The Mosaic had been stationed in Esparar’s orbit for the last few hours, running the kinds of scans they couldn’t do from a distance, a final check that the surface was safe for human life. Carriles had spent most of that time cradling a childlike sense of wonder at being one of the first human beings to step foot on an alien planet.
That is, until the orders came in.
Delmar would pilot one of the two transport ships. Wu would pilot the other. It made sense to give both the US and China equal footing. But Carriles had fully expected to be on board one of them. He was the ship’s pilot, after all. Not just the pilot—the hero pilot.
Instead, he was ordered to wait on the Mosaic. One second Delmar is feeding him priceless Scotch, and the next he’s relegated to babysitting duty.
Carriles ran through the safety checks necessary to make sure the transport ship was operational, the entire time choking down an acidic sense of frustration. He’d had to give Wu a crash refresher course on how to pilot the transport. Granted, the Mosaic’s three dropships’ onboard piloting systems made it pretty easy, and if something were to happen, Carriles could assume remote control from the Mosaic. But Carriles had gone from expecting to be one of the first humans ever to step onto the surface of an alien planet to just watching from the sidelines.
What if something went wrong? What if they had to turn back?
It wasn’t just that he wanted to visit Esparar. He wanted to get off the ship. The Mosaic, for all its harsh metal surfaces, had come to feel like home over the last few months. He knew it like he knew his childhood bedroom. There was a sudden feeling of unease radiating off the walls of the Mosaic. Something was up. And as much as Carriles thought the safest bet was just to ignore it, hit his marks, and not make a fuss, he couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.
In part, because if something went wrong out here, they weren’t getting home. And in part, because curiosity was a bitch.
Footsteps echoed from the open bay doors at the back of the docking area.
“We’re almost ready,” Carriles said over his shoulder. “I imagine you’ve been trained on these at some point and it’s pretty simple, but if there’s anything specific you want to go over . . .”
Shad sat carefully on the seat next to him. “Not much to review. I’ve got some experience on these.”
Carriles did a double take he feared was a little too exaggerated.
“Where’s Wu?” he asked.
“Change of plans,” Shad said, clicking through the same prechecks that Carriles had, demonstrating they had a strong grasp of the ship. “I’m handling this one.”
Carriles snuck a peak at his tablet, sitting on the armrest next to him. There were no notifications, which meant there’d been no new issues ordered.
“Okay then,” he said.
Shad turned and fixed him with a hard stare. “Problem?”
Don’t say a thing, Carriles thought. Leave well enough alone.
That would have been the smart thing.
But there was that curiosity, flaring up again.
“Seems pretty unlikely China would go for this.”
Shad remained still as a statue, save for a few targeted blinks, before breaking into a mischievous smile, which seemed out of place on their face. “Ours is not to question why.”
“Right, but . . .”
“Carriles,” they said. “This isn’t the moment. Now, run me through this tin can.”
Carriles did, and it became apparent that Shad didn’t really need a refresher course. Still, he made sure to cover everything they needed to know, from the heat shields to the thrusters, to the manual control in case something went sideways.
When they were done, Shad gave a tight little nod and said, “Thank you. If I have any questions, I’ll let you know.”
Must be nice, to have questions and expect them to get answered, Carriles thought. He got up from his seat, grabbed his tablet, and headed into the expansive launch bay, now bustling with activity as the landing teams prepped. He took a moment to walk around the outside of the transport ship, just to make sure nothing seemed off, then did a quick loop of the other one. There he found a small team of men and women loading black plastic crates through the bay doors.
A couple of things stood out.
First and foremost that he didn’t recognize any of these people.
The Mosaic was a big ship, and they’d been on it for three months now. Everyone mostly stuck to their lanes, in terms of shifts and duties, so there was a decent enough chance that there were some folks floating around he didn’t normally cross paths with. But none of these faces were ringing any bells, except for one guy with a thick chest and a shaved head and the kind of harsh stare that could melt steel.
Deane. That was his name. Where did Carriles remember him from?
Four years ago, that was it. There was a riot at the supermax prison station orbiting Titan. Carriles brought in the strike team meant to quell things, and this guy was the team leader. He was wearing the same kind of tactical gear he’d worn for the riot—shiny armor meant to deflect blasts and blades. And those crates. Carriles remembered watching similar crates being opened during the riots, revealing caches of weapons . . .
Too late, Carriles realized he was staring. Deane locked eyes with him, then made an exaggerated move to rub at his face.
“You got a crush on me or something?” he called over.
“No, sorry, just . . .”
“Then don’t fucking stare,” Deane said, disappearing into the bowels of the transport ship.
Carriles understood the importance of security.
But this was still an awful lot of firepower for an uninhabited planet.
[ASTERISM]
The door to Stegman’s spartan quarters slid open and Stegman looked out, bleary-eyed.
“Yeah, man,” he said. “What’s happening?”
Carriles stepped inside and tapped the button to close the door.
“Something weird is going on.”
Stegman paused for a moment before asking, “How so?”
The pause, Carriles thought, said a lot.
“They’re prepping for the first excursion,” Carriles said. “Wu got bounced from the second transport. Shad is piloting it instead. There’s a strike team going with them. I recognize one of them. They’re heavy hitters.”
Stegman crossed to the drawers built into the wall, stripping off his shirt, searching for a clean one. “Better to have it and not need it, right? Could be dinosaurs down there for all we know.”
“We’ve been on this ship for three months and I don’t recall seeing any of these people before.”
Stegman pulled on a shirt and turned. “It’s a big ship. In the first half of the mission we went, what, three weeks without seeing each other?”
Carriles shook his head. “It doesn’t add up. What do you know?”
Stegman shrugged. “Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Would I lie to you?”
But Stegman had built a little too much artificial hurt into the words. They were meant to throw Carriles off, not for him to accept they were true.
Carriles dropped his voice. “If there’s stuff you can’t tell me, okay, fine, I get it.” He tapped his ear and looked around the room. “But if there’s something going on here that the crew isn’t aware of, well—that kind of thing doesn’t play well in the long run.”
Stegman exhaled and dropped his shoulders, then looked up. “Just keep your head on a swivel. Best I can do right now.”
“I’m a little pissed you’re not being straight with me.”
Stegman took a step closer and dropped his voice, but when he did it, he added a little bit of a threatening edge.
“Then you need to understand that if I’m not being fully straight with you, there’s something big going on, right? But you also know that I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you in the end, right? Those would be safe things to assume?”
“Yes,” Carriles responded, begrudgingly.
“Good,” Stegman said, patting Carriles on the shoulder. “Then let’s stick with that for now.”
Carriles nodded, thought of saying something else, and—finding he couldn’t settle on anything—stepped outside the room. As the door closed behind him, he wondered if he should just head back to the bridge to see if he was needed, see if there was any way he could pitch in.
Maybe by doing so, he could figure out what the hell was going on.