic Western adventure

End Days (#) (co-written with E.E. Isherwood)—a post-apocalyptic adventure

Successful Indie Author (#)—a nonfiction series to help self-published authors

Monster Case Files (co-written with Kathryn Hearst)—A Warner twins mystery adventure

Rick Banik (#)—Spy & terrorism action-adventure

Ian Bragg Thrillers (#)—a hitman with a conscience

Published exclusively by Craig Martelle, Inc

The Call by Angelique Anderson & Craig A. Price, Jr.—an epic fantasy quest

A Couples Travels—a nonfiction travel series

Love-Haight Case Files by Jean Rabe & Donald J. Bingle—the dead/undead have rights, too, a supernatural legal thriller

Mischief Maker by Bruce Nesmith—the creator of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim brings you Loki in the modern day, staying true to Norse mythology (not a superhero version)

Mark of the Assassins by Landri Johnson—a coming-of-age fantasy.

For a complete list of Craig’s books, stop by his website—

Table of Contents

- Dedication
- The Lead Players
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- Author Notes - Craig Martelle