Chapter 2
One week earlier
Ryker
It took more than five years, but Ryker finally heard the loud thrum of an engine again.
The pieced-together vessel was a Frankenstein ship made from the scraps of his fleet’s salvaged wreckage, but it would fly.
“Do you trust it?” Doc shielded his eyes from the rising double suns with his hand, regarding the vessel skeptically and shadowing Ryker as he performed the pre-flight inspection.
“Only one way to find out.” Ryker shrugged and picked up his dirty and worn duffel bag. The thing had been through a lot these past years, just like the rest of them, and was one rough mishandle away from falling apart. Confident with the vehicle’s exterior integrity, or as confident as he could be in this situation, he shouldered the bag and tapped the corroded metal door to the cockpit. It lifted open with a hiss.
“The guys are going to be mad that they missed your grand takeoff.”
“Yeah, well, they’ve seen enough wreckage to last a lifetime and I’m not sure how graceful this ascent is going to be. Look at it as a precaution, Doc, for their mental well-being. I’m doing you a favor.” Ryker smiled with a wink, making light of the situation, but they both knew there was truth to what he’d said.
Only six men had survived the crash landing onto the planet.
Three of his men’s dead bodies were found alongside their wreckage. If it weren’t for Doc, Ryker would’ve been a fourth. Then there were the two ships still circling the planet’s atmosphere, each carrying a pilot and unresponsive to communication attempts. Finally, there was Eloise. Or rather, there wasn’t Eloise. There was no sign of her ship, her body, or any communication from her in all of these past five years.
“Do you think she’ll recognize you? Talia?” Doc ran his finger diagonally across his face, indicating the scar across Ryker’s. The one he’d stitched up while Ryker lay feverish and unconscious for a week after they’d pulled him from the rubble. “Even if she does, you might be too ugly for her now.”
They laughed at that, but it wasn’t the scar Ryker was worried about. It was the sadness.
Years of rough living had transformed him. Survival on that planet hadn’t come easy. It cost them years of starvation, sickness, crude shelter, and deadly mistakes before they figured out how to survive there. Using the last of their resources, they pieced together one measly ship with enough room and life support for one person.
Wiping the rust from his palms against his pants leg, Ryker shook hands with Doc, boarded the vessel and took his seat. He closed his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts then began the pre-launch checklist to confirm that all systems were operational. The indicators for navigation and life support glowed green. The fuel gauge’s hand hadn’t dropped, satisfying him that there were no signs of leakage. With a deep breath and a prayer, Ryker started the launch countdown in his head and flipped the switch to activate the main engine.
Ten, nine, eight . . .
The engine growled furiously. He glanced over the control panel and all of its various gauges to ensure that the systems continued to function properly.
Three, two, one . . .
Ryker’s hands clutched his safety belt as the vessel jolted forward. He hadn’t ascended in years. His gut tightened as the grav support kicked up a notch and the cabin tried to normalize its pressure. He wished that he had a trash bin just in case.
As he exited the planet’s atmosphere and entered open space, the engine quieted and the ship settled down as it automatically transitioned into power-saving mode, conserving fuel and resources for the long trip ahead. Letting himself relax just a bit, he set the vessel’s trajectory to lead him to his ultimate destination . . . Talia.
The plan was simple. Travel in the direction of New Horizon’s last known coordinates until he reached a comm wave. Then, Ryker would be able to track down New Horizon’s current location. He had emergency coinage for refuel and if he came across a station, would be able to access New Horizon’s accounts if Talia hadn’t changed any of the passkeys.
He knew his wife, though. She’d never give up on him. The passkeys would be the same.
For days, Ryker woke up and hit the treadmill. He pushed through his isolation, running until the burning gave way to numbness and exhaustion, then he splayed across the chilly floor and let it cool his overheated body. He cleaned his old travel-worn blasters over and over again, ate the same flavorless porridge at every meal, and then ran some more. Sometimes he became paranoid that the comm scan wasn’t functioning properly, so he’d manually search the channels, listening intently for any sign of life until he was satisfied that the empty static wasn’t a fluke.
He repeated this until one day, as he lay collapsed after his workout, the static finally gave way to a recording.
“Comm wave echo-orion-nine-six. Orion quadrant sub-district Eridanus. Ten refuel stations. Three full-service stations. Emergency dispatch available. Dial channel alpha-orion-nine-six to connect with an operator. Comm wave echo-orion-nine-six. Orion quadrant sub-district Eridanus. Ten refuel stations . . .”
Ryker bolted to the command deck, pulled the handheld mic to his mouth, took a deep breath, and spoke to the first person outside of his crew for the first time in five years.
“Operater I.D. five-two-five, comm wave echo-orion-nine-six. How can I assist you?”
Despite the official nature of the message, the woman’s voice sounded soft and mature. Like his mother’s.
“This is New Horizon vessel one-one-three. I’ve lost communication with my base ship, she’s a generation vessel. Can you help me locate her?”
The operator went through a series of security questions to verify Ryker’s identity before she could release New Horizon’s location. When he thought they were almost done, she had one more.
“How long have you been out of communication, Mr. Steele?” There was skepticism in her voice telling him this wasn’t a usual question they’d ask.
“Five, maybe six years. I took out an exploration fleet and there was an emergency. We crashed.” Ryker waited for her reply but was only met with static. “Please, my wife is on that ship. I need to get back to her.”
“Confirm your wife’s station.”
“Chancellor.”
Another long pause of static. “Are you Vice-Chancellor Ryker Steele, sir?”
“Yes.”
She reconfirmed his identity, going through the same lengthy list of questions as before.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Vice-Chancellor, but they released your death confirmation six months ago. Yours and the rest of your fleet’s.”
His stomach dropped, as did the mic from his hand. The sound of it falling like a stone onto the hard metal floor barely registered in his mind.
“Hello?” The operator’s voice intermingled with the static. They were losing each other. “Hello, Vice-Chancellor Steele? Can you hear me? Operater I.D. five-two-five calling New Horizon one-one-three. Sir, are you there?”
The broadcast was choppy. It was that cutting of static, that fear of losing communication with the outside world again, that ripped Ryker from his haze.
“I’m here,” he rushed. “I’m here, please, I’m here!”
“Glad to hear it, sir. I thought we’d lost you. I’m pulling New Horizon’s coordinates now. In the meantime, could you confirm for me any other survivors?”
He did. He confirmed the six alive, the five known dead, and the one missing. Then, Ryker helped the operator compose a message to New Horizon, which included the crew’s fates, the coordinates of the planet they found, as well as its terrain, weather, and general temperament. He hated that the message would reach New Horizon before him. For years, Ryker dreamed of that moment when he returned home, walking through the doorway of his and Talia’s living quarters. Seeing her again. Not her simply waiting at the docking gate for him to arrive, but joining in on her normal routine like nothing’d ever changed. Coming up behind her as she rummaged through the kitchen cabinets and slipping his arm around her waist, pulling her in for a kiss after a long day of work, then cooking dinner together and turning in for the night.
Because that’s all this time had been, right? Just one long, awful day at work.
Giving the colony a proper update was more important than his dream, though, so he worked with the operator. After they were done and the message was sent to a courier ship, which would deliver it to the next comm wave to be delivered to the next one after that, she gave him the coordinates to New Horizon so that he could meet them on their course to the planet.
“There’s one more thing, sir.”
“Yes.”
“Chancellor Steele is enroute to Orion’s Masquerade. It’s in the opposite direction from New Horizon’s current location.”
What?
His chest tightened but there wasn’t time for Ryker to let his mind run wild over what the operator had just revealed. He’d have to do that later. “Coordinates?”
She gave them, and he plugged them into the vessel’s nav system.
“Can we get a message to them, too?”
There was another long pause.
“No, sir. I’m sorry. The event is shut off from external communications. I can ping them, but any message won’t push through until after everything wraps up. It’s part of their rules.”
Their rules. Those stupid, archaic rules. Everyone knew their rules. Once you left for the masquerade, there was to be no outside influence, no matter how pressing. It would undermine the integrity of the event otherwise.
Talia was already married, though, surely that would be enough to disqualify her. All Ryker had to do was make it there before it was too late.
The nav system beeped, indicating the update was complete. He looked at the travel time to the Heaven’s Pearl, the cruise liner which was hosting this decennial’s masquerade. Two day’s travel if he kept his vessel at its peak output, which would require no sleep since it’d reduce output if it slipped into autopilot. If he could pull it off, he’d make it just in the nick of time to intervene.
“Whatever it takes.”
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d lost a few nights’ sleep.