8PURE SHOCK FREEZES ME IN PLACE as I finally realize just how warranted my earlier uneasiness was. Spectres! We’re hanging over a planet full of Spectres! I’m not even aware I’ve spoken aloud until I hear Angelou’s dry voice behind me.

“Ideal, isn’t it?”

I lift my head at his words, eyes widening as I take his meaning. While I look at this planet and see an enemy stronghold, Angelou sees it as one giant laboratory! Its people, not tragic casualties to be mourned, but lab rats.

Every cell in my body revolts at the idea, though the logical side of my brain has to admit it makes a certain amount of sense. In a chilling, inhuman sort of way.

I’m still reeling as we continue our descent, angling down through the mists instead of straight toward the station. For the first time I catch sight of the four platforms hovering well away from the main station, like a compass rose with the station at its center. I raise an eyebrow. More OPs? Well, not Orbital Platforms, I suppose, but Atmospheric Platforms. Four APs seem overly paranoid, even for Angelou, until I see the sparkling energy sphere completely encompassing the station. Not simply APs, then, but part of the shield array, an army of small spherical generators that surround the station and project an energy shield blocking anything corporeal that might try to push its way in. Huge signal dishes deck the platforms, giving them yet a third purpose: data collection and communications. I silently nod, appreciating the efficiency.

After flying through one of the most complicated force hoops I’ve ever seen, we land in a hangar on the outside edge of the closest AP and disembark. Once the psychics clear us, we walk across the AP to the inner edge, where we board a small tender for the main station. Another smart design, allowing them to shunt everyone through the APs without ever taking the energy shields down.

As we close in on a landing bay affixed to the Central Habitat, I dare to broach the question that’s been on my mind ever since I spotted the net. “Aren’t you worried the ghouls might eventually make their way up here?” I tentatively venture. “Or that R&D might . . . fall on them?”

Angelou’s laugh is like an old-fashioned gunshot, short and sharp. “It’s true, the Spectres aren’t confined to land the way we are. However, the odds of them actually finding this one station within the whole of Prism’s atmosphere are astronomically low. It would be like finding a pebble in an asteroid field. Additionally, it’s worth remembering that while the enemy can fly, they are still limited by distance and speed, even more so than we are. While we have technological ways in which to boost our capabilities, as far as we’ve been able to determine, they don’t.”

I blink, unraveling the explanation in my head until I reach the core response: We’re too far up and too well hidden.

“As far as the station falling,” Angelou continues, “not to worry, Sorenson. The systems keeping the station aloft have redundancies upon redundancies. Only an act of God could take this station down.”

I raise an eyebrow. An act of God or an act of Angelou?

Clamping my lips together, I stifle a snort. Somehow I don’t think the doctor would see much of a distinction between the two.

The shuttle alights in the landing bay with a soft clank. As Chen powers down the ship, I shoulder my duffle and follow Angelou across the pad. After weeks of travel, I’m eager to see the new base. While I’ve never been on a sky station, I’ve been on plenty of space stations. Some, like New Sol, were almost like living planetside, with orderly rows of streets and housing complete with green lawns and shady trees. Others were gray and artificial and austere, the workings within as cold as the vacuum without. I wonder which one R&D will be. We step out onto the station, and I immediately realize it’s like no station I’ve ever been on.

We’re standing within a wide, curving concourse circling the outer edge of the habitat. Sunlight beams down through the high ceiling, glinting along walls and floors all formed from some crystalline material ranging in color from cloudy pearl to glasslike purity. On the inner track lie various establishments—offices, shops, lounges, restaurants—while the outer wall might as well be one giant observation deck, the see-through surface providing a front row seat to the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of pastel mists and silver rains. Through the transparent surface, I can see the glimmer of another habitat way off in the distance, its gossamer walkway leading back to some point farther down the concourse.

Hefting my kit higher over my back, I continue to look around as I follow Angelou down the corridor. Green plants—flowering shrubs and lithe creepers—flourish within niches carved into the walls, their greenery tickling the arms of elegant benches placed sporadically along the corridor’s outer edge. Miniature waterfalls trickle down the walls in soft rivulets, feeding the thirsty roots, and everywhere I look are tiny rainbows. They glow along walls and in corners and across benches, their colors arising naturally from the prismatic effects of sunlight through crystal. I glance down to see more mists swirling beneath my feet in drifts of lavender, gold, and pink and realize that despite my first impression, this habitat is actually more toric than spherical.

Angelou briefly points out various features as we go, his words sliding in and out of my ears in a running commentary.

“. . . a native mineral, very strong, very durable. Not only more cost-effective than most alloys we might have used, but with tremendous capacity for absorbing and converting solar radiation.”

“. . . both traditional Terran plants as well as other more galactic varieties—all gengineered for maximum oxygen exchange, of course—and with plant fertilizers contained in the water, the whole system is largely self-sustaining.”

“. . . polarity of the energy shield allows it to repel energy-based weapons along with solid objects—as well as lightning strikes, of course. It’s still completely permeable to gases and liquids, though.”

There’s a narrow, two-way slidewalk running down the center of the corridor. Angelou shows no inclination to step on, though we pass a couple of women in lab coats sliding in the opposite direction. I peer at the moving tiles and catch small glimpses of the inner workings through some of the more transparent bits of crystal. Despite that quick glance, I realize the station designer was actually very strategic in their use of the mineral, choosing nearly transparent pieces for storefronts and viewports while saving the cloudy, opaque pieces for where more privacy is generally desired.

After a few minutes, we end up in a small office perhaps a quarter of the way down the outer concourse, the words Central Habitat Administration digitized across the door in curling letters. Angelou nods to the receptionist on duty and leads me to a desk and console in the back.

“This is a secure facility, and much of the research done here is highly classified,” Angelou explains as he scans in and punches some commands into the console. “Information is on a need-to-know basis. So is access to the various facilities on the base. At this point in time, I’m clearing you for Habitats 5 and 7. H5 holds the barracks for the Testing Division, and H7 houses our training facilities. Additionally, you along with everyone else on base have access to the Central Habitat, where we are now. Depending on your duties, temporary access may also be granted for other areas as the need arises.”

“Yes, sir.”

Angelou motions to the scanner, and I place my hand on it, palm down. The scanner glows for a moment, a tingle running through my fingers as my new clearance is programmed into my chit. I flex my fingers, almost fancying I can feel the biometal filaments from the chit lacing through my nerves.

Finishing up in the office, we return to the main concourse, continuing on until we reach a sliding hatch on the outer wall. Through the clear crystal, I can see a long walkway stretching out into the mist. The sign digitized on the hatch says Habitat 7.

“The main computer holds the bioscan for every individual on this station,” Angelou explains as we scan our chits on the access panel and step into a small airlock. A soft hum buzzes through the chamber. “If the bioscans in the airlock don’t match the chit scans, both doors will lock until security can arrive.”

I nod, the translation perfectly clear: Don’t try to sneak into a habitat you’re not cleared for.

The hum quiets, and with a soft click, the opposing hatch slides open. Despite its spindly appearance from the outside, the narrow walkway is perfectly solid on the inside, though it sways slightly with the wind. It’s also empty, only a slidewalk to mar the crystalline interior. We hop the walk and glide out into the swirling mists. Halfway down the tunnel, I happen to glance down. I couldn’t see it before through the Habitat’s thicker floors, but I can see the planetary net now, shifting in a continually-moving latticework so fast the individual lines are a mere blur—a bright blue blur, now that I don’t have my infrared activated.

I shiver at the glowing reminder of the enemy so nearby. I can’t see them, all those hundreds of klicks below—couldn’t see them even if they were literally right on the other side of the crystal beneath my feet—but it doesn’t matter, because I know they’re down there, ghosting through dead cities and silent plains, sitting and watching and waiting.

And I suddenly realize I’ve never been more terrified in my entire life.

After another bioscan at the far airlock, we breeze into Habitat 7. While similar to the Central Habitat and made from the same crystalline mineral, H7 is more of a flattened oblong than a torus, with weight rooms, gyms, and a shooting range instead of general recreational areas.

Angelou leaves me in an office at the far end of the habitat with Emil Asriel, the Team Leader of Delta Team. The doctor stays only long enough to make a brusque introduction, and then he’s gone, already subvocalizing into his chit before he’s fully out the door. I find myself breathing a sigh of relief as he disappears. It’s like Angelou’s very presence has been a constant weight on my shoulders that only now, once it’s been removed, can I recognize.

Asriel turns out to be as straightforward as Angelou is cagey, his blunt manner accompanied by a colony-bred accent I can’t quite place. Either age or the job has begun to take its toll, as crow’s-feet frame his eyes and gray streaks drizzle through the hair at his temples, and his entire office has that lived-in look that suggests a guy who has no life outside the job. He reviews the dossier Angelou linked and asks me a few questions in his neatly clipped tones before filling me in on the basics.

“The Testing Division here on base is currently made up of four teams: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. Each team is made up of anywhere from seven to ten members, called Tech Specialists, plus one Team Leader and one Assistant Team Leader, or ATL, whose job it is to assist the leader and take over in the event that they are unable to fulfill their job.”

If the Team Leader is infected or killed, I mentally fill in.

“Depending on the mission parameters, we may combine two teams for a joint op if we need a larger force. At other times, we may split a single team in half, or even into triads, if smaller forces are called for.”

I nod, and Asriel continues. “You’ll start out as a Tech Specialist. However, if you distinguish yourself in service, you could eventually be promoted to ATL or even Team Leader as positions open up.”

“Tech specialist?” I ask with a frown. “I don’t recognize that rank.”

“That’s probably because it isn’t a military rank. While we do have some military personnel on base, R&D is primarily a civilian operation and is run as such. This includes the Testing Division, which draws recruits from all branches of the military, both officers and enlisted, as well as civilians with special skills. Specialists are expected to obey their ATLs and Team Leaders regardless of what ranks they may have held before their transfers.

“However, keep in mind that while the base is run as a civilian operation, due to its classified nature, it’s still technically designated as a Military Support base. As far as anyone outside of R&D is concerned, you’re still a soldier with the CE military.”

“So what becomes of me if I leave R&D? Do I just go back to my current guardian rank?”

Asriel hesitates. “That will be determined if and when such a situation occurs.”

Somehow I get the feeling that “situation” never occurs. A frisson of anxiety tingles down my spine, but I nod and answer anyway, “Understood, sir.”

“Normally, the Division Commander would assign you to a team, but since she’s away on a recruiting mission, I’m temporarily handling her normal duties. I’ve decided to put you on my team for now. They’re currently short a member, and they have a mission coming up tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I ask, surprised. “I don’t need any training first?”

Asriel blinks. “Can you stand in a moving vehicle and shoot an aero-launcher?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Then it sounds like you’re ready.” A wry smile cracks his mouth. “We’re having a mission briefing in ten. If you still have concerns afterwards, we can speak again. Now, do you have any questions for me before we go?”

I’m about to say no when I catch sight of a small image digitized in the corner of his desk—the sole digital in an office with little in the way of personal effects. In it, a group of ten—four women and six men—cluster together in a familiar-looking hangar bay. Asriel is second from the left, his excited grin and crisp black uniform a match for the others beside him. I give a nod to the digital. “Is that Delta Team, sir?”

Startled, Asriel glances at the image. A strange look comes over his face, as though the picture has been here so long he’s completely forgotten its presence. After a moment, he shakes his head. “That’s Alpha Team, actually. Not just any Alpha Team, but the original—the first testing squad recruited for Dr. Angelou’s base after the Spectre War began. This was taken the night before our first mission.” He points to a stocky woman with a single utilitarian braid falling down her back, then to a tattooed man on her left. “Padma is our current DC, and Lake is running Gamma now.”

I nod, appreciating the history. He doesn’t identify any of the others in the digital, and it occurs to me that none of them are around anymore. Moved on to other assignments or casualties of war? Wisely, I don’t ask.

We meet up with the rest of Delta Team in Briefing Room 3, a small lecture hall with an array of seats on shallow risers ascending up through the back of the room. Several people are already there when we arrive, chatting as they lounge in seats or lean against the chair backs. They turn as we enter, eyebrows rising at my appearance. A tall woman, her forearms rippling with muscle under all the black and red slashes lased on her skin, lets out a whoop.

“Ooh, fresh meat! Who’s the new guy, TL?”

“In a second, Ty.” Asriel motions for them to sit, waiting until all butts have hit seats before finally introducing me. “Team, this is Tech Specialist Michael Sorenson, lately of the Celestial Guard. He arrived today with Dr. Angelou and will be joining us on our mission tomorrow.”

“Angelou recruited you himself?” Ty lets out a low whistle. “You must be something else. Angelou rarely bothers with us testing grunts.”

I shrug, uncomfortable with the idea that I’m anything special. “Right place at the right time, I guess.”

“Or the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ty cracks.

I only shrug again in answer, though inwardly I can’t help wondering if she didn’t just hit the nail on the head with that one. Still, it’s better than the truth, which is that I was merely a consolation prize after the scientists Angelou really wanted were lost on ScyLab 185g.

“Specialist,” Asriel says with a telling look. Ty quiets down with a muttered apology, and Asriel gives me a brief rundown of my new teammates.

Like me, Ty also comes from the Guard, though a different division. In only a few short years, she’s already been awarded a Celestial Star for valor in the field and a Level Six Marksmanship rating. She waggles her eyebrows and winks at me when she’s introduced, and I find myself thankful that my dark skin covers the slight blush that blooms over my face.

Chen is next, her presence briefly startling me until I recall the Delta patch I saw on her upper arm when we first met. As well as ships, she’s also skilled at piloting several types of ground vehicles. When not running missions with Delta, she fills in as a pilot where needed, which explains why she was the one to pick up Angelou and me at Kittridge.

Backing up Chen on piloting duties is Herrera, also a fighter pilot from the CE Navy and an ace like Chen. Short and dark, he has the swagger of a guy who’s overcompensating, though for what I have no idea. He gives me a classic “point and tongue click” when he’s introduced, and I struggle not to roll my eyes.

Our Assistant Team Leader is Archer, who comes from Ground Forces on Zenith Major. With his buzz cut, barrel chest, and thick arms, I would have pegged him as a heavy gunner, but it turns out he originally trained as a medic. His greeting is short but cordial, and I find myself instantly liking him. He reminds me of a guy I knew in the Guard. Serious and dependable, he seems like the type you can always count on to have your back.

The slight Zephyr is downright tiny compared to Ty and Archer, but the wiry muscle beneath his uniform marks him as a former member of the ZG Corps, a special military division focused exclusively on performing dangerous and high-risk missions in zero-gravity environments. He’s also a bit of a celebrity, I find out, having performed in a well-known company of ZG acrobats before being drafted. It certainly explains the silver-tipped eyelashes and gold-streaked hair. He sniffs when he’s introduced, and I find myself suspecting he’s one of those little guys with big attitude.

Though Angelou mentioned civilians when he recruited me, I’m still surprised to find out the final two team members are both civilian specialists. RC is our technical expert, an engineering grad student who was attending one of the most prestigious universities in the Expanse until the ghouls crashed it a year ago. Evacuation turned to recruitment, eventually landing him in R&D. Though his pale olive skin and brown hair are nondescript enough, his dark eyes spark with intelligence.

Zel is the other civilian, a lanky redhead with gold highlights in her long ponytail and the most iridescent green eyes I’ve ever seen. With her tall form and fit physique, I’m not surprised to find out she used to be a professional athlete, though oddly enough, no one actually states what sport she played. There’s something naggingly familiar about her, but damned if I can figure out what it is. Probably saw her play once somewhere or other.

Intros over, we finish the meeting with a quick briefing for tomorrow’s mission. The rest of the evening goes by in a whirlwind as I get assigned equipment, uniform, and bunk, as well as getting an informal tour of the dormitories and training facilities by Archer.

The next stop is the infirmary for a quick medscan and an injector full of standard Prism vaccines. While I’m there, the doctor on call inserts a Circadian Optimizer behind my left ear. The tiny biochip will induce hormone secretion at strategic times in order to help my body adjust its sleep-and-wake cycles to match this planet’s unique patterns. At last, I end up in Asriel’s office once again, where he fills me in on some basic procedures and protocols before officially clearing me for tomorrow’s mission.

“Nervous, Sorenson?” Asriel asks.

“I’m just glad to be getting some action after weeks on a shuttle, sir.”

Asriel nods. “Let’s just hope you’re still this enthusiastic after the mission, Specialist. Dismissed.”

I lie on my bunk and listen to my roommates sleep. RC wheezes every other breath, and Zephyr snores like a gen-amped pig on steroids. Herrera is so still that for a split second I wonder if he died in his sleep and nobody noticed. I watch him for a couple of minutes until at last he barks an unintelligible sound and jerks over onto his side. He mutters a few words, then finally subsides back into sleep.

I sigh and turn over onto my back. In just a matter of hours, my first official mission at R&D begins. Infection, death—either outcome is a significant possibility. That’s not what’s worrying me, though. That’s not what’s keeping me up into the wee hours of the night while my roommates lie blissfully unconscious. Queuing up my chit, I check the hour for about the millionth time. 0130. That’s 0930 on Iolanthe.

I have to make the call.

My teeth grit and my stomach clenches, muscles tightening up the way they always do when I think of her. Teal. My sister, my best friend. My Judas.

The thought of calling her after all this time—almost a year now—makes me feel sick with anger, but I made a promise. And even though Gran isn’t here, even though she wrung that deffin’ promise out of me under duress, I can’t quite bring myself to break it. Not that I couldn’t put it off. I’ve been putting it off for weeks, giving myself excuse after excuse not to call, and all this time that promise has hung over my head like some wretched axe waiting to fall. Only I can’t put it off any longer; I have to cut the blade free and watch it come down.

With a sharp breath, I jerk up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Padding into the adjoining hygiene unit, I shut myself into one of the cubes and link into the base’s communication system. I follow the automated instructions carefully, grimacing slightly as the operator informs me my call will be monitored in real time for security purposes. Because this call won’t be hard enough without some stranger listening in. One more reason why I shouldn’t have put it off so long. Still, I agree to the terms, then settle down to wait as the operator begins the complex process of connecting the call.

Within thirty seconds, I’m drumming my fingers on the side of the hygiene cube, unable to stay still despite the soothing hold music on the other end of the line. My chest tightens with each breath, and my mind involuntarily drifts to the last time I heard Teal’s voice. To the messages she left on my hmail all those months ago.

She started calling almost immediately after I joined up and left. Once a week or more at first, leaving self-righteous messages in her snotty, know-it-all tone, telling me how everything had to be the way it was, how Lia had to die. How it was Lia’s choice to go Nova and Teal’d had no right to stop her. All the same bullslag arguments she’d thrown at me back home before I finally stopped listening, finally stopped talking to her at all.

Self-righteous messages had eventually turned into frustrated, angry messages. Messages demanding that I pick up, that I call her back, that I hmail, asking if my brain was completely deprived of oxygen or if I still had an iota of intelligence left. Of course I’d never answered her. I shouldn’t have even listened to her messages at all, but some deficient part of me couldn’t seem to resist. I’d almost gotten thrown out of the Guard during that time, her fury only amping up my own. I was constantly itching for a fight, and only countless hours in the gym and combat training kept me from throwing a punch at people simply for asking what they were serving in the mess that night. But the weeks and then months passed, and finally the calls tailed off, until at last they stopped coming altogether. Until that day.

The anniversary of the day Lia died.

Her message, audio only, was less than a minute long.

“Hey, it’s me. I was just calling to . . .” A long pause. “I’m just calling to say I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Even now, the backs of my eyelids prickle as her voice whispers in my head, and I brusquely blink the sensation back. Not that the tears are for Teal. No, only Lia. Always for Lia.

“Tech Specialist Sorenson?” The hold music disappears as the operator’s voice comes back on the line. “Your call has been connected.”

I hear a click on the other end of the line, then a soft chiming indicating that it’s vibrating on her end. For a moment, I think she won’t answer. Then suddenly, “Hello?”

It’s like a punch to the gut, hearing her voice after all this time. Exactly the same as it’s always been, as though only a day has passed and not months.

“Hello? Who is this?”

In spite of myself, my heart leaps at the sound of her voice, and I find myself remembering that old saying: Blood is thicker than water. For a moment, I’m tempted to open my mouth, to speak—

Her sincerity, her soul; she always seemed to know the right thing to say, even when I didn’t.

—then the familiar rage burns every other emotion away until there’s nothing left but pain. Pure, unadulterated, lacerating pain.

A wall slams down in my heart, so hard and unyielding not even the pain can stand up to it. I sever the link with a single gesture.

There. It’s done. I promised I’d call Teal.

I never said I’d speak to her.