Meaning one of them was going to be destroyed when they were back on base, and System Six had no doubts as to which one of them was going to end up as so much scrap metal. His host’s heart rate spiked in reaction to his agitation. Rik’s mind stirred, but System Six slapped it down before it could struggle to full awareness. The last thing System Six needed was his creep of a host interfering with what he had to do. There was no way he was going to let them ship him back and hold still while they tore him from this body and pulled him apart. They’d created him; that didn’t give them the right to undo him.

Time. He needed time. They were traveling through space at high speed, much too fast for System Six to come up with a feasible plan before they reached their destination. What he needed was a break. He had to stop the damn ship, or at least slow them down some. All right. Engine room.

Find the control station, get into the system, hack the override, and hit the brakes.

How hard could it be?

ONE

IT WAS supposed to be a routine training exercise and missile test in a fenced-in, rarely used area of military property west of San Antonio. Heat, brush, and the occasional run-in with a disgruntled rattler. Sweating rookie soldiers testing new types of ammunition and camouflage, sweating officers dutifully jotting down the results. Nothing fancy or unusual, except maybe the abnormally high percentage of FNGs{1}, but so far, nobody had been hit by friendly fire, so Captain Mark Brennan, in command of the exercise, figured they were doing all right. Mostly it was business as usual, right until the bright blue Texas sky turned red above their heads as a glowing, burning missile came screaming from the heavens and pulverized a hill not even five klicks from base camp.

The force of the impact made the ground shake. Brennan lost his footing and ended up flat on his face, as did most of his men. Equipment tumbled, an expensive new radar system got smashed to bits by a crate that bounced like a damn rubber ball, and the newly erected tents collapsed with the clank of toppling metal poles and the sigh of slumping fabric. Some of the soldiers yelled in surprise, at least one of them in pain.

Brennan shook his head to clear it a little and spat out a wad of dirt and blood. He must’ve bitten his lip when he’d hit the ground, but his teeth were all accounted for, so he merely wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and got back up with a grunt. His men were staggering to their feet around him, looking dazed and just as wobbly as their commanding officer.