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  He didn’t bother to answer himself because he’d been thinking so much his thoughts were starting to babble. And that seemed too crazy for this early in the morning. He would save the talking to himself for the night, when he doubted his quest and needed to be reassured.

  “I either get up,” he whispered tiredly to the shattered glass of the cockpit, “or I never move from this spot.”

  He climbed down the ladder that led from the flight deck to the beach.

  The bot had been dragging salvaged wreckage out onto the sand, and the little red-haired creature was going through it all, taking twisted pieces of once-useful items and beating them into a further uselessness.

  “Urmo. Urmo. Urmo.”

  Give up now, whispered that other voice under the weight of everything that needed to be done. Give up now… while you still can.

  Not yet, he replied.

  And he went to see what else of value he could salvage from the jungle, and from the wreck, wherever it was.

  Chapter Ten

  There wasn’t much to find. The ship had been trampled and tossed all about the jungle, its pieces lost to river and mud and bogs. But he had his bugout bag. His rifle. A blaster. The jacket. And some food.

  The ennui of self-annihilation tried for him once more. The hopelessness of his situation washed over him as he cast his tired eyes over the wanton destruction of the vessel that had brought him here.

  What had been the purpose of it? It was as if the giant thing…

  Don’t say monster, he told himself.

  … had purposely followed him, followed the crash out to this lost spot in the jungle, to do nothing but trash and smash. To lower his chances of survival. To lower his chances of success.

  As though it had been sent.

  Or summoned?

  As though the destruction had been personal.

  He pushed all that away, because to personalize the attack, to attribute it to some dark sinister force, after he’d searched the galaxy for as long as he had for the clues that led to this place, to think now that monsters were being sent against him to prevent him from finding what he’d come for… it was just too much to even consider.

  He turned and walked back to his new camp by the river.

  He would run from monsters.

  He would deal with the problems.

  He would make his way forward and complete this epic quest begun so long ago within the Quantum Palace aboard the Moirai. He would find the temple the prophetesses had pointed toward, even though she hadn’t known she was doing so.

  As he headed back, he smelled smoke. And when he made the clearing, he saw the little creature sitting near the fire. Two huge, flat-mouthed, and large-fanged nightmare fish had been spitted and were roasting slowly over lazy smoke.

  So there was food, at least. Though it had been made from monsters that lived in the river. Apparently.

  And there was water.

  Stay here and live out your days. Water and food. A camp. Sleeping in the wreckage of the ship. You’ll make some kind of life.

  And… just let the galaxy handle itself.

  Did you ever think, that other part of his mind asked, that the galaxy didn’t ask you to save it from itself? That it never had? And that it would, most likely, find a way to go on without you?

  The little red-haired creature was muttering “Urmo” over and over as it fussed about the fire, testing the tenderness of the fish with one of its tiny, almost delicate paws. Fat dripped, and a flame leapt up to sizzle the hair on the little creature’s arm. It yanked back its singed paw and shook a tiny fist at the fire comically.

  And why, Casper wondered, why was that dream of what had happened so long ago running inside his mind like some linear entertainment for him to watch? He knew the end. He knew the tragedies, the losses, the horrors… and yes, the hope of the trail that had led here. But why replay it? Why was it running at a pace he could not control? As though his memories were being viewed by someone else. As though he were providing them something.

  Enjoyment?

  Validation?

  Confession?

  They’d all died inside the Moirai.

  Everyone… almost.

  Or was it some kind of judgment? And if he passed could he move forward?

  What was found on the Moirai was… something that could be wonderful. Something that, in the right hands, could save the galaxy from itself. And no one knew it but him. No one had seen the signs, followed the clues, taken the literal one-way leap of faith into the universal nothingness.

  Isn’t that how the mad think? that other voice asked. That they’re the only ones who see the things that cannot be seen. That they’re the ones who can save everyone from themselves. That they have special powers.

  Who is watching the dream of all my memories? Who is judging me?

  The little beast—he had decided to call the little creature “Urmo”—seemed to feel the meal was done. Urmo snatched one of the fish from the fire, blew on it, chanted “Urmo” over it with his eyes closed in some sort of beatific satisfaction, then fell on its flesh with tiny fangs and gusty relish. There was snorting. The creature’s delight in eating the fish transformed it from a cute, almost puppet-like creature to a monster revealed.

  It paused, looking up at Casper warily.

  Casper reached a hand forward for the other spitted toothy nightmare fish. Urmo watched, waiting. Would it suddenly attack out of some territorial desire to protect its food, or would it share based on some kind of intelligence? The line was indistinguishable and unknowable until the deed was done. Until the line was crossed and teeth were bared. Or not.

  Casper removed the fish. Urmo merely watched. So the little creature wasn’t going to kill him.

  But the fish might.

  He took a bite. It was rather bland, but it was edible. It was sustenance. And it didn’t kill him—yet.

  He took a walk down to the lazy river’s edge, drank cool water, and listened to the quiet of the jungle forest all around.

  He put off deciding what to do next until the next morning. The hopelessness that had come over him had left him in no position to make a tactical decision of any kind, and he reasoned that in the morning he might feel better—and thus, be in a better state of mind to decide what to do next.

  That night, after sitting by the fire and listening to nothing but the ever-silent forest and the occasional “Urmo,” he fished around in the medical pouches of his bugout bag and found some tranquilizers. He knew they would cut down on the dreams. Maybe he just needed a good night’s sleep. He popped two and rolled up in one of the surplus legionnaire mummy bags he’d brought in the cargo hold. He’d found it in a tree far from the wreckage.

  And before he knew it he’d shifted from trying to think of nothing to thinking about the outer hull of the Moirai, the Martian infantrymen who would die there in its shadowy nightmare corridors, and his old friend Rex.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Somethin’ don’t make sense,” said Private LeRoy, who wouldn’t make it. Yes, that was the soldier’s name, thought Casper in the dream. LeRoy. And he would not survive the Moirai.

  Casper moved with the Martian light infantry through the dark corridors of the outer hull. The marines were using lighting systems mounted on the barrels of their KSs to scan and pan the dark spaces that littered the derelict ship.

  “Somethin’ that don’t make sense is these old colony ships…” the soldier said.

  “Cut it, LeRoy,” hissed Sergeant Trask. “First thing you need to learn, kid, nothin’ ’bout Savages ever makes any sense.”

  Casper was right behind Sergeant Trask. There were two squads of Martian light infantry, plus Rex, the platoon sergeant, and Casper. Twenty-three of them went down into that massive ship. Only two would make it out. Casper did not count himself in this sum. Nor one ot
her person.

  “Captain,” said Trask over the comm. He’d switched channels to the command team.

  Casper realized after a second that the platoon sergeant was talking to him. Rex was technically a major in the Martian Light Infantry. He, Casper, was the captain of the Lexington.

  Was.

  Was the captain.

  He is the captain. In the dream he is still the captain of the assault frigate Lexington.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Casper replied.

  “We in the Dead Zone yet?” the NCO asked.

  Casper checked his watch—an old Omega Seamaster from Earth. A gift from his father when he graduated from the NASA academy.

  “For about ten minutes, Sergeant,” Casper replied, knowing the timepieces had started to work a little bit funny.

  “So… we ain’t dead yet, then?”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  Ahead, past a deserted intersection where decimated piping hung from the ceiling like the tendrils of a witch’s hair, stood the massive main door that should, according to the old schematics they’d downloaded off the archives, lead into the main hab.

  “No one ever returns from here, do they?” the NCO asked. Still talking privately over the command channel. Still desperate to find out anything about the Dead Zone other than the ghost stories they all knew. As if Casper had been holding something back. Something that would save their lives despite the historical record.

  Rex, in the lead, signaled to his men to cover the intersection. After the initial attack, the Savages had withdrawn deeper into the hull, but occasionally they’d all heard insane cackles off in the darkness, or abrupt gibbering laughter coming from long curving cross passages that disappeared into distant shadows.

  “No. But we’ll make it out, Sergeant,” Casper replied as he watched Rex’s killers go about their work.

  They stacked around the big hatch that led into the inner hab. Expecting a big firefight. Ready to give someone on the other side of that hundreds-of-years-old lock the surprise of their very long life out here in the dark.

  “You can’t make that promise, sir,” whispered Trask over the comm. Then he cut the link and hustled forward to adjust his men before the breach.

  Rex signaled Casper to stay back with the fire support team and the big heavy they carried. The wicked-looking gun was aimed straight at the door. Anybody on the other side would be torn to pieces by its incredible volume of rapid-fire hyper-static charged shots. The gun heated up fast, and it didn’t leave much standing once it had done its killing work.

  This place brings back too many memories of the Obsidia, he thought in the seconds before breach. Many of the lighthuggers had been built by the same corporation, and the similarities were pronounced. But he blocked out the fifteen years he’d spent as a mindless slave on one of those ships. Blocked out the horrors his mind was trained to forget so that he could go on living.

  Half the reason he’d stayed in the navy was to blast to shreds any Savage hulks they encountered without ever having to board one again. But then he’d found out the UN didn’t want to destroy those ships. They wanted them investigated, searched, and looted.

  Looted was what they really wanted.

  Looted tech.

  The dreams of the mad made real, for the profit of others.

  Same as it ever was.

  Chapter Twelve

  Beyond the central lock that led into the old ship’s main hab was nothing but a vast open darkness. And this, Casper sensed, unnerved the grunts. All of them were killers. All of them had seen action in the Martian War and on more than a dozen planets and countless ships. They’d been around enough of the cosmos, back in the early hyperspace days, to have seen some pretty weird stuff. But there was something about this spooky old ship. Everything about it screamed “ghost ship.”

  The legendary Rama-class vessels were forty kilometers wide. Within the inner hab they should be looking at a living, breathing world with its own gravity, its own skies and clouds. Cities should be crawling across the inside of the cylinder, above, below and to the sides. A world inverted in upon itself. But instead of any of those things, the grunts and Casper were looking at nothing but darkness.

  “We got air,” murmured Sergeant Trask over the comm.

  Casper knew Rex was studying every ounce of information he could glean before he made his next move. That had always been his way. He was slow most of the time, but when he needed to be, he was the quickest man alive. He’d left enough dead in his wake to make that abundantly clear to anyone who cared to search the public record.

  “Patrol formation. Watch your sectors. First Squad, move out. Sergeant Trask, you take second. Don’t bunch up,” ordered Rex.

  Without hesitation, the foremost grunts moved out onto the loading ramp that rose up to the surface, the ground as it were, of that man-made world that gazed in upon itself. When they reached the lip and saw there was some bare illumination coming from far away down-cylinder, creating some sort of constant twilight, Casper knelt and felt the ground.

  It was dirt. Real dirt.

  Just like on the Obsidia.

  They stood on a vast spreading plain that curved up into the sky and then hung there, marking the ghostly outlines of ruined cities above. The wan light that came from down-cylinder made the buildings that stood between them and the light source look like tombstones in a graveyard at midnight. Or scarecrows in an abandoned field deep in late winter.

  “We got a city two clicks at… uh… cardinal directions ain’t working in here, sir. My HUD’s fritzing. Let’s call it two-eighty on the compass.”

  That had come from one of the grunts on point. Corporal Davis. The Martian infantrymen were wearing combat helmets that looked like modern versions of the old Spartan war helmet. They had internal HUDs displaying all the comm and tactical information in real time. Casper wore a thin SmartEye over his cornea that gave him similar HUD access. The Terran Navy didn’t issue armor.

  “Shoulda brought drones,” one of the grunts said over comm. “Coulda got this place hatched in seconds.”

  “Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” someone else chided.

  “Cut it,” Trask ordered.

  Trask seemed much more worried than any of his troops. Like he’d been in enough bad situations to smell one coming on. Maybe, thought Casper, the young feel too invulnerable to be worried when confronted with the evidence that they are most likely already dead.

  Or maybe they just don’t care.

  Or, some voice reminded him, maybe that’s how they’re dealing with the unknown.

  “Move out… toward that city,” Rex said. “Contact and we break into teams. Bounding over watch. Assault through any resistance. Find a prisoner if you can.” Worry didn’t affect Rex. There was only the mission, and he was always on it. And of all the things Casper held on to, right now at this not-wanting-to-be-here moment, he held on to that. Rex had gotten him through the Obsidia. Maybe they’d survive this one too.

  Crossing an open field, an actual open field where a farm had once been and now dying tall grass grew, they passed a scarecrow.

  As though there had once been crows here.

  One of the grunts had just reached out an armored glove to touch the hanging shrouds that were the scarecrow’s rags when a bullet took his head off in a clean spray that misted everyone near him.

  “Contact!” someone screamed redundantly, and Martian infantrymen were hitting the dirt, dirt probably harvested off some asteroid in the long trek away from Earth.

  And now bullets, actual bullets were streaking over their heads. They were tearing through the tall dead grass that didn’t move in the permanent twilight. As the subsonic rounds passed through the dead brown stalks they made a sound like corn husks being rubbed together.

  “First Squad returning fire!” one of the team leaders shouted over comm. But
Casper couldn’t see anything. He can only hear the spooling whines of their energy weapons hurling hot disks of destabilized energy out into the shadows.

  “It’s coming from that berm!” screamed another infantryman over the comm. “Tagging it.”

  Casper could see the visualized battlefield in his HUD now. The farm crossed a series of dry levees and berms, and the enemy, according to the tag, was using one of these levees to fire at the column.

  “Trask! Provide a base of fire on their position,” said Rex over the comm.

  “Roger that, sir! Second Squad firing!”

  Everyone near Casper, including the heavy weapon team, opened up on the levee.

  “First Squad moving!” shouted Rex over the frenetic energy fire. “Follow me, First Squad!”

  Casper watched as Rex’s unit, depicted on the overlay map inside his HUD, attempted to flank the levee. Men were being cut down in both squads. Near Casper, one of the heavy gunners went down. Casper low-crawled over to the man, who was gasping, clutching at a sucking chest wound where a bullet had smashed through his ablative armor. Pink frothy bubbles appeared around the edges of the wound.

  Rex’s SmartEye assessed the wound and told him how to treat it, but he didn’t need the instruction. He’d done this before. He pulled a thermal adhesive patch from his gear and slapped it over the man’s wound.

  The SmartEye told him that blood pressure and pulse were both bottoming out. The man was dying despite Casper’s efforts.

  “Start chest compressions,” the HUD ordered him. Except there was no chest. It was all a bloody mess.

  The man was whispering something, and Casper leaned over to hear. That action saved his life; even as he leaned down, he felt a speeding bullet pass just over his back.

  “I didn’t forget nothin’,” the man whispered between shallow gasps.

  Casper pulled off the man’s helmet. Hoping to get him more air.

  “I didn’t forget… nothin’,” he repeated.

  And then the kid’s eyes just glazed over, watching the twilight above. He was gone.