1054

Tennant system

Orbiting a red star, floating silently through space, the lonely, giant, green planet of Tennant One, commonly referred to simply as Tennant because of its solitary nature, basked in the nourishing star light. The small station that orbited the planet was just now floating into the day side of its one hour patrol above the marshy rock. Had the station remained on the night side of the planet any longer, someone on the command center may have noticed the flash of light in the distance, and the ready fighters in the hanger bay may have been fired up and sent out to investigate. But the stations line of sight was blocked by the planet, the fighters remained silent, and no one was aware of the Aradi’s arrival in the system. The station continued it monotonous orbit, and its complacency, fostered by its position buried in the cradle of human civilization.

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Harper sat in the Captain’s chair, idly watching the luminescent flow of the warp field as it lapped against the hull. The ship’s compass, which showed the ship’s relative bearing and attitude in relation to the galactic plane, jumped at random as it occasionally caught data from the Galactic Positioning System. The bridge was all but silent, due to the fact that warp travel created an isolation effect. There was no data coming from the outside, no course adjustments to make, and nothing to do. The ship was effectively in its own little universe.

The last seven days of travel were uneventful. They had stopped on several occasions to run scramble drills and give the warp engines a brief rest. The crew ran like a well-oiled machine. In spite of the new paradigm of carrying fighters on a war ship, the deck crew and fighter pilots had run their simulations flawlessly. However, Harper had thought, drills are far from the real thing.

Harper was jolted from his pondering by a beeping from the helm console, indicating that the ship was approaching its preset coordinates. A countdown displayed so that the warp engine could be disengaged at the appropriate time. Lieutenant Junior Grade Eric Palmer grasped the lever for the warp drive and quickly pulled back as the countdown reached zero. Instantaneously, the warp field disappeared, and in the distance was a small green planet orbiting a red star.

“All stop,” Harper ordered.

“Aye, sir,” Palmer responded. “Coordinates confirmed. We are approximately fifty-seven million kilometers from Tennant one,”

“Captain McLeod,” Harper started, after tapping his ear-piece, “We’ve arrived in the Tennant system.”

“Understood,” McLeod replied. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

McLeod had still failed to make any of the senior officers aware of the purpose of the diversion. However, over the past week both Major Glenn, and Lieutenant Commander Parker, had been frequently having meetings with the Captain in the CIC on F deck.

A few moments later, McLeod was ascending onto the bridge. He walked to the front view-ports and stared at the planet. “What is the current position of the station,” he asked.

“It just crossed into daylight about 15 minutes ago, Captain. They are on the direct opposite side of the planet from us,” Ensign Akira Sato replied.

“Any signs of fighter patrols,” McLeod asked, finally turning to face the operations officer.

There was a moment of quiet as Sato ran an active sweep. “Nothing on radar at the moment. We haven’t received any acknowledgment from the station either,” he said, without looking up from his screens.

“Good,” McLeod exclaimed as he walked back towards his chair, which Harper had already vacated. “Parker,” he said before sitting down.

“Yes, sir,” Parker replied, though with a sound of anticipation rather than the confusion the rest of the officers felt.

“Prepare the fighters. Helm match the orbit speed of the station and set a course for high orbit of the planet. Prepare to do a short warp jump to that location,” McLeod said.

“Captain, can I ask what we’re about to do,” Harper whispered.

“What is that ahead of us, Commander,” McLeod asked.

“Tennant one, sir,” Harper replied after looking up in confusion.

“Today, it’s the Calder Sound,” McLeod explained.

Harper looked forward and tried to make a connection with the name before admitting,” I’m still lost.

“So, not coming up through the academy has its disadvantages,” McLeod smiled. “ Back in nineteen-twenty-nine, the only aircraft carriers in Atherican service were ships that had originally been designed and commissioned as battleships. There wasn’t a lot of faith in the concept of an aircraft carrier. Not unlike how Aradi is being treated today. The A.N.S. Veranthi, separated from her fleet during exercises, and, before dawn launched over 60 fighters in a simulated attack on Calder Sound in what they called Exercise Calder Storm. Had they been enemy fighters, they would have successfully destroyed more than half the fleet in port before meeting any resistance. That exercise changed the way the Atherica looked at aircraft carriers,” McLeod explained.

“So we’re going to use the same trick, to show Aradi’s value to the fleet,” Harper asked.

“Precisely,” the Captain replied.

“Captain, fighters and deck crew are ready for a full scramble,” Parker interrupted.

“Stand by. Helm, engage the warp burst,” McLeod ordered. In a matter of minutes, the distant green dot was now dwarfing the Aradi in its shadow.

“Still maintaining orbit directly opposite the station, sir. Speed is eight kilometers per second, orbital inclination is 60 degrees,” Palmer confirmed.

“Helm, prepare to accelerate to twenty-five kilometers per second. Parker, prepare fighters for launch,” McLeod called out.

The ready fighters glided forward on the flight deck, lining up for the magnetic catapult launch. 156 fighters in all were ready for immediate launch on the three launch strips. The flight deck filled with a dizzying profusion of rotating amber and scarlet light as the flight deck doors slammed open. Harper imagined he could feel the atmosphere on the bridge press against its bulkheads as the personnel on the flight deck collectively held their breath.

At the front of the center formation of the Valkyrie fighters, Major Glenn sat in his cockpit checking and rechecking his preflight checklist in his head. The high pitched whir of his idling craft was overcome by the slamming sound of the flight deck doors flying open. Glenn looked out into the darkened mossy green surface of the planet, curving against the blackness of space beyond. The lit side of the planet was quickly approaching.

He flipped a switch on his communications panel, tying his helmet microphone into the squadron communications channel. He spoke loudly and clearly with a tone that was authoritative but friendly. “Alright, Aradi will be accelerating towards the station momentarily. As always, remember your breathing during the launch, and keep your hands off those throttles till we are clear of the flight deck. The first wing will take the station at the center, second wing will take the top, and third will take the bottom. I’ll be personally going over the simulated missile launches, and the worst performers will get Gamma watch for the rest of the month. Good hunting.”

The view from the flight deck doors changed in a nauseating fashion as Aradi rolled to the port side, putting the planet surface directly above. The angle was perfect, allowing the ship to rapidly accelerate without flying off into space or plummeting into the atmosphere. There was no violent shaking as this balance was maintained. The helm officer was either very experienced or had an abundance of natural talent.

Parker’s voice chimed in over his helmet speakers, “Flight deck is green. Wing one, Red Group, prepare for launch in… ten… nine…”

Glenn didn’t hear the remainder of the countdown. The sound of his breathing in his helmet seemed to override everything else. Anticipation for what would be the most important launch in his career thus far was mounting. McLeod had been very clear about the importance of this simulation to the future of this ship, and the war. Glenn had tried to relay this to his pilots during squadron briefing, but wasn’t sure if anyone else had been as excited as he was.

He glanced to his right at the catapult officer, adorned in a yellow, flame retardant jumpsuit and oxygen mask, continue the countdown, now at three and counting. He saluted the shooter before turning forward and saw in his peripheral as the officer returned the salute. He stretched his fingers and wrapped them around the joystick again for a sure grip as the shooter raised his right arm then dropped his forward knee to the deck signaling towards open space. Tip of the spear Glenn thought as he saw the final gesture, and his fighter exploded down the runway. The acceleration curve was just within the limits of human tolerance, a phenomenon he knew his fellow pilots found unnerving, but he loved every second of it. The bulkheads surrounding the flight deck became a blur in his vision and disappeared as his fighter left the deck at break neck speed.

He immediately snapped the thruster control to its forward most position, and pulled lightly on the joystick, maintaining the perfect curve of orbit. He briefly pulled the thruster stick all the way back to activate the brake thrusters, allowing the second wing of fighters to line up next to his wings flight pattern on his starboard side. What seemed like mere moments later, the third wing followed suit on the Port side. “All wings accelerate to top speed. Don’t lose the station in the star light,” he said.

No more than 30 seconds later the station came into view, now heading towards the night side of the planet again. His canopy darkened to a deep shade of violet, and the view became an inferred display of the visual ahead. “Weapons hot.”

A buzzing klaxon alerted Glenn that a weapons lock was available. He pressed one of the red buttons on the head of his joystick and held it down, watching the HUD’s indicators of simulated missile paths streaked toward their target. His computer pinged, indicating the successful simulated destruction of the station, based on the collective hits of all the squadron’s simulated arsenal. He smiled as he imagined the shocked expression of the station crew. One of Aradi’s computer engineers programmed a benign virus to be sent to the station, causing a brief power outage and a laughing raven skull marquee to appear on every computer display available. Moments after the stations simulated demise, all 156 fighters buzzed the station and continued their arch back to Aradi.

“Head Case, how many personnel on that station,” Glenn called out to his wingman.

“About two-hundred I think,” the wingman responded, “why you ask, boss?”

“Remind me to ask Captain McLeod to send a message to the U.N.C. quartermaster. Going to need 200 new pairs of pants.”

The bridge of the Aradi was nearly silent in anticipation. The ship had been slowed to a speed just fast enough to maintain orbit, shortening the final leg of the journey for the fighters. McLeod was turned towards the Flight Operations portion of the bridge, his eyes drilling a hole in Parker.

She was intuitively aware of this, but was able to do nothing to ignore it but stare at unchanging computer monitors, waiting for the fighters to return to contact with the ship. The same phenomenon that left the Aradi invisible to the station, also left the station and fighters invisible to Aradi as long as they remained separated by the planet. Her anticipation to make contact was equal parts wanting to see the results of the drill, and wanting McLeod to focus on someone else.

What seemed like an eternity passed before indicators for each fighter began to appear on the screens. Then, data from the mission flowed onto the screen immediately in front of her. She briefly went over the data before turning on her heels and beaming at the Captain.

“Mission was a success, sir. Simulated destruction of the station was completed at exactly five minutes and thirty-six seconds on the mission clock. One minute after reaching visual contact, and thirty seconds after the first missile launch. They wouldn’t have known what happened till it was over,” She said, unable to stop smiling.

The Bridge and Flight Operations erupted in applause and cheering. Harper’s initial instinct was to scold the crews for their behavior, as crew discipline fell squarely on the shoulders of the First officer, but his second instinct was to check the Captain’s reaction, who was frequently flexible on matters such as celebrating on the bridge. Sure enough, the Captain was beaming at the crew and allowing them their moment of joviality. Harper even allowed himself a smile at their successful demonstration of Aradi’s power and strategic value.

“Commander, you have the bridge. I’ll be in C.I.C. You should be expecting a shuttle from the station shortly. Have the Admiral escorted to me when she arrives,” McLeod said as he glided down the stairs and out of sight. Harper watched after him with a brief look of confusion, a feeling he was becoming accustomed to, but not comfortable with.

“Lieutenant Commander Parker,” He called below, waiting for her attention, “Complete the cycle. Bring our fighters home.”

Over the course of the next eight minutes the fighters made their landing without incident and were stowed away. The bustling activity on the flight deck had died down by the time Sato broke the relative silence on the bridge.

“Commander, a shuttle is approaching from aft, an Admiral Cotton is requesting permission to land.”

“The clearance codes check out,” Harper asked in bewilderment, as he had never heard the name before.

“Yes, sir.”

“Permission granted then.” Harper rose out of his seat and watched through the rear view ports as the craft glided onto the flight deck. The appearance of the craft increased Harper’s confusion. Shuttle craft in the U.N.C. military closely resembled the space shuttles in use for the latter half of the twentieth-century, a design humanity frequently revisited, as it represented a transition from violently launching astronauts into space on crude rockets, to carrying them on extended stays in space.

Harper was shocked by its cosmetic appearance, because Admirals’ personal shuttles were typically royal blue and adorned with gold filigrees. They could afford to have these flamboyant expressions of high rank because even rear Admirals never left their flag ships while in harm’s reach. This shuttle was flat black like the personnel carriers aboard Aradi, and judging by gleaming gouges in the hull, had seen combat.

His curiosity getting the best of him, Harper slowly descended the staircase and approached the flight deck view ports. There was a puff of steam as the starboard hatch on the shuttle opened and angled towards the deck, creating a ramp. He discretely entered commands into the nearest console, changing the screen from readouts on various flight deck systems, to a video monitor zoomed tightly on the shuttle craft. His actions hadn’t escaped the attention of Parker who was now standing to his left.

They watched as one combat boot made its appearance through the threshold, followed by the other. A moment later, the admiral was crouching through the hatch and stepping onto the deck. Her movements didn’t carry the typical air of privilege that went with the ranks of Admiral, and in Harper’s entire military career, this was the first time he had seen anyone, over the rank of Captain, smile.

The Admiral was in her 40’s, with shoulder length gray hair that curled ever so slightly. She appeared to be very spry for her age, and her worn face was just beginning to loosen the appearance of what was clearly once a jaw line that could cut steel. An MP stepped into view and gave her a crisp salute, which the Admiral returned. As they shared a brief exchange, Harper felt Parker turn her gaze towards him.

“She’s a Fleet Admiral,” She stated quietly, but also seemed to be requesting confirmation.

Harper squinted at the screen, eyeing the circle of five silver stars on each shoulder, “You’re right. That’s a bit odd.” It was obviously impossible to know the name of every high ranking officer in the U.N.C. military, but anyone on the Aradi, or on any other vessel for that matter, could state with confidence that there are only five Fleet Admirals, and could name them from memory. Admiral Cotton was a name foreign to him.

Harper considered for a moment asking Sato to re-check the clearance codes, or perhaps open the service record on Admiral Cotton, but thought better of it. As next in line for Commanding Officer, there was very little he wasn’t privy to, and he accepted that which he wasn’t. He also knew the clearance codes would check out, as they had before, and had the strangest feeling that the service records would be classified above his clearance.

He broke away from his pondering and realized that the entire flight operations crew was staring at the new arrival. They were immediately aware of their XO’s attention and returned to work without a word. Harper flipped off the monitor as the MP escorted the Admiral off screen. He turned to Parker who arched a brow at him expectantly.

“So, how did we do, overall,” he asked.

“Beyond expectations,” She said as she lead him to her console at the center of flight operations area, “This is hands down the most efficient fighter attack I have ever seen.”

“You sound optimistic,” He replied.

“In all honesty, Commander, if they weren’t on my side, I would be afraid of them. The next time we encounter the Hauren, we’re going to change the war.”

“Try to keep in mind, this may have been a real world exercise, but there was a wide margin for error and no imminent threat. We have some of the best military pilots alive, but very few of them has actually been in combat with the Hauren outside of a simulator. That’s when we, and they, get to see what our pilots are really made of.”

The noise level in the squadron ready room was nearly deafening. The pilots were seated but talking jovially amongst themselves. Glenn entered the room from the podium side with the same grin as he scanned the room, watching his pilots reveling in the glory of a flawless performance.

“Alright, alright,” He shouted, and waited for the noise to die down. The room fell silent and left a painful ringing in his ears. “I wanted to congratulate you on a fantastic drill… I wanted to, but it seems like you were already busy doing that yourselves when I got here, so maybe I should knock you down a peg.” He shrugged and there was a brief outburst of laughter that was quickly quelled with the rise of his hands.

“I’ve gone over the numbers with Lieutenant Commander Parker, and what we saw was the most brutal and unforgiving surprise attack in the history of warfare.” He paused waiting for another outburst, but the pilots resisted. “Your performance was top notch, but I expect even better the next time we encounter the Hauren. I will accept nothing less than what I saw today.”

There was an outburst of cheering and applause that slowly wound down on its own. “Now the bad news. I talked with the crew chief, who was less than happy with you. Seems a lot of you got a little over excited during your landing and hit the deck pretty hard. Chief says if he catches you doing it again, you’ll have the choice between getting on your hands and knees to scrub the skid marks off the flight deck, or under your bird, replacing the parts you broke with the most rudimentary Bronze Age tools he can find.” There were a few chuckles but the mood was instantaneously altered when Glenn looked up, and they saw the sincere expression on his face.

“I told the chief that would do fine. We’ve got enemies that will do everything they can to tear your fighter to pieces, I don’t need you damaging it for them. We’re light-years from civilization at any given time and we won’t always be able to replace what you break. So from now on, unless it is a combat necessity, you land on the flight deck like it’s made of egg shell.” He paused a moment for effect. “Dismissed.”

Harper absentmindedly sipped at his coffee, scrolling through crew reports on his personal data pad. He was stirred briefly from his perusing by the clatter of a tray to his right. Parker slouched into the seat behind the tray and started to unceremoniously dig in. Harper found it hard not to be taken when she let down the formalities of a bridge officer.

She noticed Harper staring and stopped to smile at him. “Not in the Captain’s mess, I see.”

“Captain is dining with the Admiral. Wanted to keep it private,” he replied, forcing his eyes away from her.

“I see. Good reading?”

“First officer’s work is never done.”

“Getting bored yet?”

“Now? Or in general?”

“In general.”

“I suppose in a way I’m a bit restless. It’s been almost six months since anyone has even mistakenly reported a Hauren sighting. But, I also realize that every day we don’t see them is a blessing.”

“True.”

“You’ve been keeping busy though.”

“And grateful for it. I get all the excitement of battle without the pressure. I still can’t believe I got this assignment.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You? Captain said I came highly recommended, but I didn’t realize you gave the reference.”

“Why wouldn’t I? You were a fantastic pilot and wingman in the BSDF. I hear you filled the CAG position pretty well when I left too.”

“I had pretty big shoes to fill.” There was a long pause before she spoke again. “Why did you leave anyway?”

There was another moment of silence as Harper stared into her eyes. He turned back towards his cup of coffee. “You know exactly why I left.”

“No. I know why you claimed you were leaving, but it was a load of bullshit.”

“Commander, that’s enough.”

For a moment it seemed like Parker was going to continue her aggressive tack, but she deflated quickly. “I’m sorry, John. I didn’t mean to offend you.” To Harper’s annoyance she added, “I know you took that mission hard, but you received an accommodation. No one blames you for the loss of those pilots.”

“I said that’s enough!” Raising his voice attracted the attention of a few others in the mess hall. Harper noticed a few of them discreetly looking over their shoulders or peeking around their fellow crew members. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get these duty rosters finished.”

Parker turned after him wanting to call him back, but thought better of it. She watched him exit the mess hall and solemnly returned to her meal in silence.

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0830

Bruna System

U.N.S. Aradi CV-01

As they descended onto E deck, Harper admired the new Mark III fighters up close. The aging Mark I and briefly Mark II that Harper had flown when he was younger were almost identical in outward appearance to the Atheon Raven stealth jet of the 20th and 21st century. In his time, the anti-grav generators that now allowed small craft to fly inside the atmosphere with ease, were underdeveloped, and the craft still had to depend on the flight characteristics of its pre-warp counterpart. With the subsequent improvements to the technology, the fuselage had been shortened, the twin ion engines sat closer to the fuselage and lower in the wings to be almost level the ventral warp engine, and it sat on its landing skids closer to the ground. Besides its obvious cosmetic changes, the Mark III also had improved armor, advanced guidance systems, upgraded warp capability, and a nearly impervious LRADAR stealth.

As the bottom of the elevator descended to its lowest position, the light and noise from the hanger bay poured into their small alcove. The sight of the hanger deck still astonished Harper whenever he saw it. It was nearly as wide as the flight deck itself, but did not have the large open doors on either end. It was also only as tall as two decks, as opposed to the flight decks three, from the stern to 21 meters forward, where it shrunk to one. That forward stretch of deck was where the speed lifts would be able to bring large amounts of fighters to the flight deck for immediate launch. Flanking the narrow strip on either side were the Pilot briefing rooms and quarters.

Both levels of the hanger bays were crammed with fighters, maintenance personnel, armaments, and tool boxes. Space would be alleviated later when the ready fighters were moved up to ready position, but the flight deck had been mostly left empty, lest an overly curious civilian damage an obscenely expensive piece of military equipment.

When the elevator stopped, Gallagher motioned for Harper to follow him. They walked haphazardly toward the port side of the hanger bay, dodging various pieces of equipment and crew members who were too hard at work to worry about watching other people’s movements.

“This way if you please, Commander,” Gallagher said over his shoulder as he placed his thumb on a scanner next to a hatch. Glancing up, Harper addressed his mental map of the ship and knew they were entering the small munitions armory for the fighters. A room that at any given time could contain as much as 2,106,000 rounds of ammunition. Enough to fully arm each of the 156 fighters 10 times. E deck contained the personnel armory, and the munitions and feeds for both the Blitzkrieg broadside cannons and the Roll Frame Nighthawk missile launchers.

“I have to ask. Why exactly would the cannon ammunition for the fighters be class four storage,” Harper inquired.

“Easier to show you, sir,” Gallagher replied.

As the hatch slid open, they were met by a particularly formidable looking MP. He gave Gallagher a penetrating stare of evaluation that seemed to shake the Crew Chief’s usually cool demeanor. It seemed an eternity before the MP broke away to see the Commander stripes on Harper’s sleeves, rather than the man himself.

He considered them for another moment and, reluctantly it seemed, moved aside to allow the two men to step over the raised doorway, and gain access to the room. An MP was happiest when blocking a door and intimidating those who wished to enter, Harper pondered with mild amusement. The walls of the large chamber were lined with shelves containing black ammunition cases from floor to ceiling. Harper immediately recognized the cases to be fireproof and blast resistant. The reflective red diamond on every side of the cases, with the silver number 4, caught his attention as well.

Gallagher carefully pulled one of the cases off the shelves and placed it on a barren table in the center of the room. Harper approached with a small amount of unease as Gallagher opened the case and prudently picked up one of the rounds. The tips were a brilliant shade of sapphire and gave the impression that it was made of the precious stone rather than a refined metal.

“You remember the planet they found on the edges of the Recluse system,” Gallagher asked with the grin of a child who had acquired a new play thing.

“An abundance of beautiful, useless, rock, if I recall,” Harper responded.

“Turns out, not so much. That stone is the new bullet for the fighter cannons. If I were to take so much as a match to the tip of this round, If I had a death wish that is, it would melt the cartridge, go through my hand, and most likely end up on K deck before it burned itself out,” he explained, “If we were lucky. There’s some chance it could breach the hull.”

“Even Fomalanium?

“Yes, sir. If it were to sit there long enough at least.”

“That explains a lot,” Harper said as he picked up the round with trepidation. “Definitely worthy of class four.” Every item on a star ship, especially a military vessel, must be accounted for and classified by the danger, or lack thereof, it posed to the ship and the people on it.

Class one storage was the most mundane, and for all intents and purposes, innocuous items. This included, uniforms, paper documents, toiletries, etc. Items that would be nearly impossible to damage the ship with, and you would have to go out of your way to harm a person with. Class two storage items were still mostly harmless, but required special care to prevent damage to the item, such as avoiding moisture, static discharge, or certain temperatures. Things like food, electronics, and sensitive mechanical parts, fell under this category.

Class three storage was the typical classification for most weapons and ammunition on a star ship in this day and age. It identified items that were capable of seriously harming living things or the ship, if properly activated, but not prone to accidents. Powder propellants had been nearly entirely replaced by a gel that reacted explosively when given an electric charge. Even the explosives in the Blitzkrieg cannon shells, and the Nighthawk missiles, fired by Resolution were non-volatile until activated. You could beat on class three items with a hammer, light them on fire, or drop them down three flights of stairs, and you may end up at Captain’s Mast, but no one would die.

Class four storage was typically reserved for dangerous chemicals, which had sub-classes of their own, described items that that if not handled and stored carefully, would most certainly injur or kill crew members, or damage the ship. The bullets in these new rounds could easily cause widespread death, and perhaps even disable or destroy Resolution herself if hit by so much as a stray spark.

“Do you have a plan for protecting these between the store room and the fighters,” Harper asked.

“I’ve requisitioned enough sealed magazines to have every round pre-loaded, and I’ll have a crew of AO’s in here doing just that as soon as you clear the cargo,” Gallagher explained. “These rounds won’t be exposed again till they’re being fired at a Huaren hull.”

“And from the sounds of it, there will be a breech for every hit,” Harper responded with admiration for the new munitions. “Consider them cleared.”

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Commander Harper had made his way down to G deck, via the stairs that ran through the hanger deck workshops, and entered the engineering section through the port ion thruster generator room. He made his way aft and onto the catwalk that over looked the main engineering section, which stretched from port to starboard hulls, and towered from K deck all the way to F deck. The chamber he was in contained various machinery and plumbing for the ship, as well as a large anti-matter reactor, but this wasn’t what he wanted to see.

He descended from the catwalk to the lowest levels and continued aft. In spite of the fact that Aradi was not in motion, the roar of the machinery was still nearly deafening. The other thing that made the engineering section unique was that, at least until the equipment was broken in, it needed more space than engineers, so the loud cavernous room appeared to be nearly deserted.

A few moments later, he arrived at a hatch on a curving bulkhead. To the left of the hatch was a thick pipe, which he knew fed from the warp intake on the bow of the ship, and another identical hatch. He hit the button to slide open the hatch, and stepped over the lip of the door, entering the large cylindrical room.

In front of him towered a gleaming white reactor, climbing nearly to F deck. At each deck level it was wrapped in a catwalk and fed by various pipe lines and control panels. Several engineers were taking readings, and checking valves. Two levels up, Lt. Commander Kara Miles heard the hatch closing and looked down with a smile.

“Welcome, Commander,” She shouted down.

“Commander,” Harper responded with severity and professionalism, looking up at her just under the brim of his cap, “Status report.”

“Warp reactor is running at peak efficiency, all systems are go,” she replied, following his lead in her demeanor. She wore a navy blue jumpsuit already stained with engine grease, her jet black hair pulled back practically against her neck. Hazel skinned, sharp eyed, and entirely at home in the noise and heat of the engine room. She carried herself like she was already home on this new ship, which was more than Harper could even say for himself.

“If you could, clear your personnel from the room,” he said, trying to maintain that it was an order, but also trying not to sound too harsh.”

“You heard him, move on to the other items on your checklist,” she relayed to the other crew members. They quickly ended their work and exited through the hatches on the upper levels. She began her descent to the lower level and Harper shed his official posture, removing his cap and hanging it on the grip of his side arm.

“Thank you,” he said without looking at her.

“I was wondering when you would make it down here,” She said with sly grin as she trotted down the steps, skipping every other.

“You know me too well,” He replied as he stepped onto the platform that straddled the pipeline from the warp intake. He hovered his hands inches over the lettering on the reactors surface, declaring: “Steinland Motor Company 2000c Warp Engine,” not wanting to smudge the polished chrome characters.

He placed his full hand instead on the plain surface of the machine and felt a rush of adrenaline as the vibrations from beneath permeated his body.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle this,” she asked playfully. Having served with him on the battleship U.N.S. Beowulf, she was well aware that he suffered from, or rather enjoyed, a condition known as “warp euphoria.” Some people were susceptible to a strong physiological effect from warp travel, either “warp euphoria” or “warp anxiety.”

“You know the effects are too benign to be of any concern,” he replied, ignoring her snarky tone.

“Yes, but they haven’t had the opportunity to test any one with those conditions on a ship this fast,” she fired back.

“Well, I guess we will find out soon,” he said as he smiled slyly at her. He took a deep breath and felt the vibrations for a moment longer before pulling away reluctantly and descending from the platform with a short hop. He cleared his throat and pulled his cap back onto his head. He resumed his military posture and addressed her in a serious tone, “We depart at 0930, and I expect the Captain will get all 2000c’s out of this machine, should he need them?”

She straightened up and saluted, “Yes, sir!”

“Very well then,” he responded, allowing a half smile to flash at her before exiting the room.

When Harper exited the elevator he had already shed his dress uniform. He now donned the work standard black BDUs with a silver globe pins on his right collar, and 3 silver stripes on his right sleeve. The tube like elevator sat a short 4 steps below flight operations in a semi-circular

Directing the action was Lt. Commander Sarah Parker. Tall, sharp-featured, and dark haired with the kind of presence that made junior officers straighten without being told. Harper had known her since the BSDF. She was his wingman and best friend before he transferred, as well as one of the best pilots he’d ever flown with. He knew better than most that the polite smile she offered new acquaintances was a courtesy, not an invitation. More than a few junior officers had mistaken it for warmth and learned otherwise quickly.

She caught his eye across the deck, gave him a single professional nod, and returned to her work.

Above flight operations was the great dome that separated it, and the bridge, from the vacuum outside, but gave both crews a clear view in every direction away from the dorsal hull.

The bridge was forward and about 6 steps above flight operations via two curved staircases. The Captains chair sat atop the elevator on a circular platform that gave him a view of both crews as well as the entire dome in 360 degrees and the flight operations windows.

Captain McLeod turned in his chair, and looked down on Harper.

“Commander, glad you could join us,” he said nonchalantly, before returning his attention forward. Harper ascended onto the bridge via the starboard staircase. Immediately in front of the captain’s chair was a stepped recess to the bridge consoles. Starting with the pilot’s station on center port, and tactical on the opposite side.

Forward of those consoles was the operations console. From here, macro communications were operated, RADAR analyzed, anomalies tracked, and a host of other functions. On the rear of the recess facing outward fwere two auxiliary consoles. The unit to the captains left was for internal security, and to the right was internal operations, including damage control and engineering monitoring.

The bridge controls, as well as the controls in many key areas of the ship, were still operated with analog switches, levers, and dials. Touch screen technology was convenient in many respects, but was still prone to damage and malfunction, and could not be depended on for the most important ship operations.

As Harper approached, McLeod checked one of the many data screens on the arms of his chair. Noting the time, he smiled and spoke to the macro operations officer, “Ensign Sato, lets clear the moorings and get this boat on its way.

“Aye, sir,” He scrolled through data on one of his screens before continuing, “All supplies and personnel are on board, instructing dry dock crews to clear the umbilical lines and prepare to unlock docking clamps on your order.”

“Instruct engineering to warm up the ion thrusters and prime the warp reactor,” McLeod directed to the micro operations officer on his right, without taking his eyes off the stars ahead. He briefly glanced at one of the screens on his chair to verify the order had been carried out.

“Moorings are cleared, standing by to release docking clamps,” Ensign Sato sounded.

“Release now. Helm, ahead auxiliary thrusters full,” McLeod directed.

“Ahead auxiliary thrusters full,” the helm officer, Lieutenant Palmer, repeated. Harper stood next to the Captain with his arms behind his back and watched as the nose of the ship peeked out of the dry dock doors, the vastness of space enveloping the dome more with every moment. As the bridge fully passed the threshold, the reflection of the sun on his former assignment, the U.N.S. Beowulf, as well as three other battleships that had been assigned to the launch ceremony, caught his eye, and it appeared it had grabbed the Captain’s attention too.

Though in the U.N.C. military, vessels rarely traveled together, the public still held on to the nostalgic image of a fleet of warships sailing off in formation, so the powers that be granted their wish. Harper felt the tug of nostalgia himself, having spent a good portion of his naval career on that vessel, but knew it could not compare to what McLeod felt, having commanded her for seven years. They both, however, knew that Captain Timothy Adkins was a fine choice for commanding officer of the aging vessel.

The slow monotonous procedure of clearing dry dock space passed surprisingly quickly with the anticipation that seemed to arc like lightning through the entire bridge and flight operations crew. Before they knew it, the vessels were in formation and ion thrusters were engaged, pushing the vessels along at 800 kilometers per second.

“Ensign Sato, inform the other vessels to set coordinates for their first patrol destinations and prepare to warp out after us,” McLeod explained, “Helm set ours for Tennant one.”

“What speed, sir,” Palmer inquired.

“1500c’s is fine. The media won’t know the difference,” McLeod responded slyly. He glanced up and saw the disappointment on Harper’s face. “Don’t worry, Commander, we’ll stretch her legs soon enough,” he added.

“Why Tennant one? The first system on our patrol is Murphrid,” Harper pointed out.

“You’ll see soon enough,” McLeod replied.

“All ships have responded, waiting for our mark,” Sato chimed in.

“Good. Here goes nothing I guess. Would you like to do the honors, Commander,” McLeod directed at Harper.

“Absolutely, sir. Helm, prepare to jump on my mark,” Commander Harper ordered as he sat in the jump seat attached to the railing next to the Captain. A moment later the aft warp field port on the U.N.S. Aradi ignited, and the ship was gone, leaving behind only a bolt of light stretching into the black.

0800

Bruna System

U.N.S. Aradi CV-01

Commander John Harper stood on the flight deck of the newly constructed U.N.S. Aradi, staring absentmindedly at the glare on the nearly untouched floor. He lifted his black naval cap and slicked his dark brown hair back before pulling the it back onto his head. As he straightened his service ribbons and did a brief inspection of his service dress blacks, he noticed the top of the third bar on his right sleeve was slightly frayed, but did his best not to draw attention to it. He was acutely conscious of the news camera pointed in his direction from his right side.

In front of the camera was a middle aged female reporter in a retina burning blue pant suit. He watched as her stiff blond hair bounced with her optimistic, teleprompter fed monologue on the history of the project, and the new hope this ship instilled for the end of the Hauren war. Harper contemplated the term “war” as it applied to the current conflict.

He knew the 72 year conflict with the Haurens fit the dictionary definition of war, but had often felt the term was unfitting. After what was likely humanity’s longest era of peace the Hauren’s had locked our species into a campaign of perpetual defense that outlasted any of our previous conflicts. He often wondered if it wasn’t some form of karmic retribution.

The U.N.C. Military Council had debated sending the Aradi on a scouting expedition to find the Hauren home world, but the idea was unpopular. Though their faster than light technology was now surpassed by our own, all attempts to trace their origins led to empty space; and their dense star charts suggested a home turf somewhere much close to the center of the spiral arm or even the center of the galaxy. At best guess, Haurens possessed some higher tier of galactic travel that they used before warping to their target. Even if we could guess the right direction, they may be out of reach.

To Harper’s left was Captain Tavish McLeod, six feet tall and so slender that He often wondered how he could be seen from the side. Harper had served under McLeod for three of his four years in the U.N.C. Navy, but still found him to be an enigma. He fought a smile at the uncharacteristic disgruntled look on his commanding officer’s face. In spite of being nearly completely bald, McLeod despised wearing hats. This was a trait that had frequently gotten him in trouble as a cadet, nearly 25 years prior. They had now been standing on the rear half of the flight deck for nearly 15 minutes, staring at the aft flight deck doors, and the captain was growing increasingly impatient.

Harper used this moment to properly observe the rest of the flight deck. He hadn’t realized till now how their busy schedule since arriving on board had kept him from taking in the ship. The flight deck as a whole ran the entire 335 meters of the ship. Shaped like an elongated flat top pyramid, the empty space covered the equivalent of roughly three decks as was apparent in the mirrored ventral portion of Aradi’s hull. The forward quarter of the flight deck was the primary launch platform for the ship’s first and second wing of fighters. Powered by active magnets, Aradi could launch fighters at combat speed allowing them to remain idle until clear of the ship. The second quarter had a retractable deck allowing the fighters to be brought to or from the flight deck together. A little past the half way point was the central pylon which contained both the officers lift and the central stairs allowing travel from the bridge and Flight Operations to the flight deck and the decks below.

Most of the civilians on board were currently gathered near the pylon while the present officers and crew were lined on either side of what doubled as the combat landing deck and where the last two wings of fighters could be brought to the flight deck. Behind himself and the line of officers across from him were two diagonal launch decks in the forward swept wing like structure son Aradi’s port and starboard sides. In theory, using all three launch decks, the Aradi could have her entire compliment of fighters clear of the ship in under two minutes.

A quick series of two tones came over Harper’s earpiece as Lieutenant Commander Sarah Parker, second officer and currently in command of the bridge, connected to the Captain and himself.

“Bridge to the Captain.”

“Go ahead,” McLeod responded, as he looked up at the observation windows of Flight Operations.

“The fighters are leaving Langley now. Construction workers are clear and they are ready to open the dry dock.”

“Understood. As soon as the dry dock is equalized, open the aft flight deck doors.”

Harper spread his legs a little further apart to improve his balance. As the dry dock doors opened, the force of the escaping air caused the ship to shake, even more so for those standing on the deck plating designed to move when the first wave of fighters is lifted to the deck for launch. The hull of the ship groaned as it settled between the internal air pressure, and the vacuum of space. The shaking and groaning was visibly disturbing to the civilians on board, and mildly so for the younger officers and crewmen.

Moments later, the aft doors of the flight deck slid sideways into their recesses on either side, leaving a nine meter high triangular hole, where the blue, green, and white marble of a planet below could be seen reflecting in the brilliance of the sun against the blackness of space.

The speed at which the doors opened was impressive. Harper shuddered slightly at the logic behind this design. The containment field designed to hold in air on the flight deck while the doors were open was a recent development. Auxiliary craft on other vessels were launched from docking bays that had to be depressurized before launch, but the flight deck of the Resolution had to be able to remain pressurized while vessels were launching and landing, due to the 20 to 40 personnel on deck at any given time. The containment field thankfully had its own power source, but the designers of the Admiral King Class assault carrier knew that it was not impervious to damage. In the event of a containment field failure, the doors needed to be able to close quickly, but no one wanted to imagine the consequences for the deck crew due to the rapid decompression, and the possibility of being sucked out the doors before they closed.

The chairman of the U.N.C., Lawrence Taft, stood to Harper’s right side. He was a portly man, with a graying mustache and an impressive full head of hair for a man of 83. Harper had noticed that he was slightly nervous since he arrived on the ship, but became increasingly agitated since the flight deck doors opened.

“Shouldn’t we be wearing oxygen masks?” Lawrence whispered to Commander Harper, while keeping a strained smile his face, because he was also acutely aware of the cameras pointed in his direction, and cared a great deal more.

He was referring to the oxygen masks the deck crew wore during launches and combat landings. As vessels come through the containment field that separates the air on the flight deck from the vacuum outside, there is a small exchange that results in a loss of air from the deck. When large amounts of vessels are going through the field in close succession or simultaneously, the loss of air can be more than the life support system can keep up with, and thus, breathing can become difficult. However, an engineer had assured Harper that this would not be an issue during the landing ceremony, as only five fighters would be crossing the barrier, while the rest of the ships compliment of 156 fighters were already stowed away on the deck below.

“Not to worry, Mr. Chairman, with only five fighters coming through, the air loss will be negligible and brief,” Harper responded, smiling as if they had exchanged a joke.

The Chairman nodded his head, and some of the color returned to his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Harper saw the reflection of the sun on the five Valkyrie Mark III space superiority fighters approaching the ship. A feeling of bitter anticipation welled up inside him.

Harper joined the Bruna Space Defense Force at age 17. By the time he was 18, with his natural ability for flying the Mark I and his aptitude for leadership, earned him two promotions and a position as CAG for the entire BSDF.

This all felt like a life time ago. At age 21, Harper had transferred to the U.N.C. Navy as a Lieutenant, and never looked back. However, he knew that being around fighter craft on a regular basis was going to inspire a nagging sense of nostalgia. There was a chime over the flight deck’s PA system, and the voice of Lieutenant Symon Anatoli, the next officer in charge of flight operations after Parker, boomed with surprising clarity over the large and cavernous flight deck.

“Attention all hands, fighters inbound and cleared for landing. ETA, less than one minute. Prepare for recovery procedures, and maintain a safe distance.”

The crewmen lining the port and starboard side of the aft portion of the flight deck, dressed in black BDUs, stood at attention. Even the deck crew, which was standing on the aft starboard auxiliary craft elevator, ended their chatter and diverted their attention to the open doors. The civilians and media all watched the approaching fighters with a mix of awe and intimidation, leaving a silence so prevalent, the only things that could be heard were the ventilation system and boot steps from various decks reverberating through the bulk heads.

The lead fighter engaged braking thrusters and the two fighters on each side followed suit. The maneuver was so perfect that in spite of the change in velocity, all five craft maintained the exact same formation, giving the impression that they were a solid unit, attached to each other by some invisible force.

They slowed just enough to allow them all the room they needed to land, and crossed the threshold with blue hued static exchange between the fighters’ hulls and the containment field. When they had all crossed into the flight decks atmosphere, the craft leaned back slightly and engaged their ventral thrusters, both stopping their forward momentum, and controlling their vertical descent onto the deck.

A mechanical whir could be heard in quintuplet as the landing skids descended, and the fighters softly landed. The civilians immediately erupted in applause as the canopies opened and ladders descended from beside the cockpits. Harper smiled at how easily the crowd was amused. Seeing the same maneuver performed at high velocity during combat was significantly more impressive, but no civilian had ever witnessed this in person.

The lead pilot stood up and placed a boot on the first step of his ladder, before taking off his flight helmet. He tucked it under his arm and smiled as he waved at the crowd with a movie star smile. Harper was almost instantly annoyed. Being a fighter pilot himself at one point, he was well aware that since they first put a gun on an airplane in the 20th century, fighter pilots were treated like royalty. He was also aware of how this treatment would affect a pilot’s humility, but had grown out of it since joining the U.N.C. Navy, and found the behavior associated with it annoying.

“Just what a naval vessel needs, sir,” he said under his breath to McLeod, “a bunch of cocky fighter pilots.”

“Relax, Commander, they’ll learn soon enough that there’s no limelight out there on the front lines,” McLeod responded.

After reveling in the attention, the lead pilot, a handsome man with close cut black hair and a sparkling smile, descended the ladder and approached McLeod before nonchalantly saluting.

“Major John Glenn, reporting for duty, sir,” the pilot said in a very casual tone. The captain didn’t seem to notice.

“Welcome aboard, Major, your flight record is the most impressive I’ve seen since our Commander here hung up his helmet,” McLeod said, extending his hand to the pilot, “I’m sure you will make an excellent CAG for the Aradi.”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll try not to disappoint. If you don’t mind I would like go below and meet the rest of my pilots.”

“Absolutely, Major, you’re dismissed.”

The U.N.C. public relations director began to direct the civilians and media off of the flight deck, and off the ship, as the fighter craft were magnetically taxied to the auxiliary elevator. Harper watched as the fighter craft turned their collective port hulls towards him, and the circular green emblem, with the head of a timber wolf, gleamed on the tails of the craft in the flight decks bright, if slightly jaundicing, light.

The Crew Chief, Gerard Gallagher, approached Harper and McLeod in a decidedly non-military gate, but when he arrived stood at attention and gave a salute worthy of a commissioned officer. Gallagher was a husky man of average height. His hair was a short dark and curly, and usually matted with sweat. His right hand, now held level with his eyes, was thick with callous, and betrayed the hands on approach he took to his supervisory role on the maintenance deck.

“Captain, Commander,” he said, without the characteristic unease that most non-commissioned officers had on the rare occasion they spoke to senior officers.

“As you were, Crewman,” McLeod replied, “How can we help you?”

“The last of the ammunition for the fighters has been loaded, but because of the nature of the munitions, I need a senior officer’s signature before I can take delivery officially.”

Harper exchanged a significant glance with the Captain, and returned his gaze to the Crew Chief with an arched brow.

“Why do we need to personally approve a simple supply of ammunition,” Harper queried.

“The new ammunition is considered class four for storage, sir,” Gallagher replied.

There was another significant glance between Harper and the captain, this time with a little more urgency. Gallagher looked on with anticipation, and perhaps, Harper reflected, a slight amusement at the senior officers’ confusion.

“Commander, go down to the maintenance deck and find out what’s going on here,” the Captain directed, with more than a hint of curiosity in his voice. “While you’re at it, check in with every department personally, make sure they are ready for departure at 0930. I’ll be on the bridge.”

“Understood, Captain. With me, Chief,” Harper said as he led the way towards the personnel elevator. Gallagher saw this and corrected him.

Actually, Commander, it would be faster to go down with the fighters,” he said with a smile. Harper looked at the craft elevator as if he had never seen it before.

“I suppose you have a point,” Harper conceded.

They walked over to the auxiliary elevator and stood facing the flight deck. Harper put a hand on the hull of one of the fighters as Gallagher flipped a switch to his right. Amber warning lights lit and spun and the elevator jolted to life. He began to feel like himself again, as the civilians, media, and the flight deck in its entirety, disappeared from view.

Second and more importantly there is a “content creator” known as Joule Potter who has spent the last year creating only drama with other creators including my partner. She has now resorted to adding copyrighted and trademarked characters by other creators into her weird self serving Harry Potter fan fiction as villains. This includes characters belonging to my partner. It seems we have no choice but to formalize a few things and teach this nearly 30 year old that her fantasy about being untouchable mary sue and a minor in a YA Fantasy series will not protect her from adult consequences in court. As such we will be joining a growing list of actual creators in pursuing legal action against her.

Between these two things I will not have a lot of time to work on my own art. While not declaring an official hiatus, I will not have a set release schedule for the foreseeable future. Content will be released as I am able to complete it. I apologize for anyone anticipating more from any of my currently active projects, and appreciate your understanding.

1415 Eyrth Standard Time

Outside Vega system

“I dreamed a dream, the other night,” a scrawny long-haired pilot sang out from behind the navigation console.

Voices echoed from the belly of the ship to join the others on the bridge in response to his call, “Low-lands. Lowlands away, my john.”

“My love she came, all dressed in white.”

“My lowlands, away!”

Captain Dennis Kripton allowed the rhythm of the centuries old sea shanty lull him into a kind of meditation, adjusting himself in the captains chair that had long since formed to his weathered and lean build. He rubbed his face which was carved with lines from decades of squinting at faulty display screens and star glare, and seriously considered allowing himself a nap.

“And bravely in her bosom fair.”

“Lowlands, Lowlands away, my John,”

“A red, red rose my love did-” The Captain snapped back from his zen like state when the pilot stopped his singing. “Arriving, Vega two, in approximately five minutes,” the pilot finished amelodically .

Dennis Kripton snapped back from his silent musings at the crewman’s announcement, and checked the antique time piece on his wrist as he ran his fingers through his short, salt and iron hair. “Very good, Mister Spears. Three hours ahead of schedule,” He said as he rose from his seat. His boots, which were older than some of the colonies, clanked on the deck plating as he walked around his seat to the navigation console behind him. He leaned on the console and regarded it in quiet wonder, knowing this was an impressive feat for his vessel.

“Yes, sir. Skipping that dog-leg past Miranda was a good call on your part.”

The captain smirked and patted Spears on the back. “Humility will get you everywhere, Mister Spears. But, I won’t be taking credit for your navigation skills. Well done,” he said as he straightened with a grunt. He winced through the pain and wondered how a lifetime in sub-Eyrth gravity still had him feeling so much older than 52. “This calls for a celebration. When we finish unloading, I don’t think I’ll be rationing the liquor stores. We can always restock while we’re here.” The crew members on the bridge beamed at him silently as he returned to his seat and planted his feet firmly on the deck plating, which was vibrating in rhythm with the Steinland Motor Company 1000c warp engine.

Most of Dennis’ ship, the S.S. Red Witch, was close to 150 years old. Some said the oldest of its class still flying. His great-grandfather had used his life savings from making runs across the The Trinity, the small cluster of stars with the human home system Bruna at its center, to purchase this ship. That was shortly after a United Nations research grant had resulted in the first warp engine fast enough for true interstellar commerce. Dennis’ father was born and raised on this ship, and 30 some years later, Dennis was born to follow in his footsteps.

The only 52 year old engine, and the ship’s third, was pulling them at a theoretical speed of nearly a thousand times the speed of light. Their destination was one of the newest colonies, Vega II. Just over 25 light-years from the Eyrth, Vega II was a booming colony on the frontier that could theoretically just now see the light that Bruna emitted the year it was founded. A gem of civilization at the edge of human reach.

Dennis always loved the runs to this planet. It reminded him of how far humans had come in such a short period of time. In 2050 with the third world war ending, the new U.N. achieved unanimous participation, and began to make major strides in sustainable technology. Two centuries of relative peace later the human race was spread out over countless sovereign colonies more than 20 light years in every direction.

The possibilities seemed endless, as only plant and animal life had been found on the few already habitable planets. The rest of the colonies were terraformed or featured modular settlements. Vega II always reminded Dennis of Eyrth. A crisp blue and green planet with an abundance of both urban and rural communities, but un-scarred by the industrialization and war that had plagued Eyrth. It was Eyrth with a second chance.

A klaxon blared from the helm and Spears moved over to the display screen with concern. Spears swept his long brown hair out of his eyes and sighed but his expression relaxed. “Sure you don’t want to take credit for navigating, captain?”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“Engineering is requesting we finish the approach on sub-lights. Engine’s running hotter than he would like.”

“What will that do to our ETA”

“Should take about forty-five minutes to complete the approach.”

“Disengage the warp drive. Bring the Ion drives to full. And, don’t worry. We still gained two hours.”

The warp field quickly disintegrated as the ship resumed sub-light velocity.

“Captain.” The helmsman said quietly.

“What is it,” Dennis said, looking over his shoulder. The helmsman didn’t answer, but Dennis followed his gaze and soon saw what had disturbed his pilot. In the distance, small explosions could be seen just outside the atmosphere of Vega II. “Magnify by 200.”

He heard his comms officer oblige with a few clicks on the console to his right, and static filled the forward view port as the magnification screen activated. The static gave way to what should have been the pristine surface of Vega II, but instead showed population centers clouded over by billowing black smoke and being rained down on by strange beams of energy from the sky.

As the view panned, it was filled with a dark shape, spinning in space. Spinning, Dennis could tell, by the glowing red accents that arched through the screen.

“Reduce magnification,” He ordered as he stood and approached the screen. The image changed instantly, and what it revealed brought his heart into his throat. A ship, of some sort. Nothing a human would ever design, but a great blade in space. At least 8000 The ship had a pronounced axial orientation, symmetrical and was pushed by absolutely massive plasma sub-light engines that looked to be spreading radioactive waste as it moved. The red accents he had previously observed were weapons, swatting planetary defense forces out of the black like flies, and raining hellfire on the planet below. Due the the ships wedge like shape, every weapon from the bow to the stern was capable of firing straight ahead to the planet’s surface when it wasn’t shooting down the small craft trying to stop its advance.

Dennis turned his back on the screen, the sounds of the bridge muffled in the rush of blood to his ears. It seemed like an eternity before his helmsman’s voice broke through the din. “Captain, what are your orders?”

Dennis looked at Spears for a long moment, then over his shoulder at the carnage ahead. This isn’t an attack, he thought, this is defeat.

“Abandon ship.” The words had escaped his lips before he had completed the thought. He repeated himself with more conviction when he had realized that he subconsciously came to the only move they had left. “All hands abandon ship.”

“Captain, abandon ship to where? Shouldn’t we turn tail and run?” Spears’ voice had an air of fear and doubt that Dennis had never heard in him before. Under the circumstances, he forgave him for it.

Dennis firmly grasped his officer by both shoulders and feigned a smile. “Mister Spears, I leave the crew in your capable hands. When it’s over, get them planet side.”

“When what’s over? Captain there’s nothing we can do.”

“Not we. Me. You have your orders, Mister Spears. Get to the escape craft.” On that note, he took the seat behind the helm controls and started disabling safety protocols. In his heightened, adrenaline fueled state, he could hear his officer open his mouth to protest, but it was followed by silence. His bridge officer was intelligent. Too intelligent for this line of work, Dennis had sometimes thought, and had realized what the Captain intended to do.

“You heard the Captain. To the lifeboat, now.” Mister spears left the bridge and the sounds of boots on deck plating signaled that the rest of the bridge crew had followed suit. Dennis continued his work at the console. He barely glanced at the flashing orange indicator on the screen to his right, signaling that the lifeboat had disembarked.

He continued his work in silence as he mused on how fortunate he was he had never chosen to bring children into the life he and his father had lived. Glancing at the forward view port he did some quick math in his head, entering the results in the nav computer. Another indicator flashed urgently, this time in red. He ignored this as well, not only by laissez-faire, but entered commands into the console coaxing the computer to share his apathy towards the fatal result of his plan.

He unlocked the guard on the warp engine throttle and pushed it to its forward most position. Listening to the aged warp engine struggle to reach its peak power level, he pondered the unfamiliar ship ahead. He thought about the fact that he would never know what exactly had happened today. Nor would he ever know if what he was about to do would make any difference.

A quiet high tone emitted from the console, accompanied by a flashing pearl white indicator next to the warp engine throttle. He ran his finger over the polished surface of the switch next to it, a small grin crossing his face. He wasn’t certain why. Leaning back in his seat he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before flipping the switch.

Alexander Baxton felt a pang of guilt as he was shuffled through the stirring crowd. He couldn’t look in any direction without seeing a face touched by this tragedy. The death tolls hadn’t even begun to be calculated, but one thing was for sure, the Colony President was dead. Along with…well, he had never counted the elected officials above him in the line of succession. That’s how low on the list he was.

He was a representative of an outlying rural area. A visit to his constituency that day may have been the only thing that had spared him from the fate of his colleagues. He risked a glance at the crowd and saw the soot covered faces of the people that would now be looking to him for leadership.

The pang of guilt deepened. An entire world was in mourning and he was thinking of himself. He couldn’t help it. He had no ambitions for power. He had entered politics for no other than reason than to represent the community he had spent his childhood in since his parents brought him here from Eyrth. Yet here he was, in charge of an entire planet, on the tail end of a historic tragedy.

He looked up at the sky, where several hours ago a great alien vessel, piloted by a species who had identified themselves as the Hauren, had unleashed devastation on his world, before being destroyed themselves. The image of its destruction was burned into his memory. The few remaining planetary defense ships that had witnessed it said it appeared that a vessel had intentionally warped directly into the coordinates that the alien vessel had occupied.

Alexander tried to summon the same courage it must have taken to make that sacrifice, hopefully to the same end; saving his people. Near the end of his procession to the New Alexandria City Library, the temporary government headquarters in light of the tragedy, a throng of reporters struggled to get close to him. He had to restrain what he felt would be an inappropriate grin. Most of them were injured, and their equipment was whatever they could get their hands on after the attack. On Vega, everyone was committed to their trade.

His security detail cleared his path through the reporters up the steps of the makeshift capital building. The reporters shouted at him, a clamor of indecipherable questions. Something stopped him just before he reached the doors of the library. He felt a calling to speak, to give his displaced citizens solid ground to stand on.

Ignoring the protests of his security detail he walked back to the reporters, who surrounded him in a semi-circle. A deathly silence fell over the crowd, waiting for words that would bring any sense to this chaotic time. He looked up at the sky one more time, seeking that evasive courage, before he spoke.

“When we swept away the bonds of our home planet, and ventured into the stars, it was a testament to human spirit and evolution. We reached out into the universe, venerable, but determined to continue our existence free from the horrors of our violent past. We found the universe to be all but empty, and we thought we were safe. Thought we were alone. What happened today has forced us to face the reality that though we as a species have learned to live in peace, we will encounter those who are not as enlightened, and will want to harm us to take what we have. Since colonization of extra-terrestrial worlds began, the colonies have always enjoyed a high level of autonomy, but with a threat of this magnitude, we will not survive standing on our own. The human race must join together in mutual defense, or we will all parish. My first action as acting Colony President will be to petition the United Nations and the other colonies to form an interstellar military. Just because we have become a peaceful species, does not mean we will allow this travesty to go unanswered. ”

The crowd erupted in applause. It didn’t mean much, but it was more than they had before. He walked away, and into the confines of the library, unknowing that his candid call to action would result in the creation of the United Nations and Colonies, and the beginning of the first Human interstellar war.

Technically this is the half way point of the current Bold Wolf Studios “season” but with the ongoing conflict with a particular Tik Tok/Youtube creator, my sudden decision go into semi-retirement from game streaming and other headaches there was a definite loss of momentum and I would like to set some goals to hit the ground running in the second half. So, here are the things I hope to get done In the second half of the season.

Writing

I am in the process of setting up my paid Substack publication for full length works and will be releasing chapters or “episodes” of these stories over the next year, at least one per month.

Bad Star

I hope to release the Prologue for ARADI: Bad Star before the new year. ARADI is the new name for what was the Resolution series and will be revamped under the new world building for that universe. Bad Star follows the story of the newly completed assault carrier ARADI as it joins the century long conflict with the Hauren; As Commander John Harper is thrust into command, he finds himself leading a historic mission to bring the fight to the Hauren for the first time ever. What he discovers behind enemy lines changes his understanding of both human history, and the nature of the universe itself.

Rise of the Regulators

Prequel to the Winds of Earrenia D&D campaign. This series will depict the adventures of the crew of The Vestige; A band of unlikely band of outlaws wake on an airship to find their memories erased, a strange stone tablet in their hold, and a cryptic message directing them to Palhas City. When their ship crashes into a field outside White Bluff, they find themselves the target of a cult, with trouble following in their wake and the gods keeping an uncomfortably watchful eye as they try to piece their lives back together. Follow along as this grounded crew of smugglers become The Regulators, altering the course of history and reshaping the political landscape of the continent of Earrenia.

Ásherja: Awakening

In the year 2020 human civilization seems to be at the peak of technological innovation and the depths of human despair. Governments around the world are a facade for corporate power, and proxy wars are being fought at a rate that has reduced them to background noise in the human psyche. Most human population has clustered into overcrowded neon soaked cities the escape the deadly wastelands between them. Jaden West, a young man with a special gift he has long suppressed, is on the verge of losing hope in himself and humanity when he encounters a strange vigilante with no cybernetics, and the same powers Jaden swore off as a child. He finds himself initiated into an ancient order of supernatural warriors dedicated protecting humanity from the most powerful entities on Eyrth.

Music

H.E.X. is definitely proving to be a bigger undertaking than expected. Shaking the rust off of my guitar playing is an arduous task and recording as a one person band has a serious learning curve but I am persisting. Simultaneously working on an album of songs from my teen years growing up in Lorain (along with some new ones written from that perspective) and a modern album that will hopefully show a growth in style and perspective. Hope to be able to release at least a few songs during 2026.

Tabletop

Looks like we finally have a full table for Shattered Skies. It has been almost as long since Winds of Earrenia as that campaign lasted which is depressing but we seem to be on track to start the new Pathfinder campaign at the start of 2026. The episodes may be live streamed with a loose start time and possibly subscriber only but they will definitely be recorded and I am hoping to release abridged versions similar to the way Critical Role does for those who want to follow the story but don’t have time to watch 4-8 hours of game-play every month. If anyone has a passion for video editing and tabletop I am more than willing to hand that off to a volunteer to make sure it gets done, but I will do my best to keep that up if it comes to it.

Narrative Expanse

I have been talking about doing this podcast since Halloween before last. I have twice failed to secure a guest co-host for the pilot episode. I am considering trying to do it solo but I really feel it would be best served by a conversational format. However I think recording it without a set deadline may be the way to get it done. I am working on a few extra topics so I can try to find guests and have a slate of episodes ready to release sometime in 2026 possibly beginning with the new season in august.

Bold Wolf Gaming

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little miserable with this semi-retirement thing. It still seems like I made the right choice logically but i miss streaming 3 times a week. I do have some special events planned throughout the rest of this season, and I hope they work out well because going to a completely open ended (non) schedule for my streams has eliminated what little occasional audience I had. Even my lead mod doesn’t pop in anymore. If I am ever able to build this community back up i may consider going back to abbreviated set schedule.

Countdown To Halloween 2026

As I said before with Bold Wolf Gaming becoming a low priority side project, Next Year’s season opener the Countdown To Halloween charity event will be under the Bold Wolf Studios Banner going forward. There will still be a lot of horror gaming, but I also plan some public domain horror movie watch parties, hopefully an episode of the Narrative Expanse podcast, another horror story release and other fun stuff to raise money for Extra-Life and Gillette’s Children Hospitals.

A plan, if we can keep it.

So, there it is. I feel at the lowest I have since I started any of these creative endeavors but I am planning what may be my most ambitious year yet. I hope this time next year that I pulled most of this off and more importantly achieve what I always really wanted, which is a growing community of art lovers, nerds and general weirdos like myself. AI and the current regime of the US government seems intent to destroy my passion for both art and life, but this year I hope to achieve a small act of revolution by maintaining both, and I hope to have a community of people to stand with me in that.

Alice opened the main door of her small apartment complex, and let the small ball of fur some dared to call dog, walk out ahead of her. It was a bright and breezy day, as it usually was due to Alice’s insistence, and the sound of children’s laughter could be heard from a nearby playground. Unlike the favorable forecast, the sounds of children had the opposite of its intended calming effect. The idea of children living and playing near this horrible place made Alice ill, despite her knowledge that for many reasons, they could never come to any harm.

All at once, Alice felt the familiar chill run up her spine. When she first reported the sensation to the technicians, they were baffled and tried in vain for months to find an answer. Alice no longer needed one. It became clear to her that it was a deeply psychosomatic symptom, a leftover gift from her primal ancestors. A warning of approaching danger set off by the quiet sounds of footfalls, a pattern of breathing, or any other signs that were too vague for her conscious senses, but sent the animal parts of her brain into overload to prepare for the approach of mortal danger. Though the sensation was unsettling, she grew thankful for the warning that saved her from being startled by his usual morning greeting. “Good morning, Alice. Beautiful day.”

She turned to the voice and instantly put on her most friendly smile. “Good morning, Erik. It certainly is,” she replied, brushing her curly blonde locks behind her ears. Standing on the balcony of his second-floor apartment, a mug of steaming coffee cupped between his hands, was her mark; Erik Landers. She did a quick visual evaluation of him, his face, chin, and neck were covered in stubble as usual, and his long greasy hair was pulled back, which was uncommon but nothing to be alarmed about. He stroked his pointed chin and said, “It always seems to be a beautiful day when I see you.” His expression had turned somber and he stared blankly at the swaying trees. Alice’s stomach dropped and she opened her mouth to speak, but his smile returned before looking down at her. “Must just be your presence.”

Alice felt equally sick at his attempted charm as she was relieved that his observation was not as ominous as it sounded. Already reaching her limit, she decided to dive right into her evaluation questions. “How’s the family?”

“Good. Everyone is happy,” he replied. Unspecific and not overly emotional. Just as the answer is meant to be.

“Watched anything good lately?”

“I’ve been watching a lot of classics lately. My favorite is The Raymond Cole Show.” A wholesome, if horribly dated family sitcom from a couple centuries ago. Dated even in the time that their environment was meant to imitate. Alice would feel tortured with such limited viewing options. She knew, however, that it was exactly the kind of content that Erik should be watching. She looked at the waving trees, and then down at the dog who was walking absentmindedly in circles at the edge of the invisible leash barrier. She twisted the dial on her belt, extending the barrier with the hope that the dog would resume normal behavior.

“It’s such a nice day. I hope you plan to go out and enjoy it.,” She said without any strong emotion.

As expected, the emotion in his face faded as well, and his eyes seemed to gloss over, the sign of behavior modification kicking in. “No. I think I’ll stay in today.”

Alice smiled. “That’s too bad. Well, have a nice day anyway.” She headed for the door, but Erik called out to her.

“Alice! Don’t forget your dog’s mess.” She looked back at her dog and saw that it had squatted and left a pile of brown waste lying accusingly in the center of the complex’s lawn. She rolled her eyes while she was still out of Erik’s view, then pulled the cleaning device from her belt, removing the waste from the ground and turning it back into pure energy. She marched briskly back to the door and didn’t turn when Erik gave his final goodbye. “See you soon, Alice.”

“Too soon,” she muttered. Walking to the end of the hallway, she opened her designated apartment and gave the mutt the courtesy of first entrance, for reasons she couldn’t fathom. When the door was closed the dog recognized that the façade was over and floated to its bed before shutting down. Alice looked around the unused living room for several moments before becoming frustrated. “Corey, anytime would be good.”

“Oy, sorry, mate,” a disembodied voice with a common Albion accent replied. “Stepped out for tea.” Alice sighed, wondering if he meant the hot beverage or the Albion euphemism for a small afternoon meal, and waited for the vision of the living room to fade and be replaced with the augmentation control room. Seconds later she was staring at the back of the shaved head of technician Corey Patel. He looked over his shoulder at her as she removed her leads and smiled. “I thought you were able to bounce yourself from the simulation on your own.”

“I am, but it’s draining and not to mention dangerous. Couldn’t the tea have waited,” she snapped back.

“Sorry. Ya usually take longer with ‘im.” Alice tried to let the sound of Corey’s accent soothe her, which wasn’t actually from Albion, but whatever obscure moon colony his Albion ancestors had landed on. To her knowledge he had never set foot on Eyrth. She rubbed the spots on her head where the leads had been since they always left glossy red patches on her skin. As Corey turned his chair towards her with tea in hand, she saw that his thumb was stuck in the middle pages of a small paperback titled “Tales from the Temporal Corps.”

“I will never understand your obsession with that science-fiction drivel. The entire genre is ridiculous.”

Corey glanced down at the book and back at her before shaking his head. “And I will never understand how some people can find it ridiculous given the lives we lead. You are on an exo-planet in a prison where the criminally insane have their memories partially erased and then live out their lives in an augmented reality so convincing that they almost never figure it out. And in half an hour I’ll be leaving this planet in a spaceship with faster than light capability to go home for the holiday weekend. We’re living in science-fiction, for crying out loud!”

“But there is almost no modern science fiction, and the old stuff is ridiculous and archaic. Our barely civilized ancestors trying to take a guess at a future they couldn’t understand and got very wrong. Hell half of those writers were so short-sighted, their far futures were in contradiction with contemporary tech before the end of the author’s lifetime.”

“These writers influence the development of our culture and technology. Wasn’t for them, the future we now live in would be radically different. So, reading and watching their stories is a way of understanding our present, and I’ll ‘ave you know, this collection of stories is widely theorized to be true stories written by an actual temporal agent.”

“Or more likely by a madman. It’s literally impossible since the book says that in our time…” She stopped cold when she realized he had an expression of terror and was covering his ears. She felt guilty both for almost spoiling the book, and for taking her bad mood out on him, an innocent bystander. “I’m sorry, Corey. I’m being really unfair.”

Corey relaxed and shrugged. “It’s okay. What has you so on edge anyway?”

Alice looked away. “I’m always on edge after dealing with Landers.”

“Not this on edge, mate,” Corey replied, raising his eyebrows at her.

Alice sighed and leaned forward, letting her jet-black hair fall to her knees. Seeing her real hair color brought a slight relief, as the blonde hair on her avatar was specifically to avoid memory association with Landers, whose preferred victims were always dark-haired women. “He was just really… creepy today.”

“How do you think I feel? I’m the one who had to dig through his uncleaned memories to build his augment program. We didn’t just have to erase recent crimes. We had to destroy most of the previous twelve years of his life and rebuild from scratch. That was one sick individual with a career’s worth of violence.”

Alice scoffed. “You keep using the word erased, but you know as well as I do that they’re only disassociated. Still lurking beneath the surface.”

“Fair enough. Ya reckon he’s breaking out?”

She leaned back and ran her fingers through her hair as she pondered the question. “I’ve been thinking that since I first evaluated him two years ago, but I’ve never been able to prove it. Even if he isn’t, its only a matter of time.”

“Well, not the end of the worlds. The augmented reality exists so we can put away dangerous psychopaths without punishing them for being ill, and without making them any crazier in solitary confinement.”

“Landers doesn’t even qualify, in my opinion.”

Corey tilted his head. “An expert in trial said as much. Said his mind was too strong for the programming. But again, I say, so what. Even if he breaks out, he can’t bounce, and even if he could, he’s trapped in a bed in a locked pod, in a locked room of a secure facility on a shielded planet,” he replied, nearly running out of breath. “So it’s to his own benefit to continue believing his cozy little apartment is as real as they come.”

“That’s not what I meant. He’s not sick, he’s just evil.”

“Isn’t evil just a form of mental illness?”

“Isn’t most mental illness just patterns of thinking that are deemed socially unacceptable?”

Corey threw his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “It’s no fun debating you. You’re smarter than me. It’s not a fair fight,” he said with an ear to ear grin, turning back to his holographic computer display.

Alice stood from her chair and rested a hand on his shoulder while playfully rubbing his head. “I’m not smarter than you, I just understand people brains, and you understand…computer brains. I’m still not ruling out the possibility that you have a computer brain.”

“Ha-ha, thanks for that.”

“I’m just messing with you.”

“I know.” Alice squeezed his shoulder and started away, but Corey turned after her. “Alice… You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t think much of the binary confinement program. So, why did you take a job as an evaluator?”

“Corey-“

“You’ve avoided this question for two years, but you keep making it relevant.”

Alice gritted her teeth and took the seat next to him. “You were here for the incident that made my job necessary, right?”

Corey cringed, and for good reason. Before evaluators were put in place, the technicians usually programmed the augmented reality for each prisoner, and never dealt with them again. After a decade of the program being in operation, it was discovered during an inspection tour that a serial child rapist named Jeffrey Dugger had discovered the artificial nature of his environment, and figured out how to program a stream of virtual victims. The public outrage nearly destroyed the program, but after new fail-safes, stronger behavior modifications, and evaluators being hired to determine if a prisoner is breaking out, the program continued.

“Yeah. I was here. I had to erase the assaults he committed in the program, and couldn’t sleep for weeks.”

“Well, you had to deal with the virtual victims. My sister was one of his real-world victims.”

Corey’s jaw fell open. “I’m so sorry.”

Alice took a deep breath to gather her composure. “When news about the Dugger scandal broke, we tried to keep it from my sister, but it couldn’t be done. She started spiraling out of control and eventually ended her own life. So that’s why I’m here. I have no one left, but I can keep monsters like Dugger and Landers from turning this program into their own sick playgrounds.”

Corey struggled to find an appropriate response, but settled on, “that makes sense.”

“I’m glad you understand,” she said with another squeeze of his shoulder. “I think I’ll go work on my last report. By the way, can you please fix the dog program before you leave? It almost blew my cover.”

“Sure thing. Doing anything fun this weekend?”

She turned back to him and tilted her head. “Corey, I’m from Eyrth, remember?”

“Ah, yes. So, Sovereignty Day is less a day of celebration than worldwide embarrassment for you, innit.”

“Fuck you, Corey,” she said playfully trying to stress her own Atherican accent.

“Told ya, love. My experimenting stage ended years ago. I couldn’t be with a woman.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “My undying adoration or you is strictly platonic.”

Alice chuckled. “But, yeah. The Civil War is not something anyone in the Bruna system likes to think about. Have a good weekend, Corey.” Alice left the room and Corey stared after her for a moment before returning to his work.

Two hours later, Alice was rubbing the fatigue from her eyes as they darted between her report, a freeze-frame from her most recent encounter with Landers, and the program code from the same. All three were devoid of any tampering evidence, and she knew from experience that the administrators wouldn’t boot him from the program on her gut instincts; at least not until he actually started altering things. She leaned back and glanced around her cluttered office, contemplating what it revealed about herself. The walls were plastered with printouts from old news articles, wanted bulletins, and court transcripts, all related to Landers. Her office looked like a shrine to the man she so despised, and Landers was only one of 20 prisoners she was responsible for. Maybe I’m the crazy one, she thought.

Scrolling to the bottom of the report, she reluctantly deleted the final line, “recommend removal from program,” as the baseless recommendation could damage her own career. She bundled the three documents and transmitted them to the Davinson Corrections Department and the Owen territory Justice Department where Landers was captured, tried, and convicted for his crimes.

Alice was preparing to shut down her computer when she noticed a message was waiting for her. She accessed the message and the smiling face of Corey appeared hovering over her desk. “Oy, Alice. Didn’t want to interrupt your paperwork so I left you a message instead. I finished fixing the dog script so it won’t act so oddly when it idles. Didn’t have time to tie it into your evaluator avatar, but I can take care of it before you come in on Tuesday… Or you can do it if you need an excuse to delay going home. See you next week.”

Alice silently celebrated and turned off her computer before sprinting to the augmentation control room. Spinning the chair around, she plopped down with near-giddy excitement into the seat and prepared the computer to tie the new script into her avatar program. Something stopped her cold. A feeling of dread ran from the base of her skull to her toes like her blood had turned to ice and was leaking down her back from some unfelt hole in her skin. Once again, her animal brain was processing information her conscious mind had ignored.

She slowly scanned the room for the thing. The obscure piece of sensory data that had put her on edge. On the back wall she found it. The wall was merely a backdrop for a large holographic display, which at a glance would appear to be a repeating tile pattern of the same images. Half of the tiles were live video feeds of the hundreds of prisoners in binary confinement, most of them sleeping in their identical bedrooms. Beside each of these video feeds was a stream of code showing the inner workings of the simulations and the actions of the prisoners within.

Two consecutive tiles on the display couldn’t have been more conspicuous. What should have been a video display was a black square with red text that read “Monitor lost.” Next to that tile, the coding spanned halfway down before ending abruptly. When she read the name above the displays, her worst fear was confirmed. The system had lost contact with one Erik Landers.

There was a brief disconnect between her brain and her motor functions as she stumbled out of the room. Reaching the door she broke into a run, her heart beating so fast that she was sure it would burst from her chest. She felt like an eternity had passed before she crashed through the pod room observation area door. As it closed behind her she was cast into darkness, left only with the blinking lights on the pods visible through the observation window. She fumbled along the wall with her hands and found the touch pad for the pod room lights, revealing a room that looked eerily like it was filled from wall-to-wall with corpses. An open cemetery with seemingly lifeless bodies resting in the pods.

A relative sense of relief fell over her as it became clear that none of the prisoners had left their slumber, but the feeling was short-lived as she realized that something still had to be done about Landers, and she didn’t know where to start. She made her way back to the control room and pulled up the last segments of the code and video from Lander’s simulation. Her technical expertise was limited, but even she could tell that it was no glitch that caused the loss of monitoring. Little nuances in the code made it clear that parameters had been intentionally altered, and the system alarms had been turned off.

She pulled up the last minutes of video and furled her brow as she watched what seemed to be a static image of Landers sitting in his living room armchair. Leaning closer she could see the rise and fall of his chest, confirming that the video had not frozen. Her face was inches from the holographic image, watching the emotionless profile of his face when suddenly, he spoke. “Good morning, Alice. Beautiful day,” he said with a smile and turned to look directly into her eyes.

Her heart leapt into her throat, and by the time her shock had subsided, the image had gone blank, reaching the point where the monitoring program had been shut off. Deciding that she had dealt with enough on her own, she pulled up the prison’s communication software to report on the situation and cursed whoever thought leaving a prison even as secure as this one unstaffed for the holiday was a good idea. The software came up without issue, but the effort was futile. The tachyon antenna had been disabled, and every attempt to reactivate it was blocked.

Panic began to set in as she realized that Landers had gone well beyond simply breaking the spell of his virtual prison. He had already broken into other systems in the prison’s network. She considered the biomes for a moment. There was staff guarding the few facilities on Altair II where less dangerous prisoners lived comfortably in personal biomes. Unfortunately, this ancient building from the days when prisoners were still kept communally, was about as far from the nearest biome cluster as one could get. The tach-ant would still be needed for that, and even if she could get through without it, it would take them days to travel to her. Seeing no other option but escape, she jumped from the chair and headed for the door, but had yet to step through it when blaring klaxons stopped her in her tracks.

The darkened hallway was flooded with rotating blue lights. Emergency lockdown, she thought. He’s trapped me here. She tried to control her breathing, but Lander’s horror show had just begun. One by one every tile on the holographic display began to resemble his own. The video feeds went blank and the live code stopped dead, casting the room into near-total darkness. For a long moment, all she could hear was the sound of her own labored breathing, but it was soon drowned out by a chorus of bloodcurdling screams that came with surprising clarity from the pod room echoing down the hall.

Landers had disconnected every prisoner from the simulation, and they had suddenly found themselves strapped into a pod with wires and tubes running from their bodies, when just moments before they had been comfortable in their own homes. Though they were all guilty of horrible crimes, their screams of terror and anguish cut Alice to her very soul. It was an experience she could scarcely imagine, but knew it was one no human being should ever go through. She collapsed against the doorway, trying to block out the screams with her hands, and choked back her sobs as she tried to will herself awake from the living nightmare she was experiencing.

All at once, she had a moment of clarity. With her limited knowledge of coding she was powerless to stop him from the outside. But, inside the program he was vulnerable. Finally able to push her emotions aside, she straightened up and activated her avatar with a delay of 60 seconds. She was relieved to find it was one thing he hadn’t thought to lock her out of. Carefully and calmly she donned the leads and leaned back into the augment chair. She closed her eyes and waited for the screams to be drowned out by the sensory information fed to her by the computer.

* * *

The chorus of screaming died out as expected, but Alice was surprised to discover that one scream remained. It was distant at first, but gradually came closer through the blinding white light. Something about the voice behind the scream seemed familiar to her. The voice was her own, but she didn’t feel like she was screaming, or understand why. At the moment of this realization, the pain came, and she understood. A searing heat seemed to start from the center of her brain, stretching out to meet the leads attached to her skin. Her scream caught in her throat,as a wet sensation in her nose and mouth overwhelmed her with the smell and taste of iron.

When the pain passed, the blinding light was replaced with absolute darkness, but Alice found comfort in the cool surface under. She gathered her strength and pushed herself off the floor as the darkness was split open by a flash of lightning. Unable to glean much from the brief illumination she turned her attention to herself and immediately knew that something was wrong. Every sensation she was feeling was too intense; the cold draft that kissed her neck, the sound of the rain and thunder outside, and the smell of old paint and mildew that assaulted her nostrils. It all lacked the usual numb artificial feeling she was used to when in program. It all felt entirely genuine. But, what truly terrified her was the realization that the hair plastered to her sweaty brow was its natural color. Landers had even overridden her own avatar.

Another flash of lightning brought her attention back to her surroundings, and she saw that she was at the end of a long hallway, a bare wall on one side, and barred doors lining the other. With great effort she willed herself forward towards the faint outline of the nearest intersecting halls. “The weather was always so nice during our past encounters, but that was just part of the illusion, wasn’t it,” Landers voice came from behind her. She turned on her heels prepared to defend herself, but another flash of lightning revealed nothing but the empty hall.

She continued forward until reaching the intersection and was relieved to find a hall with a few flickering overhead lights. Aside from the comparatively improved lighting, the hallway was identical to the former; barred cells facing a bare wall with peeling paint. All of these cells were occupied, in the loosest sense of the word. They all looked to be on the verge of starvation, wallowing in their own filth, and some could barely be considered alive at all.

The building itself and the bars on the cells looked like relics from the early 20^th century, and aged by decades of neglect, but the digital biometric scanners that sealed the cells stood out in sharp contrast. Examining a prisoner as she walked into a darker part of the hall, her foot caught on something soft and heavy, nearly sending her face first to the floor. The lump let out a lowgrowl that gradually grew in volume and viciousness. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the white four-legged form of her own avatar’s dog. It was at least four times its normal size, and its coat was mangled and dirty, but Alice found it unmistakably familiar.

She slowly stepped backwards, never removing her gaze from his feral eyes reflecting the dim lighting from behind her, except to steal a glance at the razor sharp teeth in its frothing maw. The beast lurched forward, and Alice turned away breaking into a desperate run. She only made it 20 yards before the animal’s unnatural speed closed the gap, painfully digging his teeth into her Achilles tendon.

She fell to the floor with a dull thud and rolled onto her back just in time to block the fatal bite to her neck. Holding back her cries of pain, she sacrificed her hands to the shredding jaws to protect the vital artery. For a moment, she felt a sense of hopelessness wash over her, and considered the possibility that she was only prolonging her suffering and delaying the inevitable, but that moment passed when she made eye contact with the vicious creature. She had a sudden sense of equality with the beast, and her human emotion gave way to animal instinct. Her right hand found purchase on the dog’s throat, and the other managed to wrap around its snout as it clamped down on thin air.

The excruciating pain from her flesh was dulled by adrenaline and in one fluid twisting motion, she snapped the dog’s neck. There was a loud crack, and a sharp whimper as its body turned from intense rigidness to deadweight. Alice’s heavy breathing faded seamlessly into gasping sobs. She propped herself against the wall, rocking back and forth, carefully keeping her torn hands from contact with any surface. Not even the stench of the dog voiding its bladder shook her from her breakdown as she contemplated the little piece of her soul she had lost to the violent act.

It was a sound that finally brought her out of her self-loathing. An outdated and uncommon sound in the human world, but just familiar enough to bring her back into reality. She forced herself up from the floor and followed it to a nearby office, gritting her teeth as she wrapped her hand around the door handle. As she entered, she scanned the quiet room and found that the sound was emanating from antique handheld communication device-a wireless telephone handset.

She couldn’t contemplate what it could mean in the context of her situation, but a combination of curiosity and the overwhelming desire to make some sort of progress drove her to remove it from its base. Imitating something she had seen in old movies, she pressed the upper half of the device against her ear. “Hello?”

“Is this Alice? Alice Ridgel?” The voice was strange to her, but gave her an unexplainable sense of comfort.

“Who is this?”

“My name is agent Robert Cisco, and the first thing I need you to do, Alice, is calm down.” She reflexively scoffed. “It’s not a suggestion. Your vitals are off the charts. If you don’t calm down, it will kill you.”

Alice’s eyes widened as she processed what he meant. “But that could only happen if-“

“That’s right. Landers set a trap for you, and you’re fully integrated into the system. You’re not an evaluator right now. You’re a prisoner.”

“I had a feeling. Well, I’ve bounced myself out of simulation before.”

“No! If you try to bounce when you’re buried this deep in the system it will cook your brain.”

Alice thought about debating the issue, but immediately knew he was right. “How are you even contacting me? He shut off the tachyon antenna.”

“I’m on a ship, headed your way. We boosted the signal directly into the prison network. The tricky part is finding a script in the program we could use to talk to you.”

“Look, if you’re on a ship headed for me, all I have to do is wait for you to show up, right?”

Robert exhaled slowly, as if bracing himself to deliver bad news. “Alice, we don’t have the luxury of time here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Landers set this trap for you so he would have time to break into the prison’s primary systems. He’s trying to bring down the defenses and have a team break him out physically.”

“How is that even possible? He had no way of knowing where he would end up when he was arrested.”

“Alice, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do not underestimate Landers. He’s extremely intelligent, more so than we can even accurately measure. He hides his intelligence so that people will keep their guard down, but he is dangerously clever. That’s why he was able to break out, program this trap for you, and even fool you into thinking the behavior controls were still in place.”

At this moment, guilt began to set in. Alice realized in spite of her constant expectation for Landers to break out, she had somehow missed signs that he was out long enough to hack out of the system and into the prison network. “How long has he actually been out?”

“At least a month it looks like. Meaning he was already out when you evaluated him earlier today.”

Alice grimaced, “Yeah, I figured that out. What do I need to do?”

“The bottom line is we need you out of the simulation. Luckily he only had time to make a few limited programs for you. To get out of each program and on to the next you should just have to meet the endgame script requirements for each.”

“How do I find that?”

“It would help if I knew where you were. Do you recognize anything about your surroundings?”

Alice looked around the office for more clues. A calendar adorned the wall with the image of a scantily clad model holding a military style rifle over her shoulder. Alice recognized the gun as a style that was especially popular during the third world war. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the month and year on the lower half of the calendar; Arlen 2039.

“I’m in a prison of some kind, in the mid twenty-first century. But it looks really old.”

“It must be Manstyn.”

“Manstyn?”

“It’s a prison in old Oshara, The Atherican States, at the time. It was originally shut down in the late 20^th century, but just before the decade of hell it was hastily updated and re-opened because of the high demand for prisons.”

“I know all that. I grew up not far from there. What I mean is, why would he send me here?”

“It’s a long story, but suffice to say, Landers has a strong connection with that prison. Now, the code says the exit program’s titled ‘one-twenty-one.’ Does that number mean anything to you?”

Alice slammed her elbows onto the top of the desk as she sat down, releasing her breath in a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I-“ she stopped when something on the computer monitor caught her eye. It appeared to be a display of the cells on that cellblock. Each color-coded in green indicating that all cells were locked. Her current location in the office was clearly marked at the midway point of the hall containing cells 100 through 150. “It could be a cell number.”

“You may be right,” he said, an air of dread wafting from every tone.

The unexplainable comfort she found in his voice was battling her fear of what he may be hiding, and for the moment was winning out. “What do I need to do?”

“First thing’s first. Go to the cell and bring the phone with you. I’ll ring you again if anything stirs.”

She heard him disconnect and suddenly felt empty. In the simulation it was difficult to accurately determine the passage of time, but Alice knew it was at least 10 minutes before she gathered the courage to leave her chair. Aside from stepping over the dog’s corpse, which seemed to already be in an advanced state of decay, her trek down the hall was sluggish and non-linear. Every crack of thunder and drip of water through the leaking ceiling turned her on her heels, expecting a new threat at any moment.

She nearly walked past cell 121 before she spotted the fading numbers in cheap paint above the doors. The cell was mostly darkened, but in the dim light from the hall she could make out the form of a petite woman sprawled on the bed. Alice leaned against the bars for a closer look and the clatter shook the woman from her sleep. The surprise on her face turned to mortal terror in an instant. Sobbing, she leapt from the bed and pinned herself into the corner behind the toilet, seemingly bracing herself for an attack by Alice.

She could tell the woman, or rather the girl, had once been very pretty. However long her stay had been, she had not slept soundly since her first night. Her eyes were baggy and bloodshot, darting from side to side as she watched Alice in unabating fear. The phone handset rang, nearly causing Alice to drop it. She clumsily pressed the answer button and held it to her face.

“Alice. Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. I’m… I’m at cell one-twenty-one.”

“It looks like the exit program activated as soon as you arrived. Now it just needs input from you. What do you see?”

“A young girl. Dark hair. Brown skin. She’s cowering in the back of the cell like she thinks I’m going to hurt her.” Robert’s only response was a defeated sigh. “Robert, it’s time to come clean. You know more than you’re saying.”

“You’re right, Alice. I had a feeling about this the minute I knew the program was a re-creation of Manstyn.”

“Tell me!”

“The connection between Landers and Manstyn is a man named Lance Cavin. He was a serial killer active before and during the decade of hell.”

“Never heard of him. Was he a prisoner here?”

“No. The reason you’ve never heard of him is because he was a law enforcement officer during a time when the government was already dealing with widespread mistrust of police officers. By the time his crimes, secret trial and execution came to light, it was too late for a scandal. He started out as a corrections officer, then joined a police department in northern Oshara, and finally became a Fed in the Atherican Investigation Service when Oshara seceded. By the time he was found out he had taken at least one victim in each of the 31 states. He’s Landers’ inspiration, and the reason he was aiming for one victim in every colony.”

“What does all this have to do with my situation?”

“The girl you’re looking at is 17-year-old Alexandra Gutiérrez.” He seemed to struggle to continue. “She was Cavin’s first victim, and it’s obvious at this point that to exit this part of the program you have to re-create the crime.”

Alice recoiled from the bars and pulled the phone away from her face, covering her mouth to hold in the scream that welled up inside her. She could hear Robert’s muted voice calling her from the handset and reluctantly returned it to her ear. “I can’t do that.”

“That’s what Landers is counting on. He knows this will be too traumatic for you. And even if you pass this hurdle, the rest will be even worse. He’s trying to trap you here, so he has time to make his escape. But you can do this! You know that none of this is real. That is not the real Alexandra. It’s a bunch of ones and zeros creating an image in your brain. She’s just a program.”

Alice pressed her face against the bars letting the cool metal soothe her for a while. She considered, for a moment, finding an empty cell and hiding there till the cavalry came. But she opened her eyes and saw something strange in Alexandra’s face. She wasn’t so unlike her sister before she had died, and that strangely, is what brought back her resolve. She had joined as an evaluator to save victims and their families, just like her sister, from seeing the people that tore their lives apart enjoying themselves in their own virtual play land. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she left a serial killer free to do physical damage. “How did she die?”

“… she was found strangled to death.”

Alice held back the urge to vomit, and pushed the image of her sister far from her head. “How do I get into the cell?”

“It looks like your avatar was loaded with new biometrics. Just try the lock.”

Alice pressed her thumb onto the biometric scanner and waited for the ping, followed by the display changing from red to green. The name “Cavin, Lance” appeared briefly on the screen. That explains a lot, she thought. She slid the bars open and Alexandra’s terror intensified. She tried to scream, but months of the same falling on deaf ears had left her voice destroyed, and only a raspy croak escaped her lips. He had been torturing her for a long time before he escalated to murder.

Alice was determined, but still had difficulty seeing through her tear soaked eyelashes. She scanned the room for the weapon that may have been used, and found only the thin, moth-eaten bed sheet. She slowly removed it from the bed, then berated herself for the futile, and potentially dangerous stalling. She twisted the sheet into a makeshift rope and approached Alexandra. “I’m so sorry,” Alice gasped, and wrapped the sheet around Alexandra’s neck, twisting the two ends together to close her victim’s airway.

She had hoped that Landers didn’t have time to program the fine details. That Alexandra would peacefully accept her fate. But it fought back with all the fervor of a real person with a strong will survive. Alice sobbed as she endured kicks and scratches, but somehow managed to keep her airway closed. The look in Alexandra’s eyes reminded Alice of the dog’s. Feral and instinctive. As her motor functions began to fail her, and the life slipped from her body, they returned to their human form and Alice could feel Alexandra’s soul begging for an explanation. Alice broke into quiet tears and collapsed onto Alexandra’s lifeless shoulder. A breeze on her neck brought her attention back to her environment. Alexandra was gone, replaced with a silver bark tree. The prison and all other remnants of her previous situation were gone as well.

She appeared to be in a deep wooded area at mid autumn. Brilliant shades of orange, red, and gray, littered the floor, but still adorned most of the trees. She could hear the rush of a nearby waterfall and its consequential river. A voice called to her from the trees. “Alice, can you hear me?” She looked around, but couldn’t see any living thing except a small blue finch. She furled her brow and stared at it, wondering if that was the source. The bird opened its mouth and Robert’s voice escaped again. “Alice, are you there?”

“Yes, Robert. I’m here. Why are you a bird?”

“It was the only audio enabled program I could find. Where are you?”

Alice looked around again. “I’m in the woods somewhere. There’s a waterfall nearby, and it’s autumn here.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

Alice looked all around her for more clues about her location, finding nothing but more trees. Then, she turned her eyes to the sky and found the one discerning feature of this place. It was the first time she had realized that it was night, and the woods were being illuminated by two full moons. “There are two moons here. One red and one blue. Does that ring any bells?”

“Sounds like you’re on Cheranai in the Wendara system.”

“The Indigenous Atherican’s new home world?”

“One of them. But most importantly, it’s where Landers took HIS first victim.”

Alice closed her eyes. “I remember now. He chased her to a river and stabbed her to death before letting her float downstream.”

“Then you know what you have to do. Good luck.”

The bird suddenly gave a confused look at its surroundings and flew away. Out of the corner of her eye, Alice caught the glint of moonlight from a nearby tree. As she went towards it, she could make out the bone handle, and the blade that reflected the moon’s beams her way from where it was lodged in the tree. She pulled the knife and gripped it tightly as she gathered resolve for her next task.

She made her way towards the sound of the river, trying to do so quietly, but it was a futile effort as every step seemed to scatter one creature or another. When she found the river she was overlooking it from a short stone cliff. A small dirt trail to the side led to the riverbank, and she could see faint footprints in the moist dirt. Following them down, she found that they were lost on a rock slab under the cliff. Fearing that she had no way to track the exit program, she was entirely unprepared when a figure leaped on top of her from the small cave formed by the river in the cliff.

The blade nearly pierced her own gut as she fell to the ground. She heaved the form off of her. They both jumped to their feet ready to defend themselves. Staring her in the eye was a young Arapaho girl, and Alice guiltily realized that she couldn’t remember her name. She had become so obsessed with Landers himself that she had forgotten the name of every one of his victims.

Having lost the element of surprise, the girl turned to run and with only a moment’s hesitation, Alice followed. When the pursuit started, Alice was undermotivated to catch the girl. She was pushing for an encounter she did not want to have. Then an obscure bit of coding knowledge in her mind came to the surface. The way these simulations were programmed with progression parameters. If they were set up in a cascading pattern, a null on potential completion of the exit parameter could cause a return to default state. In simpler terms, if it became impossible to complete the exit program parameters, not only could she not progress, but the program could be set up to make her return to the beginning of the first program.

Not wanting to have to repeat any aspect of the prison, she became enthusiastic about reaching the girl. They made it 100 yards down the riverbank before Alice closed the gap, reaching for the girl’s back and causing her to trip. The girl had slammed into a rock with a sickening crack, and fell motionless onto the edge of the bank. Alice crouched over her, feeling for a pulse. She was alive, but out cold. Alice heaved a sigh of relief that this killing wouldn’t be as brutal as last. She raised the blade above her head and took a deep breath before driving the blade into the girl’s heart. It hit its mark with a wet squelch, and her body lurched briefly before going limp.

Alice let her body roll off the rock and into the river current, watching it float away till the moonlight was too dim to see any further. With one blink, she was transported to another location. She found herself standing in a public space transport. The seats were empty and the craft was landed, the engines off. She looked out the viewports and saw a small town spaceport that appeared as deserted as the ship. Birmingham station, she thought.

A holographic screen near the exit activated, and the face of a light haired man with pointed features appeared. “Robert?”

“Yes, Alice. It’s good to see you. Do you know where you are?”

Alice was transfixed by his face. Something about it, like his voice, was calming and strangely familiar. She shook her head to bring her mind back into focus. “I’m on Owen. Birmingham Spaceport.”

“So, you know what is supposed to happen?” Alice nodded. She had read all the articles and watched all the video footage of this famous event. How Tamsyn Harper had tracked him down to this flight, bought out the seats so it would be empty, and cornered him in the station. Landers’ last stand. “You’re almost out, Alice. Get through this simulation, and we can bounce you out.”

“I understand.”

“Good luck.”

Alice nodded and turned towards the door, feeling none of the apprehension she had in the previous simulations. The violence had already begun to numb her. She opened the hatch and stepped onto the empty platform, unholstering the plasma pistol that appeared on her hip, already set to a lethal power level. Glancing in both directions, she sprinted across platform to a dark alcove. Moments later she heard a vehicle arrive outside the station, followed by boots on the cobblestone walkway. As they approached, she could hear an angry female voice, shouting something about being late. Tamsyn Harper was the first to come into view, leading with the aging plasma pistol that was synonymous with her persona, aimed at the now empty transport.

She was followed by her posse and one federal marshal, all carrying rifles. The posse fanned out without removing their eyes from the open hatch. One of the men stepped directly in front of Alice’s alcove with his back to her. She recognized his profile from the video footage and jumped to action, wrapping her arm around his neck and placing the muzzle of the pistol against his head. Before he could even react, Tamsyn rounded on them, and the rest of the team, confused, followed her lead

The following moments were an indiscernible chorus of shouting as she backed away with her human shield. She wasn’t surprised when she ran into the locked gate on the far side of the platform, having anticipated it from memory. What did shock her was when the same malicious smile that had adorned Landers’ face that day, crept across her lips. Without hesitation she squeezed the trigger, blowing his brains out onto the platform. The second his body dropped, Tamsyn and her posse opened fire simultaneously.

Alice had actually relaxed her body anticipating the impact and synapse overloading sensation of being hit with half a dozen, stun level plasma shots. The first surprise was that all of them missed, some whizzing through the bars, but a few striking the bars on either side of her. The second surprise was the ringing in her ears as the shots melted and tore through the steel. She had some firearm training and she knew the difference between the sound of a stun shot and a lethal one. She instinctively raised her pistol again returning fire. As the bounty hunters continued to miss their shots, she returned fire killing one after another. None of this happened in the real life arrest of Landers, but she couldn’t rule out the possibility the change was meant to kill her just before escaping the program. This was self-defense. So, why, she thought, is every hit so satisfying. Tamsyn watched the last of her compatriots fall and looked Alice in the eyes with shock. She never even raised her weapon again, but Alice no longer felt anything holding her back from violence anymore. With a sense of near excitement she pulled the trigger and watched as Tamsyn’s head snapped back in a simulation of a death that never happened. As Tasmyn’s body crumpled, the simulation finally began to lose cohesion, and Alice’s vision began to fade. She closed her eyes in relief.

***

When she opened her eyes, it was to black oblivion. No sound or light reached her senses, and even gravity seemed unable to reach her there. “Alice?” The disembodied voice seemed to come from nowhere, existing only in her head.

“Robert?” She knew she had said it, but it sounded muted and far away.

“We’re having some trouble bouncing you from the system. Just hold tight for now.”

“How close is Landers to getting free?”

“Very. But there’s nothing we can do about it till you’re out.”

“How close is your ship?”

“Still half an hour away.”

Alice was confused. Even with the loss of time perception in the simulation, she was sure she had been there for at least an hour. More than enough time for someone to reach Altair from anywhere in the territory, and perhaps even the quadrant. She pushed the thought aside as it seemed to haze over in her mind. “Could you send me to where he is?”

There was a long pause. “For what reason?”

“If I can’t get out to stop him, I can try to stop him in here.”

“That’s extremely dangerous. Most of his simulations for you weren’t designed to kill you, but if he gets his hands on you directly, you could die.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Another long pause. “If you’re sure.”

Alice blinked and her senses were overwhelmed with new information. She was standing in a large room, the floor appeared to be made of white panels and the sound when she shifted her weight suggested there was a hollow space below. Rows of black cages lined the room, and inside each was multitude of blinking lights and the sound of spinning fans. It was an old computer server room.

At the other end of the room was a table, covered in various tools used for computer hardware work. Landers was staring at a server stack with pulled wires hanging like straw from a bird’s nest. She approached and a shifting panel drew his attention to her. His mild surprise was quickly overcome by his usual sickening smile.

“I guess my program worked a little too well.”

“What do you mean? I made it through, didn’t I.”

“Not those programs. I meant for you to complete those.” He turned on one of the old-fashioned computer monitors in the face of Robert Cisco appeared. “I meant this one. I figured his voice might be too hard to recognize after all these years, but I assumed you would figure it out when you saw his face.”

“He’s not a program. He’s a federal agent, coming to stop you from breaking out.”

“Now, Alice. I programmed him to say that.” He paused for a moment with an expectant look on his face, but was disappointed when she said nothing. “Come on. I pulled him from your own memories. No one is coming. No one even knows that I broke out or that you’re in danger.”

Alice stared at Robert’s face again, and a memory flashed through her mind. Her sister lying on the couch as Robert Cisco calmly spoke to her, notepad on his lap. “Henry Wolff.”

“That’s right, Alice. Well done. Henry Wolff. Your sister’s shrink. The one who dragged your sister out of her trauma after Dugger was done playing with her. He was supposed to convince you to run my fun little simulations, but obviously he was programmed so well that he became convinced of his own existence, and couldn’t deny your request to come here.”

Alice stared coldly into Landers’ eyes for a long moment before speaking. “Where is here?” The question seemed to come from someone else. The cold and uncaring tones that carried the words didn’t seem to match the terror that she should have been feeling.

Landers shrugged and returned to his work. “Nowhere special. This is just how I see the prison’s mainframe.” He stopped and turned to her again. “I thought maybe you would get that now. To control a computer from the inside you have to understand metaphor. Just like a myth. You see, anyone can tell a story, but a myth is an art form all its own. A myth speaks to us all on a biological level. It allows us to understand the world around us, and how animals like us exist within it. It transcends our egocentric lives.”

“Is that why you put me through all of this?”

“Yes. I knew that if you stepped into my shoes, you would understand. Serial killers are the great underappreciated myths. They become legends in their own time, painting themselves onto the fabric of society. The greatest tragedy was how Lance Cavin, probably the most artistic serial killer in human history, was doomed into obscurity.” He stared off into space for a moment, seemingly in morning for his lost hero. “Oh well. A victim of the politics of his time, I suppose. So many people were dying in his time, even a serial killer wouldn’t have raised too many eyebrows. But I’ve been mining your brain since you first came to Altair.”

Two years, she thought. He broke out more than two years ago, and no one saw it.

“I knew that you could learn to appreciate the mind of a cold-blooded killer. In fact you surprised even me. That little change in my arrest. I was just trying to scare you a bit for fun. I didn’t think you would slaughter them all. You could have stood there for another couple minutes and they never would have hit you before the program ended. I know you sensed the shutdown. Part of you knew it was over, but another part of you wanted to slaughter them for making you feel fear.”

Alice shook her head. “I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a fail safe to keep me from getting out. Besides, it didn’t matter. They’re simulations.”

“Exactly,” he shouted. “See, I know my file has me listed as a sociopath, but it’s very wrong. I have a very strong sense of empathy. I can absolutely imagine how my victims feel. It’s part of the rush. What I am, is a nihilist. I realized thesame thing you internalized in the simulation; that nothing matters. If I could just see the code of the universe, I know I could alter it just as easily as I did this virtual prison.” He chuckled. “Maybe someday. Regardless, I think I may not even have to kill you. I think you understand me so well now, I could convince you to help me. Get me out of here and help me finish my masterpiece. Assuming I can fix the damage.” That same sickening grin she had seen so many times from the balcony spread across his face.

Alice leaned on the table and stared into its cold metal surface, and smiled. “You’re right. I do understand how you think now. But you’re not an underappreciated hero. You’re not a master over the human condition. You’re an animal. And now…” She looked into his eyes, not allowing the smile to falter “So am I!”

Without looking, she gripped a screwdriver that Landers had left on the table, and with one swift, unflinching motion, rammed it into the side of his neck. His expression turned to horror and surprise, as his last breath brought a spray of blood. It splashed across her face, but didn’t cause her to flinch, and she even found herself taking pleasure in watching the life slip from his body. When he collapsed, the environment began to disintegrate, glowing at the edges like burning paper blowing in the wind. When it could hold her no longer, she fell through oblivion.

Her eyes had been closed for what felt like an eternity, when she felt an odd sensation; the rush of water over her skin. She opened her eyes and had to shield them from the sun, sitting high in a crystal clear blue sky. She was on her back in a shallow stream, the water so temperate that she could scarcely tell where it ended, and her skin began. She looked to her side of the riverbank, and what she saw filled her with a relief she thought she would never feel again. To most, that riverbank would have been nondescript, but to her it was the most familiar sight in the universe. It was a small river that fed the Mahana River near her childhood home.

There was a figure standing on the bank, and when her eyes came into focus, she shot up to meet the smiling face of Corey Patel. But there was a sadness behind his curled lips, one that she may not have recognized on any other day. Today, she saw behind human emotion, to the animal beneath.

“Corey. You came back. What made you come back?”

“Alice, it’s been days. A week actually.”

Alice furled her brow. “Well then bounce me out. Why am I still linked in?”

His smile faltered and he stared at his feet. “Alice, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but Landers set a trap.”

“You have no idea, Corey. But I already beat all of them. Landers is not a threat anymore, to anyone.”

“I don’t mean the simulations. He wanted to make sure that once you got in, you couldn’t get out. The second the program activated, it fried the synapses that connect your nervous system to the sensory parts of your brain, and rewired them to only accept signals from the leads.” He seemed visibly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure if I’m explaining this very well. You were always the human brain expert.”

“No, Corey. I think I understand what you mean. I can only sense what’s sent to me from the program. If you unplugged me, I would essentially be brain dead.”

Corey nodded, still unable to look her in the eyes. “You saved a lot of lives by stopping him. So, it wasn’t hard to convince the admins to give you what you deserve.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“I can erase the memories of what he made you do, and we can put you in a pod. So, you can live out your life here, where you grew up. I can program your mother and sister, alive and well.” He finally forced himself to look into her eyes. “If that’s what you want.”

Alice stared absentmindedly at the rushing water for a moment. She knew that she should be upset. Even wanted to be upset. But, after everything she had been through, she felt disconnected from her own emotions. Landers had successfully turned her into an animal, just like himself. The only salvation from this fatewould be to accept Corey’s proposal. “Under one condition.”

“Of course. Anything.”

“You have to write something else into the program. I know that I can never remember I worked for the prison, or the immersion won’t work. But, you have to write in some reason for you to visit sometimes. Find another reason for us to be friends.”

Corey’s eyes watered, but he managed to crack a smile. “I’d like that, mate.”

“So would I,” Alice said with a half-hearted smile, offering her hand to him.

He took it, and pulled her out of the water. She wrapped her arm around his elbow and placed her head on his shoulder, and they walked that way all the way to Alice’s new home.