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Kraken Rising

Daniel M. Hoyt & E. Marshall Hoyt

Daniel M. Hoyt is a systems architect for trajectory physics software, when not writing or wrangling royalty calculations. Dan has appeared in premier magazines like Analog and several anthologies, notably the recent Founder Effect (Baen), and Dr. Mike Brotherton’s Diamonds in the Sky (funded by the National Science Foundation). Dan also edited Fate Fantastic and Better Off Undead for DAW. Having published in several genres, Dan turned to his science-fiction roots for his space opera, Ninth Euclid’s Prince. This is his first collaboration. Catch up with him at danielmhoyt.com.

E. Marshall Hoyt has been telling stories since before he could talk, acting out plays with stick figures that his parents swear followed the beats of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to the letter. Like his father decades before, his response to a boring literature analysis assignment was to write it as a short story. After winning a story challenge contest (the prize was a signed Dave Freer novel), Marshall took some time away from writing to study nonfiction subjects: electrical, mechanical, and aerospace engineering. He was lured back to fiction for this collaboration.


Sputtering beneath a roiling sea like bloody lava, Sabrina felt like demons clawed at her heels, driving her straight into the ice-cold arms of the devil himself. Her fate sealed in one steely-nerved moment, now she raced silently under the ocean, pursuers far behind but closing the distance as they skipped along the waves of the dark red ocean, intent on punishing her betrayal. The palace of this particular devil, a mostly submerged structure with a small surface dome highlighted by crimson skies, loomed ahead, its lone inhabitant unlikely to allow her entrance, despite their long history as friends.

She flicked a lever, twisted a knob, and spun to another screen. Still submerged, her only visibility to the pursuing skippers were momentary sonar blips, as the crafts’ bodies slammed the ocean swells and careened skyward again with a burst of thrust, a perpetually skipping stone under a cloudy, crimson sky on the Ross 248 water planet, Poseidon, its entire surface devoid of land.

Waiting patiently, on the next blip she slammed a finger to the screen to mark its position, allowing her to study the blips through several cycles and identify three distinct paths made by the disjointed ones.

That’s…three skippers, going…maybe ten knots faster than I am?

She spun back to the main controls and flicked on the subcomm transmitter.

“Adam?” she shouted frantically as the device seemed to lock onto a receiver.

Silence. Static. Not close enough? Signal loss? Being ignored?

The subcomm kluge had been invented specifically for Poseidon, converting audio signals to Morse code sound impulses and back again, with only rudimentary inflections encoded in the transfer. Static was the standard indicator for too long a delay.

She was not positive she would reach the substation before the skippers caught her. The underwater currents were steady, so her speed would be relatively consistent. But her pursuers only needed to catch a good patch of wind and calmer seas to bring them even closer, faster.

She wanted to, had to, get there first.

Lost in her thoughts, she left the subcomm locked onto the receiver, and the static broke.

Was that a cough? What did that mean?

“Adam? Adam, we need to talk. We nee—”

“Keeping talking, Sabrina. Tell me about your conspiracy.”

That’s not Adam. How close are the skippers?

Sabrina responded calmly, “Director, it doesn’t add up.”

The director’s response was equally calm, interpreted as a booming and deep command voice. “Tad showed us everything, you saw it. Adam’s been planning this for over a year.”

“No! There’s another explanation, he wouldn’t do this! Just let me—”

“Don’t be a fool. Stop and—”

The signal cut out. Turning to her other screen, the blip that popped up was farther back this time.

Good.

Sabrina figured she had just over ten minutes to prevent Adam from potentially delaying the Poseidon terraforming program by decades, if not centuries. Malice or ignorance, she had to get to him first, to dig out the truth before it was too late; they’d been friends since childhood and he deserved a chance to explain. The director would not ask questions with the overwhelming evidence against him; he would just arrest Adam on the spot.

She flipped on the subcomm and spoke into it.

“Adam? Adam? We need to talk.”

Silence, but not static. Is it working?

After a long silence, she had a thought and fiddled with the controls. Using a private encrypted channel that Sabrina remembered from years before, when Adam was still developing the subcomm for Poseidon, she was rewarded with a single word from Adam: “Kraken!”

Two Years Ago, 58 AA, Dawn Promise, Poseidon

“I can’t sign off on this,” the director sneered. Bloodred waves crashed the hull and painted the window behind him, trickling away to reveal an inky horizon shrouded in thick, heavy clouds shot through with blindingly bright veins.

Sabrina stood next to Adam silently and waited. Tall and imposing, yet graceful and gifted with a wise, fatherly smile, Adam rarely had problems convincing people to do much of anything—if they looked past his messy blond hair and occasional social awkwardness. Fortified by several cups of strong tea, Sabrina steeled her resolve to keep her silence and make Adam stand up for himself. Despite being above the water in the tiny dome, the office light was full-spectrum, just like Toe Hold, the nexus of the Ross colonization, necessary to keep the unmodified humans sane.

“Please, Director, consider what this could mean for Poseidon. The initial data we’ve collected indicates it could work. We could have a real home.” He waved vaguely about the gently rocking, floating station and added, “Something better than this.”

Captain Percy—an honorary title for the director of the research station, as he had no rank in the Patrol, nor was the station an active starship—preferred his people to call him Director, as “Captain” was a painful reminder of the Patrol stripping him of rank and then expelling him. His experience and expertise more than qualified him to head up this expedition. It paid well and it gave him a chance to demonstrate his abilities. What he lacked in rank, he gained in status at the top of the command chain on the station, indeed on all of Poseidon.

Adam had been passionate about his proposal, Sabrina thought, and with good reason. His team fulfilled their data collection duties, but also managed to collect additional information supporting what amounted to a more solid terraforming recommendation than Adam thought the bureaucrats could make without that data.

“We don’t have the time or resources,” the director mumbled dismissively. “The minisubs have been using far more power than projected, and you and your merry band of scientists have all but exhausted the rather limited supply of coffee on board.”

Adam winced. The barb was laser-focused at the person who had been responsible for ordering the supplies in the first place. “Please, sir, Director, sir, we could have this project off the ground and results in less than a year. We nee—”

“I know what you need,” Percy interrupted, “but you’re not getting it. Your preliminary data fails to include any risk analysis.”

“But that’s why—”

“I certainly won’t rubber-stamp a project this ambitious, and we just don’t have the resources.”

“Sir, if we could—”

“No! We can’t!” Percy yelled. “I’m sorry, but I give recommendations in two years, and we don’t have the time to request new supplies and run this project in that time; it’d be months past the deadline.”

Adam sighed in defeat. Months putting this together, and in one short meeting, gone, evaporated.

Sabrina nodded in silent agreement with the director. Just getting the supplies needed would jeopardize the timeline for recommending terraforming efforts for this world—the very purpose of their mission here. The next scheduled resupply was already delayed, along with the second research station for Poseidon, and they were dangerously low on coffee and numerous other critical supplies.

On top of that, the additional research time wasn’t possible with their current schedule.

Irritated, Adam rounded on Sabrina. “Sabs, you’ve seen the data, tell him it’s possible.”

She darted her eyes at him, annoyed, and shrugged. “My team reviewed the initial data, and while it could work—”

Percy raised an eyebrow.

“—we couldn’t confirm his team’s subsequent data, nor did we do any risk assessment of his proposal using that data alone.”

The color drained from Adam’s face. She’d always been there for him, a solid pillar of strength to back up his wild plans, but not now. Looking over at him, he looked betrayed.

“Doing so would push past our recommendation date, and without a favorable risk assessment, it’s not worth it for a mere proof of concept.”

Sabrina hated to see Adam so dejected, deflated. She knew instantly their friendship was now damaged, but hers was always the voice of reason, and this time the cost was too high.

He’ll be mad at me for a while, but he’ll come around eventually. He always does.

Percy said calmly, “I know you’re invested in this, but we just don’t have time or resources. I understand the work you’ve done, but this station has other priorities. In less than two years we have to present a strong case that this planet can, or cannot, be terraformed. That is our primary mission here.”

Percy stood and indicated the door. “I think we’re done here. Don’t forget to renew your sidearm certification; the Patrol has been pretty concerned about the various low-level terrorism acts lately and they want to make sure even researchers can respond to any threat that pops up. Sabrina, you’re dismissed.”

As she left, she heard Percy gently inform Adam, “As expected, the station is traveling too slowly to collect sufficient data around the planet on its own in time; we need to cover more ground. I’m authorizing the deployment of the substations and recommending you to head one of them for a long-term research expedition. The volume of data you collected in such a brief time has impressed me; let’s put those talents to good use.”

Five Years Ago, 55 AA, Transport Ship Above Poseidon

“Well, thanks for recognizing my talents,” Adam said gratefully, deftly sloshing steaming, perfectly brewed coffee into Sabrina’s cup before reaching into the bag slung around his chair.

“I wouldn’t call making a decent cup of coffee a talent, Adam,” Sabrina said, smiling, before she took a sip. “Unless you’re a barista.”

“Decent?” Adam mocked outrage. “Tan Arabica is the best.”

Sabrina sipped again. “Dirt-grown on Toe Hold, I know. None of that hydroponic crap for us Poseidon royalty.”

While Adam scrabbled together papers, Sabrina sipped patiently, staring out the tiny window, admiring the planet below with its black storm clouds flitting about, lightning cracks momentarily exposing the liquid surface below and bright red reflections tracing a pattern on the window. She looked back to Adam, who was arranging slightly crumpled papers into a particular order and smoothing them on the table between them, satisfied.

Sabrina grabbed the small pile of disorganized and messy notes and scribbled calculations and started going over them. Numbers twisted up in crude drawings of devices and machines. It was all distant to her field of expertise, but she was familiar with Adam’s process. On Copernicus, the colony ship where they grew up, notebooks lined his room, pages filled from corner to corner. He was always thinking, full of ideas. Modifying humans further to survive in harsh planet environments, effectively creating another new subspecies. Creating a habitable planet through a convoluted series of adjusted trajectories on millions of meteorites. On the supply ship accompanying Pusher 3—delivering the lone Poseidon research station—Adam managed to jot down his ideas on found scraps, his notebooks a luxury too expensive for weight allotment.

Accustomed with deciphering Adam’s work, Sabrina’s eyes darted from diagram to equation. “It’s not the craziest idea you’ve come up with,” she said.

Adam mocked offense and replied, “I never have crazy ideas! Just ones that require lots of work.”

Sabrina laughed. “Speaking of work, weren’t you supposed to be working with the station’s loading crew to get the research station supplied?”

“We’ve got until next week before the station deploys from Pusher 3. I’ve got time.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes. Adam could get caught up in his ideas, his daydreaming distracting him from the world around him. Years before, he had even forgotten to tell her he was leaving Copernicus until he had strapped himself in the transport and remembered to call her before it departed. No doubt some new plan swirled around his head instead.

“You might want to check your datapad more often, Adam. It’s already next week, and we’re already on the transport, not the supply ship.”

Adam had his face buried in his notes, scribbling away madly at a blank corner on a page, barely registering Sabrina’s words. He grunted, which Sabrina knew meant he had heard the words but they failed to register.

Sabrina sighed. “Have you at least talked to your team?”

Adam looked up from his notes and said, “Yes! I even told them about my project idea!”

“Oh, for Eden’s sake, you already have three research projects!”

“Don’t worry, we can work it alongside the official projects with little additional effort.”

Sabrina groaned. If the company got any hint he was burning resources collecting data for an unauthorized project, there could be consequences, none of them light punishment, and it could be devastating to lose even a single crew member on a sparsely manned research station, much less a leader.

“I’d recommend against it. Frankly, I’m surprised any of your team would risk it.”

Adam grinned. “Actually, my team universally agreed! Even Tad, who was surprisingly the most supportive. He’s convinced we can submit a formal project proposal before the official recommendation.”

Sabrina was surprised but said nothing. In her few interactions with Tad at mission briefings and Adam’s lab, he seemed overly practical. Maybe I read him wrong. Anyway, if Adam was careful with this project idea, then she would not argue with him too much, or he might come up with a crazier plan. Adam always had a plan.

Adam paused, concern crossing his face.

Finally.

He reached into his bag frantically and pulled out his datapad. “Wait, the supplies? What day is it?”

Sabrina smiled and sipped her coffee. She had a sinking feeling that she’d be drinking the bitter hydroponic crap after this. She closed her eyes and savored this cup, memorizing the smooth, rich Tan Arabica taste.

Nine Years Ago, 51 AA, Toe Hold, Liber

“It’s not a good day to go here, it seems.” Sabrina said, rounding the corner to one of the safer cafés in Toe Hold. Its tight entryway teemed with protestors clutching metal serving plates—probably stolen from a nearby restaurant—crudely etched with vicious words and rude expressions. Screaming about the evils of space colonization and the great sins of the Red Devils—a derogatory name used in general for the people heading up the Ross 248 Project—they seemed to forget the purpose of the colony ship they grew up on. Sabrina viewed the Anticols as entitled lemmings, adults in body only, still children in their minds.

It would do them good to work for Magenta Management for a year so they could understand the science we do.

Adam saw Anticols fundamentally cutting against his core beliefs and pursuits, and he felt that if they knew what he did for a living, there would be more than words flung around. He stared, eyes narrowed, tensing for any sign of an impending attack.

Sabrina cleared her throat. “Maybe we should find a quieter café.”

“Uh, sure. There’s one I like near the maglev train station down the North Tunnel.”

They shuffled together through the grimy tunnels of Toe Hold, close to the edge of the Promise borough with its gangly, genetically modified counterparts known as Cerites. At eight percent Earth gravity, a more aggressive gait could send them both hurtling roofward toward the tunnel’s full-spectrum lights.

Normally, to avoid the usual tensions that came with confronting a Cerite, you would grab a cup closer to the train, the part most populated with normals—unmodified humans. While the numerous coffee shops that popped up over the past few years helped ease the tensions that had developed in Toe Hold from sleepy normals wandering accidentally into Cerite territory, it did not quell them completely.

The Cerites and normals tended to band with their own kinds. Even on one of the mostly lifeless roads in the colony, they could still make out the distant taunts between a Cerite and a normal. It was almost comical now, but it could turn far more serious in a heartbeat. A few years from now, it might not be so funny. Cerites were not just genetically modified, built to withstand the many harsh conditions of space itself, but they were culturally quite different from the younger normals. Cerites were built to colonize, to expand and explore; they were often rigorous and precise, laser-focused on their goals. In contrast, a lot of normals, especially the younger ones, were born with so much freedom and choice, they felt aimless in their goals.

Sabrina had some sympathy for the Anticol protesters, but they were ruthless in their rejection of expansion and further colonization. Growing up on Copernicus, not only did the history lessons of the Sol System seem to reaffirm caution on rapid expansion, but even the efforts made in this system suggested as much. But Anticols missed the big picture; all they saw was two cloud cities, the colony ship Copernicus, and the section of Toe Hold they lived in called the Primate Quarter. With their distorted view of history and a lack of any desirable future, Sabrina understood how they could be bitter.

The young normals romanticized the Sol System, and especially Earth, in the same way their parents and generations before had romanticized the Ross system as humanity’s savior. Born to a system with limited habitability, the goal of colonizing every world in it would not be fulfilled within their lifetimes.

As youths, Adam and Sabrina had arrived in the system, marveling at the sight of the Ross star and its many planets. For them, the multigeneration first goal of reaching this new home was only the beginning; they were excited to be part of the next goal. It was, after all, about the long-term needs of humanity, not just the needs of their short lives.

The bitterness that prevailed from Anticols had torn apart the families of some of her coworkers and pupils. The evidence of countless prior protests lined the streets. Scrap metal and discarded materials etched and painted with slogans and phrases were left in junk piles around every corner. The dirtiness of Toe Hold was perhaps the most startling contrast to the colony ship. Neither of them really appreciated what it meant to live in a subterrane colony on a moon until they got there, the grungy nature of colony living. They were used to the clean, sleek metal hallways and rooms of the Copernicus with view screens lining various parts of the massive ship.

Ahead, there was something pasted on the wall advertising a restaurant, the Purple Parrot. Sabrina glanced at it.

“That’s for a place in Promise! Why are they advertising it here?”

They passed a Cerite youth staring at the advertisement. He glanced at them and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

We get it. Not for us. Move along.

“There,” Adam said, pointing down the road to a protestor-free café.

Sabrina took his arm. “Off we go, then.”

As they walked closer, they were gratified to hear the chattering of Cerites and normals within the café excitedly talking while sharing coffee together.

Adam squeezed Sabrina’s arm to get her attention. “How goes the certification for your pupils?”

“Good. Most of them should be certified soon enough. They asked me to be a research head for the expedition.” She paused, then continued, “How are yours?”

Adam looked away. “A lot of them are behind. I don’t know why, I’m a pretty good teacher.”

Sabrina raised an eyebrow as he looked back over at her. “What? I’m serious! I’m sure that Stacy, Miranda, Tad, and Mack will be certified by the end of the year.”

“Adam, that’s only a quarter of your pupils.”

Adam grumbled and walked on in silence. As he opened the door to the café, he brightened. “You know, I had an idea recently.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes. “I’m sure.”

He raised his voice a bit over the din around them and got in line. “It’s a bit early in development, but I thought of something for the third planet.”

Sabrina paused and recalled their lessons. “The one covered in water? Ross 248d?”

Fifteen Years Ago, 45 AA, Copernicus

“No, no, that’s 248d, I’m on 248b, Aeneas. The other cloud city is on 248c, on Cupid.”

Sabrina sighed; she was never particularly good with the planet designations. Living in a small room on Copernicus did not incentivize remembering which planet was which.

“That’s a big move,” Sabrina responded glumly. She stared at her comm device, a vaguely Adam-shaped figure outlined on the out-of-focus display, just visible enough to capture the overall figure but not any features. She suspected Adam had finally dropped his own comm enough to damage the camera. In contrast, she had never so much as misplaced her datapad from its usual resting place next to a neat stack of papers on her desk.

What a pair we make. So different, but still friends.

“Magenta Management said it would cover any moving costs.”

Sabrina leaned back. “But a ten-year contract? That’s a pretty big commitment.”

“We’d be training the next generation of scientists!”

“On Toe Hold. It’s barely just started to house humans. We would have to live in the Primate Quarter and spend time on the train to nowhere every day just to stay healthy. Parents use it to threaten their kids into submission.” She affected a parental voice. “Behave! Don’t make me move us to Toe Hold!”

Her entire life had been spent on Copernicus and she saw little reason to leave. She had gotten her certification on the ship, a solid job, even made some friends—at least, work friends. The only person she really considered to be a friend was Adam—who’d left a few years ago to be one of the first people to try and live on the second cloud city in the system: Asgard. Truthfully, she had not been happy since he had left.

“There’s more to it than that. After ten years, we’ll be first in line for a research expedition! The one going to Poseidon. We would be among the first humans to ever set foot on that planet,” Adam said.

“Ten years and a research expedition?” she shot back. “How much of a commitment are you expecting me to make here? It’s not like we’re married!” Sabrina bit her tongue, surprised she had said that aloud. Despite the fact they’d never actually dated, she’d always assumed they’d marry someday; lately it seemed like Adam didn’t share that expectation.

Magenta Management had gained a lot of favor with 5-of-Chandra, generally considered the most influential of the Ross 248 Project command structure. It was not hard to imagine the company getting a contract to launch a future research expedition.

That was Adam’s real goal: the research contract that Magenta Management dangled provocatively as an incentive for a decade of routine tutoring and helping young scientists get certification. They were both experts in their respective fields. Sabrina was well versed in chemistry, weather systems, and environmental risk assessment; her skills were used to teach a new generation to become good scientists. Adam’s skills in mechanics and engineering were well suited for the people who maintained the machines necessary for survival in the Ross 248 system.

After a bit of silence, Adam cut in. “Listen, Sabs, you’re still my only real friend. I don’t want to pursue this opportunity without you, I want to take this adventure with you.”

Sabrina blinked. It was interesting to hear that he was serious about this, and more importantly to Sabrina, that he wasn’t willing to do it without her. But when he left for the cloud city on Aeneas, it was like he had forgotten about her. He left her alone on the colony ship with only the stacks of his journals she had rescued before his room was reassigned.

For a long time, she felt so angry and betrayed she wouldn’t return his calls. In retrospect, until she had recently reconnected with him after his return, she had not seen him in years. Still, it was a lot to ask, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go into research. Moving from the Copernicus to Toe Hold’s Primate Quarter was a massive change and a long-term commitment. And after that they would be moving across the Ross system to a new unexplored planet.

It was one Adam wanted to take with her.

Every cautious and careful muscle in her body tensed and she swallowed. “When does Magenta Management want us to start?”

Two Years and One Week Ago, 58 AA, Dawn Promise, Poseidon

“Hard to say.” Sabrina held a mug of hot water in one hand and dipped a tea bag tentatively into it. “It might go poorly.”

Her office was small, light peeking through the clouds and lighting the entire room in a diffused red tint. Adam sat at her desk chair with his back to the window, red waves crashing into one another silently behind him. He tapped away at his datapad, the screen cracked and slow to respond, trying to confirm his upcoming appointment with the director.

“I don’t know, Sabs, I feel like it’ll go well.”

Sabrina finished steeping her tea and sat across from him in her guest chair.

“We’ll see. You didn’t secure authorization for this project and your data is incomplete; the director might be furious.” She frowned. “Remember the last time you approached 5-of-Chandra directly with a half-baked idea? It was rejected, but someone found out, took it seriously, and an entire crew on Eden almost died.”

Adam was trusted by Magenta Management, but not so much by those truly in power.

“We’ve met our goals,” Adam said stiffly. “He can’t be too upset that I did additional data collection; I didn’t compromise the other projects. I’m going to bring him a proposal to create land on Poseidon and then continue the project into the experimentation and implementation phase; that’s the part that really requires authorization.”

Sabrina sipped her tea. Adam wasn’t wrong. For doing something off the books, he had been responsible about getting work done on time and efficiently. And their primary mission was to gather data. She suspected that was in no small part due to Tad, who had become an invaluable part of Adam’s team. It was rare to see Adam without seeing Tad these days.

Still, she enjoyed the silence together. Like everyone else on board, she found herself a little on edge with all the red light. She lost her temper with Adam more than once—just because he shared his ideas and dreams. It had never bothered her before. Unfortunately, the crew thought the best cure for the anxiety that bled through from the environment was caffeine. Combined with the initially low supply—a direct result of Adam never getting around to helping the supply crew above Liber—that cure was running low. Seeing the inevitable, Sabrina made the wise choice last year to switch to tea.

Sabrina glanced at Adam and closed her eyes, remembering the driven mess of a man she had chosen to follow. After ten years he was still disorganized and a little messy, his blond curls fighting one another at the top of his head. A shoulder bag overflowing with paper that invariably held new and bold ideas to change the universe accompanied him everywhere. It was oddly impulsive for her to leave a safe, well-paying job on Copernicus to move to a rough colony with him on the promise of what had become this assignment. It was not that bad in the beginning, but the Anticols had amped up the violence over the ten years of their contract to the point that they could not be considered anything but terrorists.

At the end of those increasingly longer ten years on Toe Hold, Sabrina had been glad to put them as far behind her as possible. At the time, this desolate water planet held great appeal, as Anticols were notably absent.

Poseidon. Dead sea Poseidon. Unrelenting, the water spun around the globe. She was finally used to the gentle rocking of the research station. It was moments like these that offered an important reminder of a life they had shared together. The thought calmed her more than she would like to admit.

“Hey, Sabs, I have a favor to ask you,” Adam said, breaking the comfortable silence.

Sabrina’s temporary serenity evaporated. Few things pushed her buttons these days more than Adam asking for a favor. Sabrina noticed an increasing amount of those being asked of her the longer they were on the station, and she felt less like his friend and more like a resource with every request.

“Adam, you can’t be serious. Your team had a second minisub for an entire week when my team needed it for chemical analysis near the crust.”

“I know, I know,” Adam said quickly, with only a trace of remorse. “But it’s not like that. I just need a risk assessment on my project and its current data and modeling.”

Sabrina glared at him.

“I swear, my team will pick up some of the slack on one of the projects we’re working on together. I just want to go into the meeting with as much support as possible.”

She gritted her teeth and took another sip of tea. “Fine. I’ll have some of my people look it over informally, but they don’t have the time for a formal risk assessment. And your team better complete their initial report on the meteorological analysis I asked for two weeks ago.”

Adam blushed slightly. “Speaking of support, I actually do have one more favor to ask.”

Barely seconds since he had made the last request, and now he was onto another? She bit her tongue and responded as calmly as she could. “Adam, really? I have my own things to do, I have a life outside of your crazy ideas, I’m not going to—”

“Sabs…this project has taken up the past couple of years of my life, and it really means a lot to me.” He grinned shyly. “And you’re my best friend; I’d really like you there with me.”

“Adam, I’m not going to help you present your project. I’ve already risked too much just looking the other way. I can’t be directly tied to your project. What I agreed to is already pushing it.”

“You don’t have to help present it. I just need you there if the director asks for the risk assessment.”

Sabrina narrowed her eyes. “Not a risk assessment, remember? And you’re still asking a lot.”

“I know but, well, you help put me at ease. You’re the only thing on this station that does.”

Sabrina sighed. She was not thrilled with the prospect of accompanying him to a meeting like this, but over the years, she had done crazier. After so many years of following him throughout the system, she was starting to get tired of helping with little offered in return. Still, whether he meant to or not, he always had the right words to convince her. It annoyed her at how much she was willing to do for him.

She paused a second and finally responded, “Fine, but promise you won’t make me help pitch your project. I’ll be there to give my team’s opinion, if needed, that’s it.”

“Thank you, Sabs!” Adam perked up and smiled ear to ear. “You’re amazing, really. I promise, you won’t have to say a word. The director will love it. I’m going to show him that Kraken can change this world.”

Six Months Ago, 59.5 AA, Dawn Promise, Poseidon

“Can you do it without compromising our current schedule?” Sabrina asked the navigator.

“It’s only a slight change in heading,” he said, pointing at a nav map with a new course overlaid on their current one. “But it’d take too long, and we’d miss the anomaly during the maneuver.”

Sabrina was beyond irritated. She had spent the last few months chasing ghosts, eating the time she needed to catch up on work. Every other day, she was called up to the navigation room and asked to advise on these strange storms that kept popping up. Her job was to track and predict the weather patterns of the planet. Since storms were considered a risk factor for all active projects, there were usually enough signs to predict them well in advance. These storms just happened with no warning. Worse, whenever they would arrive at the location, the storm had dissipated, leaving no visible evidence of the event except an uncharacteristic rise in temperature.

They had just picked up another storm, this one about ninety kilometers away. Sabrina knew they didn’t have long to reach the location, but according to the navigator, it would take them off course yet again and cost them another day. She resigned herself to a distant view of the event and only the potential to get more insight into the increasingly more frequent anomalies.

As the station slowly sputtered toward the location, they saw hints of the storm peeking over the horizon. From this distance, it did not look any more unusual than the rainstorms that occurred elsewhere. It was a horrifying view to the uninitiated, of course—almost total darkness, with the occasional bloodred rain pouring on the windows, trickling down the side of the station. It was eerie, but most people on board were used to traveling on the crimson seas. Still, as they drew a bit closer, this storm seemed different.

“Any unusual readings on the sensors?” Sabrina said, addressing the observer on deck.

“Not yet, temperature seems a bit hot, but it’s within the margin of error.”

Sabrina sighed. They were still few hours away from getting a good view of the anomaly. Without being able to turn, they would only barely be at the edge. It was at moments like this that she wished the probe sent to the planet before anyone landed still circled it, taking more data. By the same token, the main reason they were even on a research station here was due to the cloud coverage that was so dense the probe rarely got good data. She turned to one of the crew members, coordinated arrival times, and copied off the existing readings from the external sensors. She thanked the navigational crew and left, deciding to check in on the status of the minisubs by the docking bay.

Walking through the tight hallways, Sabrina was reminded of how small the station really was. In the various labs she passed, she saw scientists doing this and that. The place was abuzz, even if there were a dozen fewer people on board than last year.

She stopped in her tracks and stared at the geological department’s open door; it was practically a ghost town inside. Most of its members had been assigned to work on the subs, gathering data on Poseidon’s ocean floor, with only a couple of junior members remaining. Still, past the wires and the mechanical devices she could see the dark, abandoned office that used to belong to Adam. He had rarely been in it. He was only there on the rare occasions he would come by the station to get new orders and supplies or to off-load the existing data from the minisub. She remembered all the coffees and teas, the time spent together and the fun they had when they did. Now, he was off again and they barely spoke. It was like Aeneas all over; she was even avoiding his calls.

“Sabrina, is that you?”

Sabrina turned and found, to her surprise, Tad, the poor soul sharing Adam’s substation.

“Tad! What are you doing here?” She looked around. “Did Adam come today?”

“No. I just came up to grab some files off Adam’s computer. They’re syncing the data on the minisub and filling it with rations.”

Sabrina winced. “Adam gave you his personal credentials? Should he be doing that?”

“Probably not, considering his authorization level is higher than mine. But he added some protections on his system and I promised not to snoop.” He grinned. “You can trust me.”

Sabrina nodded. She was aware how guarded Adam could be about some things. It was easy to forget that, when he shared—or used to, at least—so much about what was on his mind with her. Then again, he’d hidden an entire unauthorized project from Percy, Magenta Management, and the so-called Red Devils for nearly two years before he was relegated to a substation. It was possible he would have been sent off on a substation anyway; most of his research team had been. There was a lot of value in remote research expeditions in relation to geological matters. Yet, it was probably the meeting with Percy that ultimately sealed his fate.

“How long will you be at the station? We’re heading to another anomaly and I could really use a sub.”

Tad scowled. “Not long, I’ve already been here for a few hours. Adam wants me back as soon as possible; we ran out of food faster than expected and I didn’t leave him with much to eat for the several days I’m away for resupply.” He continued tentatively, “Also, I hate to say mine was the only sub docked today.”

Sabrina was disappointed. If there was not a minisub available, then she would have to rely on a skipper. They were a necessary kludge and the result of one of Adam’s crazy ideas that actually panned out. After it became obvious to Percy that the Dawn Promise was too slow to explore enough of the planet to make a reasonable recommendation in the five-year time frame, the substations were deployed—each with a minisub—to maximize coverage. Once the minisubs were all attached to remote missions, the main station required a new, energy-efficient way of doing near-surface projects and the occasional emergency supply run to a substation. That’s where the skippers came in, loosely based on the bouncing bombs used by Earth’s Royal Air Force during World War II that had skipped along the surface to avoid torpedo nets. Adam viewed them as a way to avoid tying up one of the precious minisubs. Designed to skip along the surface of the water and leverage aerodynamics, skippers were faster than a minisub, and the remaining crew relied heavily on them.

A skipper was an option, but Sabrina wanted a minisub because they were packed with advanced scientific measuring equipment, were remotely controllable, and had an onboard data storage bank to reduce the number of communication signals needed to operate it. That’s what made them such ideal vehicles to accompany the substations on specialized research expeditions, especially for the planet’s submerged crust. Still…

“I guess I’ll take a skipper, then. I’m heading to the dock to see when one’s available. I can recharge your sub’s Ito device while I’m there, if you’d like.”

Tad shook his head. “It’s already charging. I won’t be up here too long anyway. I just need to grab those files Adam wants and then I’ll be on my way as soon as it’s ready.”

Sabrina nodded. “See you around, Tad.”

Sabrina continued down the hall as Tad slipped behind her into the geology lab, making her way to the docking area, occasionally glancing in on the other labs. The docking bay’s AI usually could be found somewhere near his control station situated close to the docking bay. Because of the proximity, 23-of-Michelle was the gatekeeper for all vehicles in and out. While he spent most of his time at the control station for the ship, he also coordinated and updated the minisubs when they docked, and synced their data all the while coordinating with the small mechanical team for repairs and recharges.

As Sabrina approached, his head spun to her. “Hello,” 23-of-Michelle sputtered mechanically while managing to sound bored, “Risk Assessment Head Sabrina Weld. What can I do for you?”

“I need a skipper for observation of the anomaly. Maybe a general weather sensor and a collector, just in case?”

“Checking,” he said, as the irises of his mechanical eye spun around slightly. “Affirmative. You’re cleared for deployment at optimal range to the anomaly in three hours, twenty-three minutes. Your reservation will be for four hours duration.”

“Perfect, thank you.”

As Sabrina finished her conversation, she caught sight of Tad walking to his minisub with a presumably now-charged Ito device. She headed back to the navigation room. But as she walked, she realized that something about Tad seemed off. Ito devices were well-established technology. They could hold terajoules of raw energy and kilograms of antimatter safely, they were designed with large safety factors and were effectively bulletproof, yet Tad had handled his like it was about to bite him. Very un-Tad-like.

Once inside, she approached the navigator and said, “I’ve booked a skipper. 23-of-Michelle says we’ll be close enough to the anomaly in less than three and a half hours. Any update on environmental or situational changes?”

The navigator peered at the flow of numbers and the ever-changing graph on her screen and turned back to Sabrina. “Rainfall has increased slightly on approach, as well as the temperature—which, by the way, is now outside expectations. The pH level has dropped noticeably.”

“It’s gotten hotter as we approach the storm? Is that supposed to happen?”

One Week Ago, 60 AA, Dawn Promise, Poseidon

“Naturally, we did pick up seismic activity from the crust over the past half year,” Percy said.

“But the data we’ve been collecting from them hasn’t shown any evidence they could be involved,” Sabrina responded. “Most of the time, they’ve been almost entirely on the opposite side of the planet from the anomalies.”

“Regardless, both Adam and Tad are due here soon; I’d like to take the opportunity to get data from them directly.”

Sabrina slumped in the guest chair in Percy’s office. She held in her hand nearly a year’s worth of data involving the anomalies that plagued Poseidon. Not long before, her expedition to the edge of one of the storms revealed troubling particulates in the sample—matter that could have only originated from beneath the crust. After tasking Substation 2’s minisub to scan for activity on the ocean floor, they found evidence of seismic activity near a dormant undersea volcano—evidence that did not seem to line up with the data they had from Adam’s Substation 3.

The office was bathed in an uncharacteristically red light, highlighted by the crackling lightning outside.

Sabrina sat uneasily.

I wish the full-spectrum daylight wasn’t broken today.

The storms were now more frequent and the skies darker—so much so that she could not remember the last clear day. It was a gloomy environment for a meeting and Sabrina was not excited for this one. The past few months’ analysis had narrowed down where the points of failure were. The scientists were conducting a deep investigation to determine how the ocean floor could have been experiencing such activity without it being noticed for so long. Either the data from Substation 2 was wrong, or Substation 3 was wrong. They had a serious problem.

“Sir, the team from Substation Three is here,” chirped a small comm device on Percy’s desk.

“Send them in.”

Sabrina’s nerves shot up and she stopped breathing until the door opened and Percy’s AI assistant showed them in. Adam slipped in first, trailed by Tad, his only crewmate for the past year. Sabrina had not had any contact with Adam in nearly a year. His hair was a mess, his beard growing in scruffy and prickly. He had bags under his eyes and looked more tired than she had ever seen him. Tad, in contrast, looked well-groomed and strode in with confidence. He appeared tall, even next to Adam—despite Adam standing over a foot taller. Sabrina felt herself tearing up a little seeing Adam in such a state. He was seemingly unaware his self-imposed exile had affected him that deeply.

“Adam. Tad. Take a seat,” Percy said, indicating the two empty chairs.

Adam barely seemed to notice Sabrina’s presence as he plopped down, muttering something akin to a greeting. Tad nodded and sat gracefully.

“I wanted to discuss your data,” Percy began, “We’ve discovered some pretty massive seismic activity over the past few months and your data doesn’t align with observations from our other substations.”

Both men remained silent.

Sabrina added, “We found particulates in the water that appear to have originated from beneath the crust. Adam, you and I are the experts; I’d like to compare notes.”

Adam seemed increasingly nervous, even refusing to acknowledge her presence. Sabrina had not spoken to him in almost a year, but he was uncharacteristically at a loss for words in matters of scientific intrigue. Tad took his obvious silence as a cue to speak for him.

“Of course, Director. What can we do for you?”

It was strange moment for Sabrina as the director rattled off a series of numbers and particular study sets about which he wanted more details, occasionally calling upon Sabrina to provide relevant data. He did not get into certain elements of the station’s findings that were concerning, as only a few people—namely Percy and Sabrina—knew about them and their grave repercussions. For this meeting, the only real objective was to determine if the error lay with the data, equipment, or humans.

Adam squirmed uneasily in his chair as Percy read off a list of various dates with unusual findings, some gaps in those findings, and some questions about their process. Tad was the one who engaged, clarified points, and elaborated on the work. But as Percy and Tad spoke, Sabrina caught an oddly panicked glance from Adam. She could not get that look out of her mind. The prattle between Tad and Percy faded to background noise as she studied Adam.

“Do you have your datapad with you?” Percy said. “I want to straighten this out now. I’m giving my recommendations in a couple weeks; I can’t present terraforming recommendations with inaccurate data.”

After an awkward silence, Adam muttered sheepishly, “Um, yeah. Well, no. I mean, I don’t have my datapad with me, but it’s on the sub. I can grab it.”

“Then do so.” Percy waved him away.

Adam stood up, glancing again at Sabrina before leaving. As the door closed, Tad’s posture changed.

“Director, sir, I have to talk to you about Adam,” Tad whispered conspiratorially.

Percy raised his eyebrow as Tad pulled out a datapad and held it out for him to read. The director was tentative, but took it cautiously, scanning for a minute before connecting it to his system. He stared at his monitor for a while, his eyes darting back and forth. Within minutes, Percy’s usual stiff expression dropped.

“How did you acquire this? What is all this?”

Tad smirked. “I found it buried on his system, along with evidence of tampering with the sub’s data, and deliberate overloading of Ito devices.”

Sabrina must have looked confused, unsure of what Percy was reading. Her expression prompted Percy to turn his monitor toward her. Chat logs, detailed plans, specific actions. All laid out in detail.

Communication with a known Anticol? She must have read it wrong.

She studied one of the diagrams. It was a small, simple device that could turn an Ito device into a bomb. She must have interpreted the diagrams incorrectly.

They’re from his account. The diagrams are his style. But they’re not something I’ve seen before. She could barely come to grips with the inescapable conclusion forming in her mind.

Sabrina panicked. Could Adam be collaborating with known terrorists? She shuddered at the thought. But it all seemed to be here, everything showing that Adam was still planning to set off a massive explosion under the crust of the planet—exactly as he’d outlined in his proposal. Was it simply to raise a landmass as he’d said, or something more sinister, if Anticol was involved?

She’d sent him the reports of the anomalies; would he take it this far, knowing the risks, unless he really was aligned with Anticol?

“Tad,” said Percy, “this is alarming, but you should know you’re doing the right thing coming forward with this information. I have to ask, has Adam actually made any of these bombs? Or is it just plans?”

Tad nodded gravely. “He’s made quite a few, I’m afraid. It wasn’t until recently that I connected the dots. He’s been testing them for months, I thought at first it was part of some research I wasn’t cleared for—”

Tad paused and pulled up a list of dates and corresponding data. “When I noticed that the reported anomalies were at the same time as his tests, I knew it was more than just data collection. Adam is up to something.”

“Does he have any more of these bombs?” Percy prompted.

“Yes, one last one, perhaps the most powerful,” Tad began. “From what I saw, he’s overcharged several Ito devices, bundled them together, and plans to set them off under the crust once we get back to the substation.”

“To what end? He can’t seriously be just reviving an old project, can he?”

“Maybe he’s trying to leverage some side effect of the explosions. I don’t really know for sure. But you have to arrest him. You need to stop him from setting off that bomb.”

Percy turned toward Sabrina as she fought to keep her expression blank.

A momentary scuffle outside his office door distracted the director. “That must be Adam.” He tapped the comm device to life. “13-of-Octo, is that Adam?”

A robotic voice responded, “No, it’s me, sir. Adam just left.”

A look of confusion crossed Percy’s face. “He just left?”

“Yes, he was listening outside your door for the past few minutes. Then he ran off.”

60 AA, Poseidon’s Sea

“I need more detail than that!” Sabrina shouted back through the crackling.

Sabrina felt suffocated in the cramped submersible as she tried to communicate with Adam through random words in their sentences. She had done something beyond impulsive. She ran after Adam after he escaped the station. No one thought twice about her taking Substation 2’s docked submersible, as it had already been cleared by 23-of-Michelle for its crew and they were to embark soon. She’d been discovered, of course, when the crew expecting to load supplies found it missing, but it bought some precious time, which might be her only advantage in the inevitable pursuit. It had still been a long sprint across the ocean, even with a little tinkering of the Ito-powered engine to wrest a bit more speed. Devil he might—or might not—be, she silently thanked him for one long, torturous night spent listening to his crazy idea for overloading a minisub drive-motor safely. She’d had nothing to lose and tried it herself; thankfully, this was one of Adam’s ideas that worked perfectly.

Adam had evidently done the same to his sub; despite her increased speed, she still lagged behind just as much.

Something just did not add up. She was angry at Adam. She was furious with him for betraying her trust at a vulnerable moment, but terrorism?

I know him. He wouldn’t do that.

She risked everything on a hunch he was innocent. The second she stole the minisub, her career teetered on the edge. If Tad was right, then she was risking her liberty or even her life.

And all he gave her was the name of a long-dead terraforming project. A project he failed to pitch to Percy. A project he had scribbled on notes and somehow convinced his team to collect data for. A project almost as crazy as his idea to make an ice planet tropical by crashing an asteroid into it.

She watched the skipper’s surface crashes blip on the sonar as her minisub cut through the water, and tried to reach Adam again.

“Adam, seriously, I need to know the truth. Do you hear me?”

After a short fizzle, Adam’s voice came through clearly. “Sabs, I can hear you! Please, listen, do you remember Project Kraken?”

“Of course!” she yelled back. “I saw your diagrams. You actually built Ito bombs? How could you pervert your own work?”

The blips slowly crept up on her position as she approached the substation, and for the first time Sabrina was concerned that she might not make it there first after all.

“No, Sabs, listen to me!” Adam pleaded. “I didn’t! I didn’t change a thing about my project! When I was outside the director’s office, listening, I heard what Tad said. He’s lying!”

“So, you’re not about to set off a massive bomb at the crust?”

“The bomb’s already set. Tad set it himself, before we left.”

Sabrina paused, confused. “Tad said you were coming here to set it.”

“That’s how I knew he was lying. He told the director to arrest me, but I don’t understand; I’ve been up every night for the last week, verifying the data. It will work.”

Chewing her lip, Sabrina considered Adam’s version. “But why, Adam? You saw my assessment. It’s too deep to bring up enough landmass to make it to the surface.”

“Not if you can activate a dormant volcano. I found one, Sabs. I named it Kraken, after the project.”

Does he still believe in the project? Is Tad telling the truth? Did he lie to me? Did he come out here to set the bomb?

“Is that where you put it?” Sabrina grunted angrily. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Adam you’re not just raising a landmass. There are side effects to your project! Don’t you realize that?”

“I know! The explosion rippled all the way around the planet, moving along the crust like a sound wave and caused all the seismic activity. I’m still positive it can be contain—”

He believes. Sabrina’s heart broke in that moment with the realization that her best friend was finally gone.

Sabrina cut him off, more harshly than necessary. “Not that! The pH drop! That side effect! The global water temperature rise has already lowered the pH below the 6.6 level it was at when we came here. We’ll need 8.1 for terraforming; that’s the wrong direction! If your experiments have been releasing hot enough masses of Eden knows what into the ocean to change the temperature that much, what do you think a volcano going active will do? Did you even read the assessments I sent?”

He responded with silence. There was maybe a minute before her minisub would reach the substation, and she could already hear the distant beats of the skippers bouncing on the surface of the water as they approached. An eternity was suspended in that silence.

“What did you say? pH?” Adam sounded scared. This was not the fanaticism of an Anticol terrorist. This was the panic of a man seeing two years of his life stripped bare and reconstructed into something he did not recognize.

The entire mood of the conversation shifted. “Sabs, the bomb’s active.”

Sabrina swore loudly. The blips were almost on top of her and she could see the substation a mere couple of kilometers ahead, but still she did not know for certain if Adam was lying, delusional, or worse. Her mind overflowed with memories of his optimism, his dreams, his life goals.

She took a calming breath. “Tell me honestly, Adam, no lies. Are you working with Anticol?”

Adam shrilled, “No! I’d never work with them!”

Sabrina twisted around, leaving her comms up, and flipped a switch to get a view of the water above and behind her. She could see the skippers now, darting in and out of view, up into the sky and slamming back down on the water. Only seconds now.

She shouted at the comm over her shoulder. “Adam, you have to stop the bomb!”

“But I—”

“Adam, if you’re not an Anticol, listen to me and get that bomb to the surface! It took a lot to convince me you didn’t set the bomb. The director’s not going to take your word for it.”

“I was just trying to say the minisub is already on its way. I always had Tad review the reports from you before I saw them…I never saw anything about pH.”

Then she remembered Tad accessing Adam’s file and it all clicked. For Eden’s sake, Adam, this is why you don’t share your system credentials.

Sabrina glanced at the other screen and saw one skipper practically right above her. Recalling the timing of the blips, she steeled her resolve for a last-ditch gambit to buy Adam some time.

There. A blip.

Angling the minisub upward, she counted, praying she estimated the trajectory right. Minisubs weren’t built as weapons, but they were sturdy enough to survive a moderately hard impact.

She hoped.

4, 3, 2…

This near to the surface, she could see the craft skip high into the air behind her, activating its thrusters.

1.

Her minisub jumped out of the water and smacked the bottom of the skipper as it descended, hitting it at an angle and sending it off course. She dove slightly and waited for the next skipper to approach.

4, 3, 2, 1. Smack! One left to go.

The last skipper splashed and bounced off the surface, flying high and forward fast, and she counted again as she saw the thrusters ignite.

4, 3, 2—

The thruster burn was shorter this time, and Sabrina’s minisub popped out of the water in front of it instead. The last skipper pilot must have caught on to what she was doing and avoided her attack. Worse, that put them both nearly on top of the substation.

Praying there was enough reserve thrust to slow down, she saw the skipper right above her drag the surface. An explosive photo finish left them barely a few meters from their destination and at a dead stop. Sabrina rushed to the hatch and crawled out, wearing an oversize pressure suit she had found in the sub, and dove into the water, madly swimming toward the substation.

“Stop!” A projectile ricocheted off the water near her. Clearly a warning shot; Percy would not have missed.

Maybe he’ll see reason after all.

She stopped and turned, the buoyancy of the pressure suit holding her on the surface. Director Percy, wearing just an oxygen mask, stood on the tip of the skipper brandishing a sidearm. Behind him, Tad sat, wearing a mask much like his, but unarmed. The pressure suit was the only thing pumping oxygen to her. She could not risk even being grazed in a suit like this.

“Director, please!” Sabrina yelled into her mask comm. “Adam’s not a terrorist!”

“I have proof that says otherwise,” Percy said calmly. “But maybe you can indulge my curiosity, and tell me what exactly you gain from this?”

“Nothing! I’m just trying to do what’s right!”

“By helping an Anticol terrorist damage this world?”

“Sir, I think she’s just stalling.” Sabrina could hear the sneer in Tad’s voice. “We have to get to the substation and stop him from arming the bomb.”

“He’s not!” Sabrina yelled. “He’s stopping it.”

Tad’s sneer came through again. “Sure, he is. Sir, we need to board now. He’s been on the substation long enough; it might already be armed.”

As he finished his sentence, a muffled boom from far below shook the sea. Sabrina looked down and at first saw nothing. There was a tense silence for what seemed like eternity before what appeared to be a huge bubble rapidly spiraling up. She feared that she had made the wrong judgment call and that a massive explosion was about to wipe out everything for kilometers, including the substation.

The Kraken, rising from the depths to destroy them.

Several hundred meters away the sea boiled as a large gas bubble broke the surface. Another few seconds later, a much smaller object burst out of the water and splashed down a few meters away. The Substation 3 minisub bobbed in the surf, its remote arms holding a bundle of Ito devices.

“What the…?” Percy yelled, angrily.

Adam’s voice crackled, “It’s the bomb!”

Percy looked around wildly until he saw Adam standing on the balcony of the airlock and trained his sidearm at him.

“Adam stopped it!” Sabrina shouted.

Percy swung the sidearm around to Sabrina. “Why should I believe you? If he’s Anticol, you’re Anticol. You proved that by stealing that minisub.”

“Or,” said Sabrina confidently, “neither of us is Anticol.”

“It’s a decoy,” Tad piped in, quickly. “The real bomb is still below, at the crust.”

Percy glanced back at Tad, his sidearm still pointed at Sabrina. “I thought you said all the remaining Ito devices were used.”

“There is only one bomb!” Sabrina blurted out.

“But if it’s a decoy—”

“Irrelevant,” Sabrina shot back. “If we’re Anticol, and this is a real bomb, exploding it here would serve no purpose. If it’s a decoy, the real bomb’s already set and it doesn’t matter. But if we’re not Anticol, then why would we have a decoy at all? It stands to reason this is the real bomb, which is now inactive.”

“Sir, don’t trust them. There might be more Anticols in the substation as we speak,” Tad once more injected. “This entire conversation might be a distraction.”

Percy pointed his sidearm at Adam. “Who else is in there?”

“Nobody, but does it matter?” Adam said smoothly, shrugging. “Anticol would have locked me out by now, anyway, and then what could they do? We only have two minisubs out here, and you’re looking at both right there. The other two are deployed, you know that. Where would Anticol hide?”

“Sir, you can’t believe a word they’re saying,” Tad said frantically. “They want to set off the bombs and ruin the ocean’s pH! If we don’t stop them now, the planet is doomed!”

Percy lowered his sidearm somewhat and pivoted back to Tad. “I never said anything to you about our station’s pH findings. Only Sabrina.”

The air was thick with tension. Tad had messed up, and he knew up, admitting to knowing the side effects of the crust bomb experiments.

Percy raised his sidearm and aimed it at Tad.

60 AA, Ross 248 Project Offices, Copernicus

“I’m not that kind of guy!” Adam chuckled playfully.

They sat in the lounge of the Ross 248 Project development office, brightly lit in full spectrum for human eyes. The room had once served as the ship’s captain’s conference room and its walls were covered with real wood paneling, made on Earth, slightly the worse for wear. It was a fresh change of pace from the years spent on a bloodred planet and a nice place to relax in a plush chair without being angry. He’d been surprised when a transport showed up on Poseidon to take them to this meeting, figuring he and Sabrina would be attending via holo. Apparently the Red Devils though it was too important not to do in person.

And there was Tan Arabica coffee, which Adam sipped with a groan of pleasure.

“Please,” Sabrina said. “I was still debating whether or not you were stringing me along until that sub popped up with the bomb.”

Adam smiled and sipped his coffee, “I was just trying to make sense of it all. When you mentioned the pH levels, it all fell into place and I knew Tad set me up.”

Sabrina pulled out her datapad and scrolled through a document. “I just heard from one of my Patrol friends, Tad died.” She said in a sad tone. “The Patrol really wanted to question him about Anticol and somehow he took poison when they came to collect him. He is the first human to be buried in Poseidon’s Sea.”

They were silent for a moment then Adam said, “I’m glad we’re recommending that Poseidon be terraformed. I know we’re only here for support, but I think 5-of-Chandra likes me.” He grinned.

“I prepared this presentation for Percy weeks ago,” Sabrina said without looking up. “The incident just refined the approach a little. The crust seems to be stable now that you’re not blowing holes in it anymore. The pH levels seem to be returning to normal, although adjusting it to our needs will be a massive effort. You have lived on a cloud city—Asgard, right? Our engineers have come up with a scheme to modify the concept for floating on water. If they are big enough, with stabilizers it will be like living on a tropical island! Especially after the planet’s terraformed.”

Adam scoffed. “I still think there’s some value to raising a landmass.”

Sabrina stared at him and raised an eyebrow.

“But I understand that, for the moment, the methods to do that would set back the planned introductions for sea life for decades, if not more. I know.”

Sabrina giggled a little to herself. She and Adam had spent so long not talking, that after Tad’s arrest, she thought it would be difficult to even say hello. To her—and probably his—surprise, it was like no time had passed. They talked for days, about what went wrong, what was right, what they wanted.

Adam barely went a day before asking what motivated her to chase after him, putting her career on the line after he had been so distant. It was simple, really, but she just couldn’t tell him yet. She had realized how much she cared about Adam, and for how long she had hoped for something more; seeing that possibility slip away nearly broke her.

She hoped he would feel the same about her someday, but right now she still was not sure.

“Hey, Sabs,” Adam said, banging his empty coffee cup down. “I’ve been meaning to mention, I have another idea.”

Sabrina paled. His crazy ideas had led to this entire mess. His dedication to a singular goal allowed a deep-cover Anticol to manipulate almost every action and decision that Adam made since arriving on Poseidon. Tad played into Adam’s desires, all while advancing a goal to prevent the terraforming of Poseidon. She was terrified another idea of his might lead them down a bad path again so quickly.

“I swear, it’s good, just take a look.” Adam held out a single, well-folded piece of paper.

She reluctantly took it and opened it. She looked at it intently for a moment and grinned.

“So, I take it you like this idea?”

“A real date, after all these years?”

Adam nodded and looked away shyly.

Sabrina smiled wide, lighting up her face. “It has potential.”


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