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Chapter 2
Zach Croft: 2053
The Kevlar plates of the police captain’s riot armor knocked together as he aimed his rifle and moved toward the man exiting the dropship. He shouted commands, ordering the stranger to get on the ground.
Outnumbered, the man on the ship dropped to his knees and held his hands above his head. Zach couldn’t hear what the man was saying, but he seemed to be trying to explain, to reason with the officers. Before he could finish, two cops rushed up the ramp and knocked him to the ground. One officer drove his knee into the man’s back while the other secured handcuffs around his wrists. The man cried out in pain and surprise, his face pleading for them to calm down.
As one of the officers yanked the man to his feet and escorted him out of the dropship, Zach got a good look at the stranger’s face. It was all too familiar. His sharp brow. His pointy nose. The dirty-blonde hair parted down the middle and reaching to his cheeks on either side. Skin so pale he really could be a ghost. Zach recognized it all.
The guards stationed at the main entrance to the launch bay swung the doors open. The man and his captors stepped through, and the doors shut behind them.
Suddenly, Zach was on his feet. He ran for the watchtower’s exit and barreled out the door. Jason called after him, but Zach was already gone. He rushed to the ground floor just in time to see the guards escorting the stranger down the deserted hall toward him.
Zach ducked back into the stairwell out of immediate view. His eyes found the man’s torso, where he wore a loose bomber jacket with a patch on the left bicep: an embroidered P with stars and planets circling it.
Zach’s heart raced in his chest. No. He was dead. They confirmed it! Zach thought, his breath shallow. But what if they were wrong?
Zach locked eyes with the man as the officers escorted the stranger past. The stranger’s gaze lingered for a moment, then shifted to the badge on Zach’s shirt. His expression changed from frustration to recognition as he spoke.
“Zach?”
Zach Croft: 2030
“We’re going to be okay.”
Quinton’s warm hand wrapped around Zach’s as their dropship prepared to detach from Gateway station. Zach nodded and forced a smile. No matter how often his father said it would be okay, Zach had trouble believing it. They had been preparing for this moment every day for the last year. Whenever doubts intruded into Zach’s mind, Quinton would find some consoling words to wipe them out.
Zach looked around the dropship, studying the other colonists’ faces. This was his life now. These were his people. He’d better get used to it.
At first, Zach had been upset about leaving Earth. About leaving his home. About abandoning ten years of his life and signing away the next fifteen. God, that seemed like so long. He’d be in his twenties by the time they finished, and then what? Onto to Alpha Centauri? Would he ever return to Earth?
Despite his worries, they still left their home planet, docked to the Gateway, and went into cryosleep for the voyage to Mars. During the month-long nap, images of his life on Earth danced through his thoughts, making him feel more homesick than ever.
“It’s the right thing to do,” his father would say. And Zach trusted his judgment. Although giving up everything was hard, it was for the greater good.
As the three dropships split from the Gateway and plummeted toward Mars, Zach thought about everything he would miss on Earth. He would never see another tree. Another blade of grass. Another skyscraper. This new world would be different, and not all in a good way.
Opening his eyes, Zach glanced across the ship’s cabin. He saw Ryker, accompanied by both his parents: Cage and Kayla.
Zach felt a tug in his chest as a flood of images washed over him.
It was a sweltering summer night. The air conditioners strained to keep up. After spaghetti and meatballs, his mother walked him up the stairs and tucked him into his rocket-shaped bed. With a warm smile, she read him a story—something magical and full of whimsy. He could never remember the details, just the sound of his mother’s voice as she read. He fell asleep with her at the foot of the bed. By the time he woke up the next day, she was gone. His dad claimed she went for groceries and would return later that afternoon.
But she never came back.
The book she had read to him was one of the few things he brought with him on the Gateway, although he hadn’t the stomach to read it just yet. He never did. Even back home, it always sat in his drawer exactly where she left it, as if preserving the last thing his mother read to him would somehow bring her back.
“You all right?” Quinton asked from beside Zach, ruffling his hair. “Be strong. We’re almost there.”
And they were. Past the cabin and through the massive window that made up one of the dropship’s walls, a small border of red appeared in the lower section. There were some bumps on the landscape, which Zach assumed were mountains. Above the line, the sky was bleak. It looked like somebody had mixed pale blue paint with gray and yellow.
“Gravity will be a little different down there. Try not to float off into space without letting me know first.” Quinton winked.
“What’s our current altitude, Carlo?” Zach heard the co-pilot ask. The navigator’s eyes scanned the blue and green readouts before him.
“Twenty-five-thousand and dropping,” Carlo said.
The other pilot leaned back. “Engage reverse thrusters at eighteen thousand feet.”
Quinton seemed to sense Zach’s dismay as the dropship began to shake and thrash. “Don’t worry. It’s supposed to shake a little.”
“We’re at nineteen… eighteen fifty… eighteen. Mark!”
“Activate thrusters.”
“Activating.” Carlo pressed a pair of large blue buttons. “Both thrusters are active.” The tops of Zach’s shoulders snapped against his restraints as the dropship jolted upward. The shock felt much stronger and deeper than any training runs he had done in the last year. It felt violent.
Lights flickered off in succession. Computer screens and holo displays disintegrated into a collage of multi-colored squares. A few seconds later, they recovered.
“Relax,” said Quinton. “Just some interference.” He shut his eyes, inhaled through his nostrils, and mumbled something under his breath. Suddenly, the ship began to tilt sideways. All of Zach’s weight shifted painfully to one shoulder.
“Hmm,” Carlo grunted with a furrowed brow. He flipped a switch, and the ship seemed to level out. “Getting some pull.”
“Does that happen often?” asked Quinton, leaning forward.
“Going to Mars doesn’t happen often, so no.”
The ship tilted again, this time with more force.
“Let’s go manual,” the co-pilot said.
They gripped their flight sticks, juggling for control of the ship as confusion buzzed between them. The slant got more extreme. What once was the right wall of the ship became the floor.
A boom rang out, and the dropship gave a violent shake. Zach’s head smacked against the back of his seat. With the impact, dizziness overcame him. Transparent ghosts lagged behind his vision as he looked around the dropship, trying to focus.
Carlo did his best at the control panel, craning his neck to read a danger warning that appeared on the monitor. “Thruster One failed. We’re spiraling!”
The centripetal force tore at Zach, pressing his spine against the seat. A supply crate dislodged from one wall and flew toward another, crashing into a set of pipes. The composite tubes snapped at the center, venting jets of fog-like gas into the cabin.
“Control it!”
“I’m trying!”
An umbrella of sparks rained from the ceiling, and the lights flickered again. Hot embers dripped down the walls like melted wax.
“We’re too close!”
Then, with a flash and a roar, Zach’s world went dark.
Zach Croft: 2053
“You lied to me!” Zach threw open the door to Carver’s office with a crash. He stormed up to the head of OSE’s desk and slammed his hands against it.
“Excuse me?” Carver leaned back in his comfy leather chair, running his fingers through the graying hair on his temple.
“You lied! About everything! You’re a goddamn liar!” Zach threw his arm out to the side so fast and with so much force that his shoulder nearly dislocated. Everything. Everything was a lie. Nothing Carver had told him was true.
“What are you talking about? I haven’t lied about anything.”
“Then, explain to me how the fuck Ryker Gagarin came back today!”
“First of all, we don’t know who came down on that ship, and second, you should watch your tone—”
“Who else could it possibly be?” Nobody. That was the answer. The only way someone could get onto the ship was from the Gateway. And who was the last person up there?
Carver’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll say it again: We have no idea who was on that ship. But we know one thing: it’s not Ryker—”
“You abandoned him!”
Carver leaned forward in his chair. His jaw tightened. His voice was low and steady. “We did everything we could to find him.” He counted off on his fingers. “We checked life support systems, cameras, motion sensors! Everything! There were no signs of life. Zero.” He lowered his voice even more. “You think I’d leave a kid up there if I knew he was still alive? I’m telling you: Ryker is dead. Whoever was on that dropship is not Ryker Gagarin.”
“Then how do you explain it?”
Carver sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know. But we’ll find out.” He stood up and stepped out from behind his desk. “Zach, listen. I know you’re upset. I am too. But stop and think about what you’re saying. You know me. Would I do something like that?”
“I don’t know…” Zach glanced at Carver, then back at the floor.
“When you got back, did I abandon you?”
Zach stared at his shoes and shook his head. “No.”
“No. Of course not. I helped you build a new life. I watched out for you.”
“And I appreciate that.” Zach knew it was true.
Carver put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Look at me.” Zach reluctantly looked up at Carver. “You’re like a son to me, Zach. I promise, if we could have saved Ryker, we would have.”
Zach nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was out of line. I’m just… I’m a little confused right now, you know?” He wanted to believe the man on the ship was Ryker, but the possibility now seemed absurd. Carver was right. It couldn’t be him.
Carver squeezed Zach’s shoulder and smiled warmly. “No harm done. Why don’t you take a long lunch? Get your thoughts together. Then we’ll figure out what’s next.”
“Okay. Thanks, Nicolas.”
With that, Zach left Carver’s office, quietly closing the door behind him. Through it, he could hear Carver fall back into his chair with a heaving sigh.
And a curse under his breath.
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