Why can’t they accept the inevitable? Their science and their morals blind them to the truth, the unmistakable reality: that this world, and the universe that surrounds it, has enough room for only one sentient race. Resources are finite. It must be us. We are at war for our lives. These scientists will be remembered as those who were seduced by morality, the code we gave to the primitives, to maintain peace, to perpetuate a lie: that coexistence is possible. In an environment with limited resources and unlimited population growth, one species must triumph over the other.
He manipulated the controls, programming the bombs.
He stepped out of the command center and raced down the corridor.
The turns went by in a flash, and he stood in a room with seven doors. He activated his helmet display and waited. Kate and her partner entered the ship.
Dorian detonated the first bomb—the one buried out at sea. The blast sent a tidal wave at the ship, sweeping it inland. As the receding water dragged it back out to sea, Dorian activated the other bombs. They would tear the ship, the Alpha Lander, apart.
He walked through one of the seven doors, and he knew he was in Antarctica, in his own ship. Soon, I will free my people, and we will retake the universe.
He walked past the control station and picked up a plasma rifle.
He returned to the middle of the seven-door room.
There was one escape route for them, only one way out of Gibraltar. He would be waiting.
Kate watched her partner dump the Neanderthal into a tube.
“Ares betrayed us. He is working against us.”
Kate was silent.
“Where is he?”
“What should we—”
An alarm lit up her helmet.
Incoming tidal wave.
“He set off a bomb on the ocean floor—”
The shockwave hit the ship, throwing her against the bulkhead.
Pain coursed through her body. Something else was happening to her.
She was losing control. The memories were too real now.
She fought to focus, but everything went black.
David poked his head between Kamau and Shaw, into the cockpit of the helicopter, and surveyed Valletta, the capital of Malta, below. Valetta’s narrow harbor was packed with boats. They covered almost every inch of the water, radiating out of the harbor and into the sea. A seemingly endless flow of people raced across the abandoned boats, using them like a series of floating platforms forming a path to the shore. From high above in the helicopter, they looked like ants marching out of the harbor. When they reached land, the four streams of people converged into one column that coursed through the main thoroughfare of Valletta, making a beeline for the Orchid District. The first rays of the rising sun peeked out from behind a tall building's domed top, and David held a hand up to shield his eyes.
Why are they fleeing here? What's here that could save them?
A shudder ran through the helicopter, throwing David into the back seat.
“They've got anti-aircraft missiles!”
“Take us out!” David shouted.
He grabbed Kate and held her. She was almost listless, her eyes absent.
Kate opened her eyes. Another shockwave hit her, but this was a different one—not a tidal wave. She was back in the helicopter, with David. He looked down at her.
What was happening to her? She felt different now. The things she had learned, the memories, they had changed her in some indescribable way. Humanity was… an experiment. Was he part of it?
“What?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, not wanting to confront reality.
David strapped Kate into the helicopter’s bench seat and held her as it banked and swerved, the bombs exploding around them. Malta was guarded, as it had been in the past, quite heavily.
They were accepting refugees by boat, but no one could reach it by air.
He picked up the satellite phone. “Dial Continuity,” he said to Kate. “Tell them we’re in an Immari helicopter, but we are friendlies. Instruct Malta to stop firing on us. We need to land.”
He watched as Kate opened her eyes, eyed him briefly, then fought to dial the numbers. A second later, she began conversing quickly with Paul Brenner.
Paul Brenner hung up the phone. Kate and her team were in Malta.
“Get me the director of the Valletta Orchid District,” he said to his assistant.
Dorian watched the explosions in the distance. Valletta was firing on any incoming aircraft.
He activated his helmet’s mic.
“Find us a refugee boat.”
“Sir?”
“Do it. We can’t access the island by air.”
Ten minutes later, they were hovering above a fishing trawler.
Dorian watched the rope lines descend. His men fell to the boat’s deck and raised their weapons. The ship’s crew and passengers retreated back into the boat’s cabin.
Dorian landed on the deck and glided to the huddling group of people.
“No harm will come to you. We just need a lift to Malta.”
David felt the helicopter touch down on the pad. He brushed Kate’s hair out of her face. “Can you walk?”
He thought she was so warm, not burning up, but… too warm. What’s happening to her? I can’t lose her. Not after all this.
She nodded, and he helped her out of the helicopter, then wrapped his arm around her and ushered her away from the platform.