Page 92 of Surface Pressure

“Fuck.” Marshall pushed off of the control panel he had propped himself on as he listened to Autumn speak. “Okay, what were you thinking?”

“What about my three minutes?” Autumn couldn’t quite hold back the small quirk that pulled up the corner of her lips.

“Shut up and tell me what you need.” Marshall’s voice was clipped, but his own lips pulled up a little. She’d known he’d been an ally from the start. She’d just had to trust her gut.

“First, I need to know what happened at Tripp.” Autumn clenched her jaw tightly.

“Tripp?” That caught Marshall off guard for a second before he ran his fingers through his tousled hair once more and nodded. “Tripp isn’t a place. Joe Tripp is a person.”

Autumn nodded, and Marshall closed his eyes for a moment.

“Joe found out about the natives on a planet we were collecting from, not this one. My previous tour. He was the one who told me we’d been lied to.” Marshall opened his eyes again, and Autumn flinched in surprise to see his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “We were going to be married when we got back to Earth after the mission. But the stupid dumbass couldn’t bear to kill anyone. He was trained like all of us were. Trained to know that killing is part of the job. But he couldn’t do it. He refused.”

“What happened?” Autumn whispered, scared to know the answer but wanting to give Marshall the chance to unburden his pain.

“They caught him trying to sabotage the collectors. They caught him, and they made an example out of him. We were forced to watch as they locked him in a collector he had sabotaged. Then they pushed it into the water.”

Autumn’s entire body seized up. Her mind couldn’t find words, and the horror that filled her made her blood run cold.

“I wanted to run to him. I wanted to fight them. But he shook his head at me when we locked eyes. He wouldn’t let me save him. He wouldn’t even let me try.”

Marshall let his tears out, and Autumn gave him the time he needed. With a shake of his head and a clenched fist to scrub the tears from his cheeks, Marshall stood tall and looked at Autumn.

“Will you help me find another way?”

“To sabotage them?” Marshall asked, as though confirming that was indeed what Autumn meant.

“Yes. I want to destroy them. I want to save not just this planet, but the next planet Chalmers wants to destroy, the next people he decides are worthy only of genocide.”

“He won’t stop. If we destroy the collectors, he’ll simply get more. He won’t ever stop.” Marshall scoffed. “Out here, he’s God.”

“What can we do to destroy them?” Autumn ignored that last comment, though she agreed with him.

“Joe wanted to reach out to the natives. He wanted to see if they would defend themselves. But he never got the chance.” Marshall shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Soulara and her people are preparing to defend themselves.”

“Are you sure they need our help?”

“Would you have given the natives any help they needed to win? Would you have done everything you swore not to do in order to save Joe?”

“Yes.” Marshall didn’t hesitate.

“That’s how I feel about Soulara. I want to arm her with every chance to stop her people’s annihilation.”

“Good.” Marshall smiled in a way that sent a shiver of fear running down Autumn’s spine. “I have something better than sabotage.”

Autumn looked at him with furrowed brows.

“Meet me here tonight at twenty-two hundred. We’ve got some work to do before the last collection.” He looked almost giddy in his boots.

“You know when it is?” Autumn stared at him with wide eyes.

“Yep. And the entire fleet is heading down. Every single collector will be in the water.”

Autumn closed her eyes, the weight of that knowledge pulling against the hope she had allowed to grow within her. Everyone was going to be under the water? Was she now going to kill her entire troop?

“It’ll be okay.” Marshall placed a hand gently on her upper arm. “It’s better this way.”

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