Luca sat on the couch with Emily curled against his side, her head on his shoulder, and for a few minutes he could almost pretend they were just a normal couple watching TV in a normal apartment. The rest of the team had scattered throughout the officer's common room. Ryan tinkered with something at the table while Danny and Zoe shared the other couch, and Joey and Chris stood near the windows.

  "Oh no."

  He knew that tone.

  "—exclusive footage from Sandworth Falls, New Hampshire, where the crew of the Triumph of Darron made a surprise visit to their hometown yesterday—"

  The screen cut to shaky phone footage. Luca recognized the street immediately. Emily's mom's house, the pale blue Cape Cod. And there they were, pushing through a small crowd toward their SUV while IFC security tried to maintain a perimeter.

  "That's our kid!" someone shouted in the video.

  "Oh my God," Ryan said, looking up from his work. "We're on the news."

  The anchor continued in that overly bright tone they always used. "The crew, led by Captain Luca Rossi, represents humanity's first successful expedition beyond the Solar System. The United Earth Republic confirmed this morning that the Triumph team will participate in a Victory Tour across major population centers, beginning next week in Washington DC—"

  "I look terrible in that shot," Zoe muttered.

  "—unprecedented achievement in interstellar exploration comes at a crucial time for Earth, as the UER continues consolidation efforts. President Anderson called the mission 'a beacon of hope for humanity's future among the stars'—"

  Chris snorted. "A beacon of hope."

  Yeah. A beacon of hope while Earth burned. The irony was bitter enough to choke on.

  The broadcast shifted, the anchor's tone darkening. "However, that hope stands in stark contrast to ongoing crises here on Earth. In the Amazon Basin, the portal surge has spread to three major tributaries. Brazilian regional forces are requesting additional air support—"

  Luca looked away. Six months. They'd been gone six months exploring Alpha Centauri while this kept happening.

  "Jesus," Ryan muttered.

  "—President Anderson addressed the Senate today, stating that consolidation efforts have reached eighty-eight percent—"

  Cut to Anderson at a podium. The man had aged ten years since the launch. "—every percentage point brings us closer to the Planetary Control Tower. Closer to the tools we need to stabilize Earth's portal network. We must stay the course—"

  Chris reached over and switched it off.

  The silence that followed weighed more than the news.

  Luca wanted to say something. Anything. But what the hell was there to say? They'd left Earth broken and come back to find it still broken. Turns out you couldn't fix a planet by running away to another star system.

  "Six months," Emily said. She spoke through gritted teeth. "We've been gone six months and it's the same."

  "Not the same," Ryan said, still focused on whatever he was working on. "Anderson's up to eighty-seven percent consolidation. That's progress."

  "Progress." Zoe let out a bitter laugh. "Thousands dead in Siberia. Riots in Jakarta. The Amazon's still collapsing. But hey, eighty-seven percent."

  "Reaching that threshold is supposed to unlock better infrastructure," Joey said, but even he didn't sound convinced. "Better portal management."

  "And how many people die waiting for them to reach eighty-eight percent? Ninety? A hundred?" Luca's jaw tightened. "We left to get away from all this. Meanwhile, Earth's still burning."

  And that was the truth, wasn't it? They'd jumped at the charter to escape this mess. To leave it all behind.

  Danny leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "What did you expect? That they'd fix everything while we were gone?"

  "I expected something." Luca stood, restless energy pushing him to his feet. The couch felt too small, the room suffocating. "At some point, shouldn't it get better?"

  "The System doesn't work that way," Chris said. "You know that."

  "Yeah. I know."

  But knowing didn't make it easier to watch.

  After breakfast, they gathered in one of the secure conference rooms. Luca wanted to check what the IFC System Store had to offer. With the IFC at Company Level 13, they'd have access to more options than most adventuring companies. They needed more vehicles for the Triumph and their upcoming mission, and it made sense to see what was available.

  Luca pulled up the store interface on the wall display. The familiar blue grid materialized, item categories spreading across the screen in neat hierarchies.

  "Alright," he said, navigating through menus. "Let's start with vehicles."

  The vehicle list loaded. At first, it showed the standard TL8 options available to anyone with credits.

  "Check higher up," Emily said. "See what else is there."

  Luca scrolled down.

  The list loaded.

  Then kept loading.

  "Huh," Ryan said.

  Luca leaned forward. The vehicle list had expanded far beyond what they'd seen before. Way beyond. TL9 hardware that shouldn't exist yet. Specter-Class ultralight recon vehicles for five million. Heavy assault mechs with dual plasma cannons for fifty million. At the bottom, a Gravity Heavy Assault Vehicle waited for eighty-five million credits.

  And next to each military item, a second number in red. Contribution points required.

  The Specter needed twenty-five thousand CP. The heavy mech needed two hundred fifty thousand. The assault vehicle at the bottom? Four hundred thousand contribution points, plus the credits.

  No one spoke.

  "What the fuck," Zoe said.

  Ryan scrolled down. Artillery platforms and mobile command centers scrolled past. All TL9. All with astronomical price tags. All with CP requirements that made the credit costs look reasonable.

  "Why—" Danny stopped. "Why can we see TL9 gear?"

  "Level breakthrough," Luca said slowly. He stared at the numbers, his mouth dry. "We hit level 60. We're the only people on Earth who can access this."

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  Shit. Shit. This wasn't just an advantage. This was a target painted on their backs in permanent marker.

  Emily moved closer to the screen, reading the specifications. "These aren't just better versions. This is TL9 hardware." She paused. "No one on Earth can access this yet."

  There was no one else. Seven kids from Sandworth with access to nation-state hardware. Luca could already see how this would play out. The UER would want them. Every corporation would want them. Every faction would want to control them or eliminate the threat.

  "Look at the mecha specs," Chris said, pointing. "Dual plasma cannons and energy shield projection."

  "This is insane," Danny said. "How is it just available here?"

  "It's not for most people," Luca said quietly. "It's for us. For anyone who breaks level 60."

  Luca looked at the numbers. At the hardware. Credits they had. Over two billion sitting in the company account.

  But the contribution points? They barely had north of three million. Enough for a few pieces, not an army.

  That was probably the point. The System didn't hand out hardware to anyone with a fat wallet.

  Luca looked at the numbers. At the hardware. At prices that were astronomical but not impossible.

  They could afford this. They had over two billion credits sitting in the company account. They could buy TL9 mechas and heavy assault vehicles.

  And that would make them the most dangerous independent force on Earth.

  "Log off," he said.

  "What?" Ryan turned.

  "Log off. Just close the connection."

  Ryan's hand hovered over the interface. "Luca—"

  "If this gets out, we become a target. Every faction on Earth will know that we can access TL9 gear and they can't." Luca met his eyes. He needed Ryan to understand this. They were already targets just for being level 60+. Adding TL9 access to that equation? "Log. Off."

  Ryan closed the connection. The display went dark.

  "What do we do with this?" Emily asked quietly.

  "Nothing," Luca said. "Not yet. We stick to the plan, do the Victory Tour, recruit our crew, and buy our supplies. We go back to Alpha Centauri. We complete the mission."

  The shuttle lifted off from IFC Headquarters at 0900 hours. Destination: Lancaster Regional Airport, Pennsylvania. Flight time: approximately forty minutes at standard atmospheric cruise.

  Luca sat in the pilot's seat, and Zoe in the copilot's.

  The sky was clear, the winter landscape spreading below them in whites and grays. The Appalachian Mountains cut across their flight path, still beautiful despite everything the System had done to Earth.

  Luca punched in the coordinates for Lancaster, but paused before engaging the autopilot. The news report from earlier was still playing in his head, the ticker scrolling across the bottom about an "Active Containment Zone" in the Midwest.

  He checked the flight map. The most direct route to Pennsylvania took them southwest, skirting the edge of the reported engagement zone in Ohio. It was a detour, maybe an hour out of their way, but he needed to see it.

  He adjusted the waypoint.

  "Detour?" Zoe asked.

  "Just a look," Luca said. "I want to see what 'Contained' actually looks like."

  Luca let the autopilot handle most of it, monitoring systems more out of habit than necessity.

  "You okay?" Zoe asked.

  "Yeah. Just thinking."

  "About the news?"

  "Yeah. Earth's still broken. People are still dying. And we just found out we have access to gear that could actually help."

  Zoe was quiet for a moment. "You thinking about turning back?"

  "No. Maybe. I don't know." Luca rubbed his face.

  The radio crackled. "IFC-Seven-Alpha, this is Cleveland Center. Be advised, we're rerouting eastbound traffic around restricted airspace. Maintain current altitude, flight level four-five-zero."

  Luca keyed the mic. "Cleveland Center, IFC-Seven-Alpha copies. What's the restriction?"

  A pause. "Military operations, active engagement zone. Eastern Ohio, approximately fifty miles south of your position."

  Luca and Zoe exchanged looks.

  "A portal overflow," Zoe said.

  They saw the smoke before they saw the battle. A dark column rising from the farmland below, visible even from forty-five thousand feet. As they drew closer, the radio chatter intensified, military frequencies crackling with callsigns and coordinates.

  By the time they reached the operations zone, the team had gathered in the passenger area. The shuttle's windows showed clouds and distant landscape, but Ryan had pulled up the sensor feed on the main holographic display.

  The three-dimensional image floated in the center of the cabin, showing the overflow zone in sharp detail. The shuttle's TL9 sensors could resolve individual vehicles and personnel from forty-five thousand feet, painting everything in crisp false-color overlays.

  It looked nothing like the chaos on the news.

  Luca moved closer to the display, studying it. This was what competent looked like.

  The portal sat in the middle of farmland near a small town, but the UER had it locked down tight. From this altitude, Luca could see the scorched earth radiating out from the portal, the initial kill zone where creatures had poured out before the military response arrived. Bodies littered the blackened ground, thousands of them, already being processed by cleanup crews in hazmat gear.

  But the perimeter had been established. M1 Abrams tanks formed a circle around the portal, cannons pointed inward. Between the armor, APCs and infantry dug into hasty fortifications to create an impenetrable wall of overlapping fire.

  The UER had it locked down. They were already setting up for portal entry to reset the timer.

  Luca stared at the hologram, trying to reconcile what he was seeing. The military was handling it. They had the firepower, the training, the numbers. They didn't need seven kids in a starship to swoop in and save the day.

  So why did it feel like he was abandoning them?

  "How long has this been going?" Emily asked quietly.

  "Five hours," Ryan said, checking his tablet. "First responders took losses establishing the perimeter, but they've got it locked down now."

  "They've got this contained," he added. "Look at it. They're already setting up for portal entry. This is handled."

  "Yeah, but what about the ones that aren't?" Chris gestured at the tablet. "Siberia. Jakarta. The Amazon. Those aren't contained."

  "And we're going to fly around the planet putting out fires?" Danny challenged. "Chasing portal crises instead of completing our actual mission?"

  "We could help—"

  "We can't help with all of them," Ryan cut him off. "There are overflows happening every day. We'd spend our lives jumping from crisis to crisis while the Varnathi die."

  "The Varnathi," Zoe said quietly.

  "The Varnathi," Danny confirmed. "Hundreds of people in stasis cells, dying. That's our mission. That's what we committed to."

  And there it was. The mission they'd actually committed to. Completing the charter and helping a dying alien civilization.

  "So we just ignore Earth?" Luca asked. The words came out sharper than he intended. "Fly past overflows like this and pretend we can't help?"

  "It's not just the overflows," Ryan said, still staring at the hologram below. "The food crisis. Our ship could carry thousands of tons of cargo. We could load up in Kansas or Nebraska, fly it to Jakarta or the Sahel in hours. The logistics networks Earth has can't match that."

  "So what?" Emily's voice was sharp. "We become superheroes? Fly around saving people while the Varnathi die one cell at a time?"

  "We could save lives—"

  "We're already committed to saving lives!" Emily's frustration boiled over. "We can't just abandon them because Earth is still broken."

  "Earth is our home," Luca said quietly.

  "And the Varnathi are dying." Emily turned to him. "I know it sucks. I know it's horrible watching this. But we can't fix Earth's problems with one ship and seven people."

  "We could try—"

  "And fail." Zoe's voice cut through. "We'd fail, Luca. We'd stop one overflow and miss the next three. We'd deliver food to one city while another starves."

  Luca stared at her. Zoe didn't argue often. When she did, it was because she'd thought it through and knew she was right.

  "You think I don't want to help?" Zoe continued. Her voice was steady, but Luca heard the edge underneath. "My brother died defending Sandworth Falls during the monster waves. I know exactly what's happening down there. But we're not gods. We're seven people with one ship and a mission that actually matters."

  "People die either way," Luca said flatly.

  "Yeah," Danny said. "They do. That's the System. That's the world we live in. We can't save everyone."

  Silence filled the cockpit.

  Luca looked at the hologram. Tanks held position while gunships circled their patterns overhead. Cleanup crews processed thousands of dead creatures while the military prepared for portal entry.

  The UER was handling it. They had to be handling it. Because if they weren't, if Earth really needed the Triumph to survive, then the crew was making the wrong choice.

  And somewhere in Alpha Centauri, hundreds of Varnathi waited in stasis cells, dying one by one, counting on seven strangers from a broken planet to save them.

  Two missions. Both critical. No way to do both.

  "We can't," Ryan said finally. "Can we?"

  Nobody answered.

  What the hell were they supposed to say? That they'd picked the aliens over their own planet? That sounded insane when you said it out loud. But that's exactly what they were doing.

  "IFC-Seven-Alpha, this is Lancaster Tower. You're cleared for approach, runway eight-two-six. Wind zero-niner-zero at twelve knots."

  "Lancaster Tower, IFC-Seven-Alpha copies. Cleared approach, eight-two-six."

  Luca guided the shuttle down, the landing pattern automatic, his hands moving through the motions while his mind was still forty-five thousand feet over Eastern Ohio.

  The landing was smooth. The shuttle settled onto the tarmac with a soft hiss, TL9 systems compensating for wind and weight distribution.

  Outside the viewports, Pennsylvania waited. Trees and farmland spread out below, a piece of Earth that still looked almost normal if you didn't look too close.

  Behind him, the team was quiet.

  Emily's hand found his shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

  "Will we?"

  "We have to."

  Somewhere in Ohio, thousands of soldiers cleaned up the aftermath of another overflow. In Jakarta, the riots burned.

  And somewhere in Alpha Centauri, the Varnathi were dying.

  He had to believe the UER could handle Earth. Had to believe that choosing the Varnathi was the right call. Had to believe something, because the alternative was...

  "Yeah," he said quietly. "We have to."

  But he still didn't know how.