“We’re about to stop,” Hoover said, interrupting their moment of solitary introspection. “There’s good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “You love giving me the bad news,” Foster said sarcastically. “So, what is it?”

  “The bad news is, I figured out why the entities in the engine room and on the quantum bridge floor may have attacked you.”

  “Why?” Foster already didn’t like where this was going.

  “Those areas were flagged as low to medium security by the station’s computers. When you attempted to manually adjust one of the controls, it acted accordingly.”

  “And when we turned on all those learning consoles...” Foster didn’t even need to finish that thought.

  “Yep. Fortunately, nothing in this station is interconnected. So, when Justine destroyed the creatures, there was no way for them to relay our presence as a possible threat to other parts of the station.”

  “That’s the bad news?” Justine couldn’t help but stare at the number ten, blinking on the Slinger’s tiny display. “That sounds like good news.”

  “Ahhhh…. no,” Hoover chided her. “That was just the set up for the bad news. The bad news is that the prisoner storage facility’s been flagged as an ultra-high security area.”

  Justine hid her smile. “You mean we can expect more than two contacts once we breach the unit.”

  “Two?” He considered her limited assessment for a human moment before sharing the extremely bad news. “I would say you should expect a lot more than two.”

  “How many more?”

  “A lot more.”

  Joseph jumped to his feet. For the first time since arriving at the station, he was nervous. Not only about their chances of getting home, but about their chances of making it out of here alive. “You said something about good news.”

  “Yes, I think that I can disable their programming and render the entities on this level inert.”

  “Great!” Foster exclaimed. “That means we don’t have to fight a battle.”

  Joseph also joined in the revelry by offering a fist bump to the scientist, which he happily accepted. On the other hand, Justine felt a twinge of apprehension flair somewhere deep inside. She really wanted to see what the Slinger could do on level ten against unfrozen enemies. Now, that opportunity might pass her by.

  “That’s awesome,” she lied.

  “Yeah,” Hoover feigned sharing their enthusiasm for a moment before dropping the proverbial bombshell. “And once they activate and begin attacking you, it should only take me ten minutes to shut them down.”

  “Ten minutes? Justine’s ears twitched at the thought of an impossible battle in the heart of a mysterious space station hovering precariously over a black hole. However, this excitement quickly faded as she watched Foster rub the bruises on his chest. Just one of those things had almost killed him. And as good as she was, she was only one shooter.

  How could she risk their lives… his life?

  “I can’t hold off ‘a lot’ of targets for that amount of time, Foster. Not with the amount of firepower we have. It would be suicide.” The elevator slowed as Justine relayed this sobering conclusion. “I think we should just return to the docking bay and go home.”

  Foster, who four hours ago would have jumped at the opportunity to make the return trip, now felt the exact opposite way she did. Conflicted by breadcrumbs, mysteries were beginning to take shape in his mind that could not be ignored. “Hoover,” he said, cautiously trying to keep his nature at bay. “Can we go home?”

  “Yes,” Hoover had run the data before agreeing to help Agent Rushing. “The tablet’s operating system was fairly straight forward, only encrypted. I wouldn’t have made the trip here if I didn’t think setting up a return trip was impossible.”

  “Hey,” Joseph, feeling the mood shift in an unwanted direction, darted in front of the doors to make his case. “I want to go home. I want to be back in my body.” He placed a hand over his empty pistol holster as desperation gripped his voice. “I’m tired of living forever on your planet.”

  “Joseph,” Justine lowered her weapon in an attempt to be sympathetic to the alien’s plight. “I came here to save those prisoners and try to salvage the remnants of Foster’s reputation. Hell, I don’t even mind trying to put you back in your body. From what I can tell, you’re mostly an honorable person. But if we die in the attempt, what does that accomplish?”

  “I’ve grown weary of this never-ending life, Agent Rushing.”

  “Well, I’m not weary of it yet.”

  At an impasse, they looked at Foster for direction. Unfortunately, his thoughts on the matter were also conflicted. All he could do was offer a non-committal shrug.

  Knowing this squabbling was pointless, Hoover decided now was the perfect time for more news. “As I said before, I don’t think operating the device should be a problem. But I guess it bears repeating that nothing in this station is networked. That means I can’t remotely operate the return controls.”

  “Ok,” Foster said in a calm voice, even though he knew the answer by the tone of his friend’s digitally enhanced voice. “Where are the controls?”

  “The controls are through those doors… inside the prisoner storage facility. And before Agent Rushing jumps completely off the deep end, I think I should clarify what your chances actually are.”

  “Are they that bad?” Foster asked while looking at Justine’s calculating face. “And no bullshit, Hoover.”

  “No bullshit?” Hoover asked a question he already knew the answer to. “Ok. I would say your chances of surviving the full ten minutes is around one percent.”

  “One percent?” Joseph’s once stalwart position of doing anything to go home seemed to be crumbling quickly. “How could it only be one percent?”

  “Technically,” the AI’s voice shifted back to sarcasm. “Your chances are around .8 percent. But I didn’t want to make it sound impossible. So, I rounded up.”

  “He rounded up?” Joseph’s once immovable position found a new home. “Well, that does change things.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Alternatives?” Foster paid little attention to the deputy’s mood swings and focused on the task at hand. “Do we have any alternatives?”

  “Some. But they amount to little more than buying you more time between now and the end.”

  “Best of the worst?”

  “The three of you pick which UFO in the docking bay that isn’t crawling with space cockroaches. You pile into the ‘Yugo of the Universe’ and fly around looking for a habitable planet to land on.”

  “And that’s assuming those things could even escape the black holes’ gravity.” Foster remembered the galactic map just one floor below them. “Assuming they could. Are there any habitable planets nearby?”

  “Define nearby.”

  “Close enough that we could make it there before we die?”

  “Joseph?” Hoover had a question for the alien engineer before he could respond to that simple question. “What’s the top speed of those ships? Will they do the speed of light?”

  “Maybe half that speed.” Joseph tried to remember the exact specs of the last one the Forge had built. But the numbers were a little fuzzy in his head. “They weren’t designed for any type of intergalactic travel.”

  “Then the answer to your question would be ‘no’.” Hoover’s next words were soft and nearly sounded apologetic. “Like I said, Foster. You guys would only be buying yourselves more time.”

  Justine, who up until this point had stayed out of the conversation, looked sympathetically at Joseph, then at Foster. Both men’s stomachs were seemingly becoming disturbingly tight at the thought of choosing between a slow death and an unwinnable battle.

  Not her though. No, her innate decision-making ability pushed all thoughts of death and failure away and laid bare their only real chance at survival.

  “We don’t have a choice now, guys.” She moved toward the elevator’s closed doors with her Slinger held to her chest. “We have to go forward.”

  “Go forward?” Joseph’s attitude completed its 180 degree turn after hearing Hoover’s assessment of their dire situation and Justine’s proclamation. “How in the hell are we supposed to go forward? I’m unarmed and he’s, no offense, just a scientist. What do you want us to do? Watch helplessly as you die horribly after a couple of minutes of fighting?”

  “Not necessarily, Joseph.” Foster chimed in like he was casually correcting a mistake. “We may not even make it long enough to watch her die. Those things are very fast.”

  “Thanks, Foster. That makes opening those doors sound so much better.” He turned back to the doors where Justine waited patiently. “Agent Rushing, no matter how you look at it. Going forward means those things will probably tear us apart without blinking an eye.”

  “Deputy, being torn apart is not exactly what I have in mind.”

  “What you have in mind?” Joseph’s words were coming almost right on top of one another. “Tell me, Agent Rushing. What exactly do you have in mind? Go in there with one weapon between us and try and pull off some kind of heroic last stand?”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “Would that be so bad?” Joseph’s face became flush with anger as he spoke words that made him sick to his stomach. “Agent Rushing, I would do anything to get back to my world. Anything. But blindly throwing away our lives really doesn’t seem like the best course of action right now.”

  “Throw your life away?” Justine considered the man’s words for what they were and nothing else. No hidden meaning. Just plain talk. “A minute ago, you said you were weary of this never-ending life. Now what? You suddenly don’t want it to end? Which one is it, Joseph? Do you want to live or die?”

  For a moment, it looked like the deputy was going to continue getting angrier. But at the last second, he deflated with one languid sigh. “It’s not about wanting to live or die, Agent Rushing. I just want to go home. But I can’t go home if I’m dead.”

  “From what Hoover says, we’re all going to die here anyway if we don’t open those doors.” Justine crossed the distance between them in one long stride. She placed a reassuring hand on his slumping shoulder and tried her best to be both consoling and inspiring. “So, let’s not die, Joseph. Let’s walk through those doors like officers of the law and find a way.”

  Joseph did his best to stand a little taller under her gaze but felt himself falter in the attempt. “There’s a 99.2% chance that way ends with all of us being impaled by one of those engineers. What then?”

  “Joseph,” Justine released him and offered him a quiet smile. “From the day I took the FBI oath, I was prepared to die in the line of duty. And right now, we’re on duty.”

  “Duty?”

  “Yes, Joseph. Duty. I saw the way you got angry at that alien murderer at the hospital. You wanted to kill him. And you don’t have that type of emotion unless you care about the people he killed. The people you took an oath to protect.”

  “You know? I’d never seen a prisoner be that cruel to anyone before.” As he remembered the carnage of that day, Joseph’s spine finally found the strength to completely straighten out. “I should have stopped him. I should have made sure they lived.”

  “Well, now’s your chance, Joseph. Now’s your chance to make sure we all live.”

  “Live?” The word seemed wholly out of place given the odds currently stacked against them. “Please don’t blow smoke up my ass, Agent Rushing. 99.2%. Once those doors open, the chances of any of us living past the next few minutes are almost zero.”

  “I’ll take almost zero over absolute zero any day of the week, Joseph.”

  “Fine, Agent Rushing. You want to roll the dice? That’s fine by me.” Joseph still didn’t believe they had a chance in hell of surviving. Hell, part of him was screaming to jump in one of those Yugo’s and take his chances in open space. But he still walked over to the closed elevator doors and braced himself for whatever horrors lay beyond them.

  “Even unarmed and outnumbered, I think I can make it through one last shift.”

  Standing side by side, they gathered before the door and did their best not to let on that in a few minutes, they would both most likely be dead. Probably torn apart by God knows how many of those squid like monsters. Still, police officers were meant to protect civilians in times of need. And right now, Foster and Hoover needed protection.

  But more importantly, they needed time. Time for Hoover to complete whatever crazy plan he’d cooked up in his digital head. So, with as much courage as he could muster, Justine reached out to press the button to open the doors. But before she could, the sounds of rustling canvas reached her ears.

  This unexpected sound was followed closely by Foster’s slightly condescending voice. “As much as I appreciate the whole Zulu Dawn speech, I think we would be better off making sure to aim carefully and conserve our ammo.”

  With those words, she looked to her right just in time to see an exact version of her plasma gun being deposited in Joseph’s confused hands. Dumbstruck, she turned around to find another Slinger being gripped tightly by Foster.

  “Why?” Justine meant to say ‘how’ but all she could muster was a feeble response to his previous advice about weapon discipline.

  “Because…” Foster couldn’t help but grin at the look on her face. “I don’t have any extra mags for these. So, once we’re out. We’re out.”

  “Wait a minute,” her mind replayed the conversations back at the NSA’s office in DC. “I thought Hoover said the other two hadn’t shipped from Ft. Meade?”

  “Is that what I said?” Hoover stifled a laugh. “Damn it, Hoover! Why do you lie so much?”

  “Talking in third person is never a good thing, Hoover.”

  “Don’t blame him, Agent Rushing. I don’t like sharing my toys.” Foster thumbed his own weapon to level 10 and joined the two of them by the entrance to the Prisoner Containment Facility. “At least not with people I don’t trust.”

  “Life and death time, Foster.” Justine’s insides squirmed with a warmth she hadn’t felt in a long time. Was that his way of saying he trusted her? “I think it’s time you start calling me---Justine.”

  “Alright… Justine.”

  She smiled at his momentary gesture of familiarity. But on the inside, Justine couldn’t help but feel responsible for everything that had happened so far and everything still yet to happen. “I know being my friend is hard sometimes, Foster.”

  “Sometimes? I’ve known you for only three days. And the road so far has been pretty much all uphill.”

  “Hey,” Justine grimaced. “That’s not fair. Besides, we all have weapons now. I’ll bet that .8 percent looks a whole lot better now. Right, Hoover?”

  “Sure does. I would put your chances at 1.9 percent now.”

  Both Foster and Joseph groaned loudly at the AI’s totally unhelpful update on their still bleak odds. In the meantime, the FBI agent saw the reassessment in a more positive light. “See. We’ve more than doubled our chances at surviving.”

  “Great,” Joseph sounded more like an old man with every passing second. “Less than a two percent chance we live. Who wouldn’t love those odds.”

  Resolved to face their impending doom, they stood motionless before the elevator doors. Justine tried to catch Foster’s eye one more time, but he kept focused on the doors. This crazy man just kept surprising her in the strangest ways. For some reason, she wished they were anywhere else right now, and not only because of the monsters.

  Finally, out of desperation, she had to ask. “Do you even know how to fire a weapon?”

  “I grew up in the country, Justine.” Foster flashed his sly grin, and she couldn’t help but notice that his smile was starting to grow on her. “Besides, who do you think designed these things?”