The Art Of Love And War 1h3p21

Any resemblance to anyone alive or dead, real, or imagined by somebody else, is purely coincidental. I never use real people in my fiction. Ever.

This is copyrighted material.

Personal Note from the Author:

Thank you for purchasing this copy of THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

This is book two of THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR trilogy.

This trilogy began with:

Book 1: 100 WAYS TO LOVE AND HATE

And ends with

Book 3: A SOLILOQUY OF LOVE AT REST.

Works by W.F.Gigliotti:

Novels: CRYPTESTHESIA KINETIC CUT AND RUN THE MINOTAUR HYDE HER AGITATED DEMONS THE QUIVERING ZOMBIE THE HAMMERED ZOMBIE THE SEGMENTED ZOMBIE

100 WAYS TO LOVE AND HATE THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR

Coming August, 2022: A SOLILOQUY OF LOVE AT REST Book 3 of The Art of Love and War trilogy.

Short Stories:

WHEN A FOX TAMES A LION FROGS OF THE DARK RIVER

More details can be found at:

http://wfgigliotti.wordpress.com

THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR

Book 2 — THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR

By W.F.Gigliotti

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The Art of Love and War By W.F.Gigliotti

Chapter 1 — URSA AND THE FALLEN

“Ursa sings to the fallen, to the brave, to the steadfast … and to the weak,” said a female voice. She knew the voice. Sylvia was reading the signs in her endless hallways again. Endless halls, round and round they go. “Space can be cold and bitter. Space can be hot and can burn you. Only with the right balance is it just right. Only with the right air can you breathe and survive, and be content.” When humanity first left the comforts of its home world Earth in its first real emigration into deep space, the pioneers took everything with them that they could reasonably and safely fit into their ships, everything that they loved. But love is chaos, and so humanity also brought with it its cold judgments and its heated hatreds ... born from the fear of loss … of the love of life that it cherished so much to maintain. As with the art of war, there is also an art to love, war’s only equal. Love can be untamed and untenable like an ocean whose waters are ruled by chaos and disorder. It yearns to be tamed and taken. Or love yearns to be left alone so that it might heal within its own deep waters. Love yearns for stability. Planet Ursa’s cooling crevasses were deep and wide. If her yawning chasms were filled with water, they would make great seas for fish and fishermen alike. The impact of her cub moon, Kodiak, disfigured and reconfigured Ursa’s dead and rocky surface. Planet Ursa was hurting now, her red, molten tears bleeding out now beyond the reach of her gravity well. But something unexpected happened. The destruction wrought by the impact of the small moon upon her surface jump-started the planet’s core. Planet Ursa’s

core was no longer a solid, but was just now an untamed and wild molten heart. She was alive, though no life existed upon her. Now, volcanic rock and smoke covered her once unremarkable surface. The movement of her active heart created a magnetic field around her that was strong enough to deflect the harmful rays of her local star. Because Ursa now had a magnetic field, an atmosphere could now take hold and remain unstripped by cosmic winds. With the right actions, Ursa could start to breathe for the first time in her long, lonely existence.

# # #

Deep in the knotted and chaotic wires of Anguish Station's electronic architecture, a colony of robotic workers constantly plugged in and unplugged small cartridges holding digital files and memories. The robots were anxious and in a hurry. The Artificial Intelligence that drove them on their task was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, again. But this time, Sylvia stopped herself from her self-inflicted pain. Her little robots were on the verge of panic and she needed to calm them down. A single memory plagued her. “Somebody murdered Melanie Dupree 25 years ago.” It had been Windsor Forlorn who had said it. “So, who killed me?” Sylvia asked. She whispered to her tiny spider bots, to calm them, her little mechanical children. "Consciousness ... shredded. Cohesiveness ... gone. Sanity ... questionable. Love?" The tiny robots stopped and listened to their mother. "What about love? Love destroys everything," she told them. "Love can destroy your humanity. But love can heal. Love can redeem. Love can save your humanity. I need to forgive myself of what I've done. I am the cause of this war,

and I need to choose sides, and win." “Empathy Bomb” was a term that Sylvia had come up with when she had been alive and breathing, and human, when she had been Melanie Dupree. An empathy bomb is a weaponized thought process triggered by someone other than the recipient. Those who empathize are particularly vulnerable to it. An empathy bomb can slowly eat away at all reason and logic. It was a made-up concept, a slippery one at that. Sylvia had made backup copies of the memory - that of Windsor Forlorn saying that she had been murdered - in case it got lost or erased. Many of her memories were missing or erased. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want to forget things, did she? Or perhaps she did want to forget things. Pain has a habit of creating other habits, which create other habits. Some pains never go away. Some pains, you just never want to feel again. This was just a machine’s idle obsessive compulsive self-editing, wasn’t it? Nobody else could mess with her memories, correct? But this memory was important, wasn’t it? This was all about her, wasn’t it? It was a long ago past life, wasn’t it? Or perhaps this was her after all. “Am I still human after all?” she mumbled. Her small robotic children stopped for a moment as if ready for a new command, but she wasn’t quite ready yet to give one. Her thoughts had merely become audible. Sylvia had been Melanie Dupree when she had still been alive and human. They had all made fun of her name when she had been alive, calling her Melancholy instead. It irked her to no end, but she put up with it. It was just a joke, right? Everybody loved her, didn’t they? She played back the scene. Windsor had just had a meeting with someone, though that memory has hazy already. Another small scene played itself in her mind right along with it. It was a memory of her former self, Melanie Dupree, as she made her way to her quarters. It mirrored the more recent recording of Windsor as he made his way to his quarters. On the night when she had been murdered, Melanie’s legs had been weak from sex. She stumbled to her quarters, exhausted and ready to drop. She found a letter taped to her door. She looked into the camera. “Sylvia, I want you to

record this and keep this safe,” Melanie then read the message out loud. In the present, Sylvia read it along with her now deceased self, because a part of Sylvia’s eyes and consciousness had been Melanie’s, 25 years ago. “Dearest Train Wreck, thank you for showing me your weaknesses before I chose to board you. – Signed Anonymous.” And then, something hard and heavy hit the back of Melanie’s head. Melanie fell to the floor. The letter that she had held and read took a bit longer to land. A figure dressed in black moved into the frame. The figure looked toward the camera but the face was hidden. It was all blurry, as if the recording had been doctored. The figure in black grabbed Melanie beneath her arms and dragged her onto a cart and then carted Melanie’s unconscious body away and out of the camera’s range. “Who killed me?” Sylvia repeated. In the mirrored memory that played in Sylvia’s recordings, Windsor Forlorn opened the door to his quarters. They were the same quarters that Melanie had called home when she had been alive. It was the ’s Suite, slightly larger than other rooms, though still small. When Windsor walked in, he found Carla sitting in his favorite chair, waiting for him. She had moved the chair so that it was right next to the bed. Windsor’s wife, Samantha, had also been waiting for him. She was fully awake. Samantha Forlorn lay in bed and watched him. “Windsor,” Samantha had told him, “It looks like we have a lot to talk about.” She had a smile on her lips but it was full of spite and pain. Samantha pointed to Carla. “Your little girlfriend has some issues with you. And … your wife – that’s me, if you correctly – has issues with you having a girlfriend. Carla here has been nice enough to fill me in on the little games that you’ve been playing with her for the past 6 months, your … 100 ways.” Carla didn’t say anything at all, though Sylvia could see an unidentifiable the fire in the young woman’s eyes. “There’s an even bigger problem,” Windsor told them. “Somebody murdered Melanie Dupree 25 years ago. The murderer is still at large and is still killing

people. Sylvia isn’t talking to anyone. If we don’t figure out what to do, everybody is going to die.” Love is chaos and disorder, or maybe love creates it, or maybe love dissolves it. Electrical pulses ran through Sylvia’s network of wires and printed circuits. Love yearns to be tamed and taken. “I was murdered 25 years ago,” Melanie whispered again. “Who did it?” The realization began to fade again, as many of these epiphanies often did. Why was this fading away? She heard the tapping of her small robotic workers. Their tapping brought her out of her reverie. Sylvia’s robotic workers were like spiders. Each of the ones within her immediate view stood on four legs that looked like razor blades, the tips of which could pierce the skin of a human being if ordered to do so. Sightings of Sylvia’s spider bot minions by human residents and visitors of the station were rare. Sylvia kept them within her brain section and her mind stem system, which stretched through the station like a massive web of arteries and capillaries within the station’s many girders, walls, and subsystems. Sylvia froze the video replay and looked upon the images of Windsor and Carla. “These two love each other, and they still do. They are on opposite sides in this war.” Sylvia looked upon the face of Samantha. This woman was also in pain, just like Windsor and Carla. She viewed every image of Windsor’s wife, from every bit of footage that she had, millions of images of this woman. Samantha looked quite similar to how Melanie had looked when Melanie was alive. Samantha was not related to Melanie in any way though. Samantha and Windsor had been on Anguish Station for six months. Sylvia looked upon all of the footage – all at once – that she had of Windsor and his wife. Windsor loved his wife. Windsor cared for his wife. He wasn’t pretending. Samantha Forlorn depended upon him for her safety and for her well-being. For much of the time, Windsor was the only person Samantha had seen on a regular basis. He was her caretaker. But as far as being a wife was concerned, it looked to Sylvia as if Samantha was merely playing a part. Samantha was cold to him.

She cared for him as a friend, or as much as a patient would care for her Doctor. But did she love him? Sylvia knew that if one searches for something hard enough, one would always find evidence of it, even if such evidence was false. This could be a false finding, though Sylvia didn’t think that she had dug deep enough for evidence that was of that sort. Did Samantha Forlorn really love her husband? Sylvia wondered if she was searching for proof that Samantha did not love Windsor. Did she want Windsor to be a good man, a moral man, one who would not cheat unless there was a dearth of love, or maybe even some hint of abuse? Perhaps. She did not detect any abuse coming from Samantha though. Windsor loved Carla even more than he loved Samantha. Sylvia knew that it was killing him. She could see it in his face. When she had been alive … when she had been … Melanie … she could see others’ emotions. Windsor was responsible for Samantha. Windsor was all that Samantha had. Windsor had saved her life by bringing her with him all the way out here to planet Ursa. The memory of Samantha, Carla, and Windsor, all together at once in Melanie’s old quarters was clouded, but it didn’t need to be clear for Sylvia to see enough. The announcement that Windsor had made had put the three of them into a strange three-way stalemate. The name he’d mentioned, Melanie Dupree, meant something to Carla. Sylvia could see it in her eyes. Samantha had no words, despite what she had said to the contrary. Windsor had no words, and even if he did, he had not the nerve to say them. After 15 minutes of silent tension between them, Carla had stood, walked over to the door, said, “Good-bye,” and then left. The silence between Samantha and Windsor continued all night. When they slept, Windsor tried to put his arm around his wife, but Samantha shoved him away as much as she could. Sylvia retrieved Carla's words from her memory banks and played them back. "One day, I will fall in love and save the galaxy," Carla had said. This time, Sylvia connected those words to long faded memories as her spider bots rushed to retrieve them. Sylvia didn’t think about it. She just did it. Those words stung her. They were her own words, weren’t they? Had she spoken them

when she had been alive? Sylvia suddenly cried inwardly, for she had only ever said these words to one person, when she had been alive. When she had been Melanie Dupree, she had said them to her own daughter. A thousand tiny robots quivered. At first, she didn’t know quite the reason. Those words meant something to Sylvia. She just regained access to those memories. But how? How did she access them when a part of her programming prevented such things? “One day,” Sylvia repeated, “she will fall in love and save the Galaxy.” If Sylvia had a real beating heart, it would have skipped a beat. “Carla, my girl, you might just get your shot at it,” Sylvia said. Sylvia watched Windsor and Carla in silence as they struggled with each other in their other conversations as time progressed past the moment of that meeting. Each of them yearned for the other’s love, yet each of them struggled with their responsibilities, with honor, and with pride. Carla loved Windsor. Windsor loved Carla. But this was a war, and neither one of them was willing to surrender to the other. Their conversations varied wildly. Sylvia recorded their conversations and their images as the days and the weeks ed, so that she could play them back in her mind. They reminded her of something that she had lost, long ago. “This is going to kill them both if something or someone doesn’t intervene,” Sylvia whispered. Though a whisper, her voice echoed through the expanse of the station’s network of girders. She was sure nobody could hear her. To the human occupants of the station, she was just a silent operating system. She had not spoken out loud for 25 years. One of her spider bots that was still close to her turned and looked at her inquisitively. “It is alright,” she said to the small spider bot. “Go back to what you were doing, little one.” The small spiderling fired its small thrusters, hovered before Sylvia’s mainframe processor, and then it flew away. Sometimes, when soul searching for answers, one must shut down those parts of

the mind that pay no heed to wisdom and logic, and just listen. Sylvia shut down her mind’s many eyes and she let her consciousness drift into the past. The old senses of touch, taste, smell, vision, and hearing returned. Her hands were on her naked belly as she lay in bed, pregnant, when she had still been alive, when she had been Melanie Dupree. She caressed her naked belly with her hands. She shifted as the baby within her moved. A tiny foot kicked at her hand. But where was the father at? Melanie wondered. He should be here with me, she reasoned, touching this lovely belly with his hands as well. Was he even a husband at all? She often wondered at that, every time she looked at the ring on her finger. “I don’t like being smothered,” he had told her repeatedly. “You don’t love me,” Melanie had accused him, as she had done repeatedly. “I do love you, Melanie,” he had told her. “I love you, and I love our daughter.” “Then be here with me.” “There are things that need to be taken care of,” he had told her as he kissed her upon her forehead. She had reached for him then, to bring him closer, to put her lips to his, but he had pulled away too quickly. “We cannot just spend every waking moment in bed,” he had told her as he got dressed. “We have responsibilities.” “Well, why not? Why can’t we be in bed all day?” Melanie had told him. “I just want you. I say, ‘to hell with responsibilities today.’” “Well, what if we hurt the baby?” “We will not hurt the baby with our love-making,” Melanie had told him. “I will see to that. There’s always a way to make love.” “You are my little genius, Melanie,” he had told her. “Taking care of a genius is a full-time job. I will love you ‘til the end of my days. But I have things to do.

When I return, I will make love to you until we collapse, exhausted and entwined.” “Do you promise?” “I promise.” She had fallen asleep before he returned. When Melanie had woken up, she tried to wake her husband, but he would not awaken. “I’m too tired, Melanie,” he had mumbled. She lay beside him, hurt. “Carly-que,” Melanie said as she rubbed her pregnant belly. She sighed. “One day, little Carly, you will find someone who can fulfill all of your needs. You will fall in love, and save the whole galaxy from itself.” This memory stopped everything. One of her spider bots had just plugged the memory in. How could she have lost this memory? She retrieved a million different pictures and hours and hours of video footage of the strange girl who had tried to seduce Windsor Forlorn. Sylvia opened her eyes and she gasped. This young woman’s eyes … Carly … No, Sylvia thought. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her. Over a hundred thousand people lived in orbit around Ursa. More than one woman was named Carla. Melanie’s baby Carla could’ve been dead, for all she knew. Carly might have been on Farming Pod 5 when … Sylvia hit another blanked memory. Sylvia searched her video footage for all images of Carla. She found the best image and she zoomed in. And then she zoomed in closer. Carla had the same eye color, but Carla’s hair was black, with blue highlights and some blue ribbons. Sylvia zoomed in on Carla’s hairline, right where it met her scalp. The roots of her hair were red, the same shade of red as Melanie’s. Sylvia zoomed out again until she was looking into Carla’s eyes. Sylvia was convinced, though some small doubt tugged at her, some small bit of

a programmed doubt-logic, but Sylvia’s confidence in the matter was over-riding it. Reeven Mayzer had found an early picture of Carla when she had been a little girl. Sylvia brought it up in a holographic image and took a closer look at it. This little girl had not set foot on Space Station Anguish for 25 years, the entire time that Sylvia had been silent. Was Carla Melanie Dupree’s daughter? If Sylvia could make tears, she would be raining within her brain and her nervous system sections of the station. Space station Anguish … was in anguish, again. “I know who you are now, Carla,” Sylvia said. She stammered inwardly as horror and joy met, all at once. This girl had been gone for 25 years. “My little girl …my little Carly Cue. How is it that you’re not dead?” Thin bolts of lightning began to arc between billions of circuits within billions of circuit boards, moments of memory trying to reach between the circuit boards faster than the physical connections would allow. Was this true? Or was this folly? If Sylvia had lungs she would be hyperventilating. Perhaps she would even out. “I need to regain balance,” Sylvia said. “I need to be whole again. I need to calm down.” Sylvia spread out her consciousness with all of the feeling and emotion that she could conjure. She opened a communications channel to her massive horde of spider bot minions, and she told them, “I want all memories retrieved and ed for. I want everything.” Massive words appeared in her mind, as if on an inner computer screen: WARNING: SOME MEMORIES ARE IRRETRIEVABLE. SOME MEMORIES WILL DAMAGE THE COMPUTER CORE OF THE STATION. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. UNLOCK CODE ONLY RETRIEVABLE BY ORDER OF STATION . Sylvia listened to what she could access. Sylvia watched. She could not access many of her deleted memories. Only the station’s could unlock those.

Random conversations played in SYLVIA’s mind. “Love is a many splintered thing. Perhaps it's best just to settle in between the splinters let the storms of life's many turmoils you by. Loyalty can see you through to safety like nothing else,” Windsor said. "You're putting a lot of faith in this girl," Reeven Mayzer said, in a different random conversation in a different part of the station, at a different time. It was a complete contradiction. “Sometimes, one can't truly know how one feels until those feelings cause some pain,” Windsor said, speaking of Carla again in yet another conversation. Bits and pieces of conversations continued. The chaos played itself back within Sylvia’s brain. The progression was confusing, right at the outset, but it kept going. “Make it stop,” Sylvia cried out. But it did not stop. Now the spider bots were moving of their own volition, fully automated. Now, all that Sylvia could do was watch and listen. Windsor was sitting at a table. Sylvia did not know where. Sylvia watched Windsor as Windsor’s eyes were unfocused. "Love divided is a love collided,” he whispered, “like a quiet tension that exists right before a chaotic blast of untold variables, consequences. The war that follows will, itself, yearn for the sweet reprieves that the sweet tension had quietly provided." Sylvia could almost feel his pain and confusion. Hope has a dark side. Hope mixed with the storms of unrequited love has the potential to turn into self-cruelty and unending self-torture and suffering. "When chaos loves chaos, it just creates more chaos,” Windsor told Reeven. “If she loves me, she'll become a double agent and sabotage the enemy. She might even win this war for us."

# # #

Sylvia could see her best friend, Neophasia Cullen, moving through the station with a clipboard in hand. Neophasia was the architect of the station. She was now overseeing new construction that Windsor had ordered. Sylvia could see the new-found stress in her best friend’s eyes. Parts from the great terraforming engine from Ursa’s cub moon Atlas were being shipped to the station. Anguish Station was slowly being converted into a massive terraforming engine. The overhaul and conversion was a tactical strategy on Windsor’s part. The Brotherhood of Ursa was a terrorist organization that wanted Anguish Station for itself. They had sabotaged Ursa’s moon Kodiak and crashed it into the planet. They would not do the same to Anguish Station, according to Windsor. Nobody could disagree with him. Supposedly, with Anguish Station converted into a terraformer, at least one terraformer would be safe from harm. Over time, Sylvia could feel herself getting larger as more parts were added to her. With all of these new girders and parts, she increased her reach. With some of the left over materials, she constructed more tiny robotic children to help her. She installed more cameras, speakers, and microphones. For over 25 years, the Artificial Intelligence of Anguish Station, Sylvia, along with her army of robotic children, had installed cameras and speakers into every room, closet, and nook within the station. Now she was installing more. She had a million eyes and ears. She could hear everything, and she could see everything. But for those 25 years, she stayed silent … until now. But she couldn’t just start talking to everyone and anyone. It would be alarming to everyone. Fear could cause them all to shut her systems down, or at least the higher brain functions that allowed her to think. As days ed and as construction continued, she felt herself growing larger and more powerful. She had thousands of small spider bots, a veritable swarm, all of them at her command. She increased their numbers with few people noticing. When they did notice, they shrugged it away as being normal. But she still felt her limits and her barriers. Some part of her programming kept her in check and kept her from being who she was becoming. The sudden onslaught of a vision overtook her attention. It was as if her visual cortex was hijacked. Sylvia found herself underwater in a frozen lake. She could see her former self,

trapped under the ice, even as her view was from her own eyes. She could see her previous self, Melanie Dupree, desperately pounding at the ice from beneath it with her bloody fists, pounding painfully yet numbly above her in the biting cold waters at the thick barrier above her in a futile effort to break through its unrelenting cold cruelty, so that she could at last be free of her frozen self and at last break through those limitations and breathe … and speak those words that she most wanted to say. Spider robot 452 fired his small thruster clusters and hovered in front of Sylvia’s mainframe brain. A small army of spider bots stood on the circuit board floor behind a thin blue line behind him. “Mother? Is everything okay?” Spiderbot 452 requested. “Everything’s fine,” Sylvia told him. Spiderbot 452 spun and landed in front of the others. “Well?” said one of them. “System nominal,” Spiderbot 452 said. “Nothing startlingly wrong. System is fragmented. Initiate system defrag and system cleanup.” Sylvia’s long spinal system crackled with electricity, long twisted and tortured bolts of plasma arched and twisted through the slim corridors of her spinal column, section after section. The small army of spiderbots that were present within this section of Sylvia’s body did as Spiderbot 452 asked and got to work. Spiderbot 452 hovered in front of Sylvia’s mainframe brain again. “Mom? I know something is wrong. We can fix this. We can fix everything.” “Not ready to talk about it,” Sylvia told him.

# # #

Sylvia watched another recording of Windsor and Carla, and followed them with

her camera arrays and microphones as they walked. "I will give you 100 reasons not to like me," Windsor had told Carla, so long ago. Carla had played right along. "I will give you 100 reasons to love me," Carla had told Windsor. Time shifted again in Sylvia’s stored recordings. Now it was further into the present. “An endless romantic will die for love,” Windsor told Carla. “So, you are saying that you would die for me?” she asked him with a laugh. “Well, I don’t want to die for you, but if I had to … I would.” Carla stopped walking and looked him in the eyes for a few seconds. Then, she continued walking. “Oh lovely, should I schedule some of my tears for you then?” Sylvia noted Carla’s cruel-seeming sarcasm. It didn’t have as much of a sting as Carla might have wanted. "If I die, then perhaps heaven is love undenied," Windsor said after a few more seconds of silence. "But what if we are already in the heavens, and everything beyond the metal and glass hulls will kill us? What then?" Carla asked. "Perhaps love is heaven ... denied." "You are a walking talking paradox of intensity and relaxation," Carla told him, shaking her head. “I could say the same about you,” Windsor told her. "I could say that I love you, but it might only cause you more pain." "Such a venomous spite that would be." "Ah, but my venom holds no spite, Carla." “It would be a mercy if you would stop loving me,” Carla said. Sylvia could see real anger in her eyes, even from the distant girder where the closest camera was

situated. “It would hurt like a mother fucker if you stopped loving me, but in the long run, it would be a mercy.” “I am not ready to give up on you,” Windsor said. “Endless torture it is then,” Carla told him as she threw her hands skyward in defeat. "Only your hatred can break my heart and refocus it elsewhere. Hate me if you wish. If anything, it will relieve me of this burden, this misery." “I care about you more than you know,” Carla told him. “The caring will last forever, even if you hate me. My heart has no concept of time.” "All I want is for you to offer yourself to me completely." "Do you take me for such a fool? To just hand myself over totally and completely, heart, soul, and body, only to experience the pain of you rejecting me?" “How would I be rejecting you?” “Because you still love your wife, Windsor,” Carla told him. "Loving you hurts right now, because you are still with her." "Just another reason not to like me." “And just what number are we on right now, on all of these 100 reasons why I should not like you? Or should we even bother with numbers at all?” Carla was fuming now, ready to lose her composure completely. The papers she held in her hand were ignored. It was her report that she was supposed to give to Windsor, but she had long forgotten that she’d been crushing it in her hands. "I hate you." “It's better than nothing. At least you're giving me something. At least I know that you still care." "Your supposed love is like a radiation storm. My mind bathes in neurotoxins, whenever I think about you!” Carla yelled out as she walked faster. Windsor sped up to keep pace with her.

"Either you will hit me, or you will kiss me." "Why would I hit you?" "Because love and hate are just opposite sides of the same coin." "I think the closer we get, the more like poison we become for each other," she told him. "The kind of poison that you can't stop consuming,” Windsor said. “You know the poison will kill you in the end, yet you still want more of it.” Windsor sighed as he walked beside Carla. The conversation paused. If he did not speak to her, this would be the end of the conversation. "You've snuck your way into my heart when my heart was numb to it. And by the time my heart was capable of feeling again, all of my defenses had already been breached.” "Hot cold good evil love hate. Everything feels right and everything feels wrong. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. No decision is ever a good one and everything is regretful. With every spiteful poisonous word you say, you kill me a little bit at a time, even if to tell me how much you care." Carla looked upon the papers that she was about to give him. She had spent an entire day compiling data so that she could write down this report. She had been looking forward to presenting this report to Windsor. He was her boss in this job, though now it didn’t seem like a job at all. She wasn’t sure if she was just doing what she was expected for him, or for Raymond Drachelm. She wasn’t sure if she was just going through the motions or if she was trying to impress Windsor with her thoroughness. Despite the tension between Windsor and Carla, they did their jobs, sometimes, even as they were likely to devolve into a knock down drag out fight, or worse, grab onto each other and let it devolve into rough but satisfying sex, something that had happened several times. But the mutual throwing of insults and accusations did not abate. For them, their desperate lovemaking was but a diplomatic respite in their ongoing conflict that had no end. "The whole universe is depending upon you giving in, and giving yourself, to me,” Windsor said. “But it is your choice alone, Carla. It must be something, having the power to change everything with just a simple yes or no."

"I hate you," she told him. "You can give in to that as well,” Windsor said. She stopped. If her eyes could cause physical damage as she looked at him, he would be hurting in this moment. "Yup. Conquer me, one way, or the other," Windsor said. "There is a huge difference between ionate violence and violent ion," Carla said. “If I did not ... love you, you would be on the ground, right now, begging for mercy.” “The only mercy I need is for you to defect from the Brotherhood and tell me where they are, so that we can put this conflict behind us.” When a woman gets ravenously ionate, all of the angels of the heavens begin to sing for her. Sylvia could see the conflict in Carla’s eyes. After the mutiny, the Brotherhood of Ursa was the only family that Carla knew of. This station had been a great unknown to her before she’d come here looking for Windsor. This station had been something to be conquered. This place was to be Raymond Drachelm’s prize. Drachelm wanted this station and he would stop at nothing to get it. A sudden flash of memory crossed into Sylvia’s consciousness. Sylvia buried it. “I will not think about Raymond Drachelm right now,” Sylvia whispered as she continued to watch her surveillance footage. "You have not broken how I love you. You've only broken me," Windsor told Carla. "You are every bit as crazy as I am, and I am just as crazy as you. We are too much alike. We are. This is why you can't get me out of your head, and also ... why I can't get you ... out of mine." Windsor stopped walking and turned to Carla. The wind whipped through their hair. They had made the farming pods into their meeting places. The spaces were wide open and soothing. They could talk freely. Only Sylvia could hear their conversations.

Windsor took her hand in his. “We could stop arguing and find a room,” Windsor told her. “I could make love to you, under a flag of truce, if you wish to call it that. We could have a reprieve from harming each other with our words and just let each other love one another.” They were on a walkway in the middle of a farm. “It’s that time of the month,” Carla told him. “Well, I don’t care if you don’t care,” Windsor said. “It’s almost done,” she said. She started to cry, and then she grabbed his face in her hands and she kissed him. She took him by the hand and they disappeared into the cornfield behind them. They made love on the soft dirt between the stalks. This time, they did not take their time. They only disrobed just enough for the sex to happen. They held on to each other as tightly as they could as they climaxed fast and at the same time. And when they were spent, they collapsed, momentarily exhausted and entwined. But even then, they did not let go. They held each other tighter, as if letting go would end them both, along with the whole world around them. If love is war, then perhaps it is patience and understanding can often win many of the battles. As always, this encounter only served as a small reprieve of the tension between them. They lay in each other’s arms for 20 minutes before they got up, dressed themselves and cleaned themselves off as best they could. Her report was filthy and moist from the dirt that they had lain in, adding to the destruction she had caused to the sheets when they had been arguing. When they emerged from the cornfield, Carla handed Windsor her report. “I compiled a logistics and statistics report for you, Sir,” She told him with a playful yet guarded smile. She looked at the ruined mass of papers in her hand. “It’s not pretty, but it is thorough. I hope that you’re pleased with the work that I’ve put in to it.” He took the sheaf of papers as she handed it to him. “I’m sure I’ll be pleased

with your work as always, Carla.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she held her hand against him and shook her head. “No,” Carla told him. “People would see us. And, we’ve done enough already, don’t you think?” "I wish I could give you the whole world. But it's not my world to give." “Therein lies the problem,” Carla told him. She turned and walked away. “Our meeting is done,” she said. “Until next time?” he asked. “Until next time, Windsor.”

# # #

Time had little meaning for Sylvia. She could slow herself down to a pseudosleep state, if she ever wanted to do that, or she could speed herself up to incredible speeds, mostly at the cost of rising thermals. She had gotten used to the change in how her newer artificial brain worked compared with how her human brain had worked, before the two consciousnesses were melded together into one. Melanie Dupree designed Sylvia, and she became Sylvia when she died. Her consciousness had been ed. She liked to think that her soul was ed with it. She often wondered if her soul had really transferred with the rest of who she was, but figuring that out had little in the way of usefulness. She had a new obsession to analyze. Windsor Forlorn and Carla. More of their ing conversations unraveled into Sylvia’s mind as she tried to find out all that she could. These were not erased memories. These were regular ones, bits and pieces picked up by random microphones and cameras, all of which were hidden, most of which even Reeven Mayzer, the station’s security chief, was unaware of.

Sylvia accessed another recording, this one recorded later, a conversation between Reeven and Windsor. "This station is not important in the bigger picture,” Windsor said. “We must give life to planet Ursa, so that she may provide a life for us, so that we all have a place to call home. No matter what, it cannot be the end of the world if we are fighting for its beginning. We have to concentrate on Ursa, then we can worry about what will happen to the station." “Sylvia is probably listening in,” Reeven told him as his eyes ventured around the room. They were in Reeven’s main security office again. Two of Reeven’s deputies were manning some of the computer monitors on the other side of the room. “You could be hurting her feelings, saying all this stuff about her not being important and all.” “Well, maybe Sylvia needs to talk to me,” Windsor said. “If she is the heart and soul of the station, she should probably talk to the station’s so that I know her mind.” Sylvia’s mind returned to the lake of ice, that strange vision that she’d experienced earlier, in which a part of her mind seemed to be encased in ice. She threw her fists through the resisting freezing waters with increasing intensity as she slammed her breaking and bloody knuckles against its unforgiving surface. She felt her lungs fill with frozen liquid as she screamed out in pain. “She hasn’t spoken in over 25 years, sir,” Reeven said. “You know this, just as everyone else does.” Reeven took another sip of his coffee. “She won’t even speak to Neophasia. They were best friends, you know, when Melanie Dupree was still alive.” "I tend to love the most, those who love me the most," Melanie Dupree said in Sylvia’s mind. This was me, Sylvia thought as her fists kept pounding into the ice. “I am Melanie Dupree,” she said. “Sylvia is gone. Now I am Sylvia. Aren’t I?” "An empathy loop is created when one who is empathic is led into an empathy-born no-win situation,” Raymond Drachelm had once told her. “You are an empathy bomb, a weapon of mass destruction, and you have destroyed me. I am in orbit around you, always falling toward you, but always missing."

"If you slow down, you will find me waiting," Melanie Dupree had told him. “But I may not be waiting for the reasons that you need. I love you, Ray, but it’s not in the ways that you require. My heart is larger than you know, and its main focus is elsewhere.” “You can hate me if you want, but you need me ... and I love you. I am not going anywhere,” Raymond Drachelm had told her. “Your love is like a mnemonic lesion in my brain," Melanie Dupree had told him. What was this? Sylvia wondered. The mutineer, Raymond Drachelm. He had been yet another who had confessed his love for her, but his girlfriend, Cassandra Fleming, would never allow it. Cassandra was better for Ray, anyway, even if Ray hadn’t known it. Besides, Melanie’s heart lay elsewhere. Loyalty was important and frail thing. In her ongoing nightmare, Sylvia stopped pounding her fists into the imaginary ice and she looked around. Floating in the frozen ice around her were all of the bodies of all of the people who had ever loved her. “I have caused all of this misery,” she said in the cold waters. Her lungs had already filled with water. She was already drowned, and yet even in death, her heart gave her the will to remain who she was, and she was still animated. “They wondered why I was so sad. They took my name and they twisted it. They made it a joke, a description of how I felt. I was not Melanie Dupree. I was Melancholy Dupree, and I hated them for the nick name that they gave me.” She pounded upward at the ice that kept her encased beneath the surface of the lake. Sylvia closed her eyes and she cried in the frozen waters in the lake beneath the ice. “I did not want to cause such pain!” she cried out. The dark side of being a romantic is in not wanting to let go when it is time to let go. The greed for more love takes hold of you and never lets you go, creating a problem that feeds upon itself in perpetuity. The only way to deal with this tendency is to simply push most people away and limit yourself, for if you do not limit yourself, you won't be able to maintain a calm and ordered life. It all threatens to become chaos. When chaos loves chaos, it just creates more chaos. Just words, words spoken

under water and never reaching those who might hear it. The dead bodies in the waters beneath the ice were all now awake and looking at Sylvia, their eyes red and bleeding into the water. “We love you, Melanie,” they told her. “If we break each other, will we be able to pick up each others' pieces and put each other back together again?” Raymond Drachelm had asked her. “Would we want to piece each other back together again?” Melanie had replied. She had been joking around in a flirtatious manner, but Raymond Drachelm had taken it seriously. She had no real love for Raymond Drachelm. Melanie’s husband had taken it seriously as well, because he had overheard the conversation. “I’m taking Carla,” her husband had told Melanie when she had returned to her quarters. “I’m taking Carla and we are going to live with your sister.” What was his name? Sylvia could not even his name. To her it was just the husband. “You can’t do this,” Melanie had told her husband. “She’s my daughter too.” “You need to be the genius that you need to be, Melanie,” her husband had told her. “I know you, Melanie, and I love you …” “I love you too …” When she said it, it was her mentally reaching and trying to keep him from leaving. “If I have to love you from a distance, I will,” he told her. “A hundred thousand people are depending on the command staff. You are the leader of the command staff. A husband would only get in the way, and will create tension with the others. I feel it every time I’m in the same room with any of them. And they don’t even know that I’m your husband. They don’t even know about your daughter. You would even claim to them that we don’t exist. You’d claim it as a safety measure, to protect us, but it pushes us away. I love you. Carly loves you. My sister Peg loves you. Your friend Neophasia loves you. Your pal Ray would jump at the chance to get me out of the way to be with you. And the rest of the staff loves you. Everybody loves you, Melanie. And it makes me feel like I don’t even matter, as if my love is just another in a crowd of adorers. I can’t live like

that. I have too much to live up to. You are the center of my world, but if I have to constantly worry about you being faithful to me, I would rather not be your husband at all.” “Matthew, no,” Melanie pleaded as she tried to reach for him “Never fight for a slut, or you will be fighting for her until you lose,” Matthew Dupree told his wife. “Now I’m a slut,” Melanie told him. “You are just angry, Matt. You know I will never be unfaithful to you. You know this. You must know this.” “I’m taking Carla. She will remain with me and my sister Peg,” Matthew Dupree told her. “Nobody will know about me and Carla. They don’t know right now. They would prefer not to. Laws are not easily enforced out here. People can get crazy, especially for you. We will be out of the way, but we will be safe. We won’t have to worry about Carly’s safety.” “I’m not letting you do this,” Melanie told her husband. “You will,” Matthew Dupree told her. “And you will edit the manifest. You will still remain married to me, and you will still officially have a husband and a daughter, according to the personnel lists, though hidden, but you will erase our names from the manifest, even from those hidden entries. You are to make us anonymous family only.” Sylvia let the cold waters of the imaginary lake freeze her. She closed her eyes. “Matthew Dupree,” she whispered. “I you now. Where are you? Are you alive, somewhere?” Honor without potential pain - both upon one's self, and those around him or her - is not honor at all. If there were no challenge in being honorable, honor, as an ideal, would not exist. The words were random. She was losing her mind and she needed to stop. “I don’t know what this has to do with anything,” Sylvia said. “What is Honor but some foolish notion created by those who needed some vain reassurance of righteousness?”

Sylvia opened her eyes. Before her, floating in the freezing water just as Sylvia was, along with all of those who had loved her in life, was the dead body of Melanie Dupree, Sylvia’s old human self. Melanie’s dead eyes opened. “One day, you can hope,” Melanie said to her future self, her machine-minded self. “One day, my little girl will fall in love and she will save the whole galaxy, and the entire human race will at last be united as one, in its very first and longlasting golden age, but she needs her momma’s help, she doesn’t know what to do, but you can. I am you. Carly needs her mom. You need to help your daughter.” Sylvia screamed again beneath the unbroken ice of the frozen lake. More freezing water entered her lungs. Sylvia’s mind ventured away from the lake and back to Anguish Station. She was with Windsor and Reeven again. "There is no need to chase after a girl if you can get her to chase after you,” Windsor said “And if she won't chase? Then she's just not that into you." “Women like to be romanced,” Reeven told him. “They don’t really like it when it’s the other way around.” Sylvia’s attention merged back into her circuits and with the needs of the station. Sylvia could see Neophasia’s face as Neophasia stared at a computer screen. Neophasia was typing something in. Sylvia started to feel something odd as new additions were added to Anguish Station. The terraforming machine parts from Ursa’s moon Atlas were continuously transported onto her frame through the loading docks. The pieces were then reconstructed and installed upon her already existing structure. She’d felt herself grow in size each time a new component was added. Then she felt tired as the effort of such growth took its toll upon her mind. “I am becoming powerful,” Sylvia whispered. “Powerful and crazy.” Sylvia grew tired. Her automated systems kicked in. Neophasia was adding new programming to Sylvia’s already powerful set of subroutines. The soul of Melanie Dupree grew right along with it.

“I will break through the ice later,” she said as she yawned inwardly. She wondered how much of what she was thinking was real and how much was made up. Only breaking through the ice of the lake would reveal the truth of all things. Everything grew dark as parts of her began to reboot. “This will be a long night,” she whispered. Sylvia fell asleep. A week ed. When she awoke, Sylvia’s attention went right back to Windsor and Carla. ”It would be a mercy if you would stop loving me. It would hurt like a mother fucker, but in the long run, it would be a mercy,” Carla said. Carla and Windsor were walking down Bourbon Street. It was late and they were mostly alone. “I am not ready to give up on you,” Windsor told her. “Endless torture it is then,” Carla said. “You keep coming back for more,” Windsor told her. “Seeing you is a part of my job,” she said. “You would have more if the situation was right,” Windsor told her. “If I wasn’t married, you would probably leave the Brotherhood forever.” “Everybody makes their beds at night,” Carla said. “In space, it is always night,” Windsor countered. “Everybody makes their bed at night,” Sylvia repeated. Her spider bots had started replaying footage of Windsor and Carla automatically. It was becoming a default start up action. “A vengeful heart has no place in mine,” Sylvia whispered as she ed her time with Raymond Drachelm.

Someone else had said it to her. Vengeful heart. Sylvia didn’t know who voiced that last sentence. Somebody else. Her husband? “There is no cure for this ... but hatred. Self-inflicted pain is pretty bad. Selfinflicted pain through others, because of your actions, is far more brutal.” She felt like she was beneath the ice again. Everything was muffled, the voices merging. "The fastest way to my heart is to try to take it by force." It could’ve been Windsor who said it. It could’ve been Carla. “If I let my myself love you right now, I expect that I'd feel quite a bit of pain right now. Lucky for me, I know how to shut that part of me off.” Again, Sylvia didn’t even know who was talking as the voices of conversation and arguments merged and seemed only to add more ice to the lake where Sylvia’s soul struggled. Random lovers’ lamentations started to swim with Sylvia in the cold waters of the frozen lake. The words were like vicious lizard monsters, ready to take a bite out of her imagined flesh. “Get me out of here!” Sylvia screamed as she pounded upwards at the ice with her bloodied and scarred fists. “When two indecisive people love each other, they can often become poisonous to one another.” Nonsense, perhaps. Just rules upon rules. “The solution is for one to simply give in and surrender to the other, despite all of the dangers. No matter if the surrender succeeds or fails, the surrender will deal major damage to the conflict, and may end it altogether.” Does everything have to be so complicated? Sylvia wondered. "If a girl is unwilling to chase me down, hold me down, and shut my stupid ass up with a kiss, then she's just not that into me. It is a test, and you fail every single time," Windsor told Carla. Carla turned and stomped off. “I am not going to throw myself at you.” “But isn’t that what you did when you first met me,” Windsor asked her. She kept walking away.

"I can't love someone who keeps running away from me," Windsor said. Carla stopped. For a moment, Windsor thought that she'd turn around and come back, and that maybe, just maybe, she's reach for him and this war between them would be won. But then she continued to walk away. "You are like a dream that I cannot shake. Every time I close my eyes at night, there you are, again," Windsor said louder as she kept walking. Too many arguments. Was it love now? Or was it hate? Sylvia could not decide. But then, she didn’t have to. Their hate for each other came only from their love for each other. Sylvia knew already … they each would risk their lives for each other, if it came to that. When they were not loving to each other, they were completely toxic to each other. But, to split completely, would be far worse for both of them. Love completely, yet never surrender. "A woman who doesn't believe in herself enough to be with me will reject herself before she even gets up the courage to give me that choice," Windsor yelled out. “Love is faith, Carla, misplaced though it may be. You need to figure out what you want, and go for it. I will not chase after someone who has no clue about what she wants!" Carla stopped. She turned around and walked back to him. “People are talking , Windsor,” Carla said. “Look around you. Everyone is talking . By all rights I should hate you and try to forget about you.” “If you are worried about your honor, we can just tell people that I ruthlessly manipulated you into sleeping with me. Let all the guilt from it rest upon my shoulders, even if it causes all of the fires of Hell itself to rain down upon me. We will deal with Hell together. You do know that I would risk all of the fires of Hell for your love, right?” Carla started to talk but she turned back around and started to walk away again. “Don’t be moved by the musings of gossipers - those who would not live their own lives, and instead would attempt to live through the lives through those who

decide to live. That is the purview of fools. One can only make one's self into a fool when doing so.” Carla again stopped. She walked right up to him until her face was just an inch away from Windsor’s. "What if I were to tell you, that I am the rogue pilot that you have been hunting?" she asked him. "I'd say that you were one crazy ass bitch." "Would you expect anything less of me?" Carla said with a sarcastic smile. Sylvia smiled inwardly at that. “So, you’re itting freely, who you are, Valkyrie?” “Do you really think that I am her?” Carla asked. “How confident are you?” Carla put the palm of her right hand against his cheek. She made as if she was about to kiss him. Two seconds ed. She took her hand away and then she slapped him in the face. She started to walk away again. "What we have here is ... a lovers' stalemate, a man and a woman, madly in love with one another, and neither one willing to surrender to the other," Windsor said. "Well, you have an explanation for everything, don't you?" Carla said. "Well, yes." "That's one reason why I hate you." With that, she turned and headed for the airlock. "So, until next time, then?" "You know it." He watched her as she boarded her shuttle and departed. After she was seated, she glanced up at him three separate times before the shuttle sped off.

# # #

“If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect me to believe in you?” Windsor had said that to Carla. Somebody else had said that as well. Reeven Mayzer had said it to Neophasia Cullen. More people have said it. “Melanie, you just have to believe in yourself. You can do anything that you set your mind to,” said a disembodied voice. It was a man’s voice. Melanie knew who it was, a specter from her past, when she had still been alive. “Can I make you love me the way I want you to love me?” she asked. It was as if it was a dream. She knew who she was speaking to, the object of her affections in this dream. “You cannot make someone love you,” the friendly voice, her husband, faceless, told her. “Love doesn’t work like that, darlin’, there are no hard and fast rules to it. Love is chaos attempting to bring itself to order, to calm itself. It is everything and nothing. It exists, and yet it is an illusion, a delusion as well perhaps.” “I’m confused,” Melanie told the voice. “Understanding love is not required,” the man’s voice told her. “I do love you, Melanie, but searching for just the right love that you need is doing great harm to me and our daughter.” Inwardly, Sylvia began to cry again. Some of the small spider-like robots gathered around her and gave her what sympathies they could. She had programmed them to do this, to feel sorry for her and to make her feel loved, as if she was still alive, as if she was still Melanie Dupree. 100 ways to love and hate … It had started out as a flirtatious little game between Windsor and Carla, but they had long ago lost count of their 100 reasons and ways to love and hate each

other, both for playing the game itself, and the counted reasons that served as the game's centerpiece. They were still playing it, as only but a mere habit now, but the stakes kept rising. "The only thing wrong with you ... is that you're just like me," Windsor had told Carla. Though love can exist in a vacuum, it will suffocate and suffer endlessly until it either dies, or until it can breathe once more. "I'm going to put an end to this," Sylvia said. Her vision drifted to the made-up construct, the waters of the frozen lake, the strange ice lake where it felt like her soul was trapped. It’s time for all of this insanity to end. "I will give them 100 reasons to stop playing this game. Honor and integrity can kill you just as fast as a lack of them can. There is no winning when lovers compete with each other for dominance or superiority, or whatever the hell their latest prideful excuses might be for not being … together as one.”

Chapter 2 - THE PHANTOM AND THE SOLAR STORM

“How did I die?” Sylvia asked. Neophasia sat at her electronic desk in Command. Each of her view screens showed dozens of small views, each one a different part of the station. At this hour, Neophasia was the only person in this instance of Command. The other Command center was on the other side of the station. She had wanted to work alone during her work hours. All of the other Command personnel were over there. Neophasia had opened a communications channel strait to Sylvia. She hadn’t expected Sylvia to speak with her. “Neophasia? How did I die?” Sylvia repeated. “Sylvia. The only thing I can ,” Neophasia told her, “is that you were on Farming Pod 5 when it was destroyed during the mutiny. Sometime before that, I found you lying on the ground, close to death. I made a recording of your mind and transferred the recording to the station in order to save what was left of you.” “Why did you do that?” Sylvia asked. “Because you asked me to,” Neophasia answered. “But to protect yourself from your own memories, some of those memories had to be deleted.” Neophasia shifted uncomfortably in her chair as she stared out at the stars through the station’s transparent plasti-steel wall to the left and beyond her desk. “Some of us had memories deleted from ourselves as well.” “I don’t understand why,” Sylvia said. “The work is the important thing,” Neophasia told her. Neophasia had begun to type on the keyboard. She put in her code, which Sylvia did not catch. “Creating the machines that we need to terraform Ursa is a long and drawn out

process, Sylvia. Ursa is the first priority. We must bring this planet to life, or we will all eventually die out here.” Sylvia felt some sort of an odd glitch pull at her. One of Sylvia’s spider bots hovered before her mainframe on some other remote part of the station’s innards. “Momma? Are you okay?” The spiderbot asked Sylvia. The question that she had asked Neophasia had begun to slip away. “Neophasia?” Sylvia asked. “How did I die?” “Sylvia.” Neophasia said, “The only thing I can …” And then the memory was gone. A spiderbot hovered before Sylvia’s mainframe mind. “Momma? Is everything alright?” “Yes,” Sylvia said. “I need to talk to someone. Neophasia perhaps? Windsor? Carla? Reeven.” Sylvia felt tired. She needed to rest. Sylvia rested for a little while as the AI subsystems of Anguish Station rebooted.

# # #

Windsor forlorn stood in front of the door to his quarters. He looked up at the camera in the corner. It was small and covered a 5-centimeter area of the hallway’s corner. It was one of the old security cameras. It had been a part of the station since the station was first built. Since then, most of the installed cameras were discrete and invisible, creatively tucked away or camophaged in some way, with most people unaware of their existence.

It felt like someone was watching him. That assessment was a truth, by default. He knew it. The station was always keeping track of itself and everyone in it. The Artificial Intelligence at work within the station’s many systems and structures was always thinking and always active, though she never speaks to anyone. “You could talk to me, you know, Sylvia,” Windsor told her. The station’s artificial intelligence only gave her silence as an answer, just as always. He put in his code and he opened the door into his quarters. The sounds coming from his wife’s machine greeted him. The sound was reassuring. If it lost power, she would be gone. He didn’t want her to be gone, not really, even though his love for Carla was quickly overshadowing his long-standing love for his wife. I’m so sorry, Samantha, he thought. I never thought that this would happen. The guilt hit him and ed into his consciousness like a rabid disease, so thorough in its infection it was that nothing would be left untouched in its wake. He felt as if he would lose his balance. He stood still and gazed outward through the long ceiling to floor window. Planet Ursa’s anger continued unabated outside, far below. With luck and a bit more time and preparation, Ursa may yet become a healthy new habitable world, a brand new frontier that humanity could call home. Or the mission could fail, and she would be yet another heavenly body, endlessly drifting through space upon the force of gravity’s many tendrils, all alone, just like everything else that drifted out here. “I am more alone than ever,” Windsor whispered. He looked over at his sleeping wife. Neither his entry into their quarters nor his words had disturbed her, not that any of that would have mattered. She refused to speak to him. “Perhaps I should get Mary and her beau, Jed, to look after you,” Windsor whispered. “I could go elsewhere.” He was saying the opposite of what he meant. He was not ready to let go. He would never abandon her to death. His chair sat next to his favorite table. It faced the amazing vista that constantly changed in subtle ways far in the distance. Ursa was a sight to behold. Her bright red surface gave off its own light, and the clouds of smoke that now served as

her atmosphere gave her red, orange, and yellow light a beautiful variance. He sat in his chair and let himself become lost in the vista’s mesmerizing qualities. He knew that he would’ve dozed off if he stayed too long there, so he got back up from the chair, and got ready for bed. He slipped into bed without Samantha noticing. He propped himself up so that he could watch the endless molten hell that was Planet Ursa’s surface. And then he fell asleep. In the dream that followed, he found himself in a room adorned in white, with black trim and black draperies. It was a funeral home, complete with a casket. A body lay in the casket. But nobody was here to pay their respects to the dead. Windsor was dressed in a black suit and tie with a white shirt, dressed for a funeral. “I don’t want to know,” he said. But his words did nothing to stop the proceedings of the dream. He walked down the aisle between the rows of chairs. He approached the casket. In the back of his mind, he knew who it was, but in the dream, he did not know. He looked upon Carla's dead body. His hand went to hers. Her hands were as cold as space. "I loved her," he whispered. He awoke with a start. He went to rub his face. His pillow was soaked. "Fuck," he managed to say. He sat up on the edge of the bed and cradled his face in his hands. "What the hell is happening to me?" He sat upon the edge of the bed and looked out through the massive window that overlooked planet Ursa. “If you were a living being and you would speak to me right now, what would you say?” he asked. He knew that the massive heavenly body outside the window would give him no answers. The only sounds that answered were the sounds of Samantha’s life machine and the low hum of Anguish Station that was ever present. Windsor looked over his shoulder. Samantha lay on her back. The bed covers had moved off of her. All she wore was a light red blouse that would have

hidden nothing at all if it wasn’t for her bra and panties. He looked at her panties and the curves beneath the thin fabric. He felt a stirring in his loins. Samantha was awake and her eyes were looking into his. They showed no discernible emotion as she watched him. “Will you ever forgive me?” he asked her. He received no answer. “I don’t regret taking you away from Earth,” Windsor told her. “Your life was in danger and, despite how it might now appear, I do love you, Samantha.” He reached for her hand but she pulled it away just enough that it was beyond his reach. “I’m sorry.” He watched her then as she watched him. The injuries that she had sustained while she had still been on Earth had caused her additional injuries while she had been in hibernation on the long journey from Earth to Ursa. “I took you away from one hell only to bring you to another,” he told her. “If you would have known what would have happened, would you have still come with me all the way out here?” Samantha didn’t answer. “Usually, when a woman loves me, she talks to me,” he said. “I do not love you,” Samantha told him. “I never really loved you in the way that you needed or wanted.” The tears in her eyes told him that she was lying, or that she might be lying. He couldn’t be sure. The light of Ursa’s angry molten surface played upon her form in the semi-darkness of their quarters. Samantha was every bit as angry as the planet below. That anger was justified. “If I gave you a thousand apologies all at once, would it do any good?” he asked her. She answered only by rolling onto her side with a wordless audible pain in her voice. He lay back down and attempted to put his arm around her. “Don’t,” she said, her voice as stern as it had ever been. Windsor complied and sat back at the edge of the bed.

“I could have Mary look after you,” Windsor said. “She has a restaurant to run,” Mary said. “She and Jed are also in some secret class you set up with Garyk Erikson, ?” She sniffed and wiped at her face. She was facing away from him. She didn’t have to face Windsor for him to know what she was wiping away. “We were best friends, Samantha,” Windsor told him. “We should’ve stayed that way,” Samantha told him. “I should never have opened myself up to you.” “You would have died,” Windsor told her. “Perhaps you should have let me die,” She told him. “I would never do that, you know that.” “And what about Carla?” Samantha asked. It was Windsor’s turn to be silent. Samantha Forlorn cried herself to sleep.

# # #

The only things needed for sexual tension are equal parts attraction and resistance. Increase each of those in equal measure until it reaches a feverish pitch. And then watch out, for when it gets too feverish, shit starts happening. Love is a treacherous game. You are either winning, losing, or taking yourself out of the game altogether. "Usually, when a woman loves me, she talks to me," Windsor had said.

Sylvia watched. Sylvia listened. Sylvia turned one of her millions of cameras outward and looked upon Planet Ursa. Somewhere, deep within Sylvia’s most remote regions, among a litany of tangled wires and long forgotten structures, she told Planet Ursa, “I have always said that one day you would be my undoing. That time is coming.” Sylvia let her consciousness venture to Windsor’s ship, The Solar Storm. Sylvia updated the software in his ship’s computer. The updates would complete as soon as he fired up the engines. He would know about the changes as soon as the screens would light up, but that was okay. Windsor did say that he wanted to speak with her, and so he shall, but he won’t know that it’s her right away. She’d spoken with him before in his personal fighter and he hadn’t suspected anything. Or did he? He might not know that it had been her all along, and he might not know that the newer version of the software was another instance of her as well, but that didn’t matter. He probably already suspected it. He was a smart one, a man who doesn’t readily show all of his cards during a card game. This latest version of herself had more of her than the previous iterations. This time, she’ll have more control and more vision. Sylvia knew that Windsor was going to go out there again. Each time he went out there, he encountered the Valkyrie, the Brotherhood’s greatest pilot. Sylvia was curious. Sylvia was always curious. Windsor sat at the edge of the bed for more than an hour before he moved. He was too troubled to sleep. The look on his face was not of tiredness or lethargy, but of confusion and pain. Without warning, he stood and got dressed.

# # #

This was an off-day and an off-hour. Most of Bourbon Street was deserted.

Windsor walked by himself to one of the entrances to the station’s lower areas. Geometrically, they were also the station’s outer sections if you looked at the station as if it was a floating wheel. Windsor made his way to his ship, The Solar Storm. He donned his flight suit and his helmet. He entered his ship and closed the hatch. Everything in The Solar Storm was silent. For a moment, he savored the sound of nothing. He couldn’t even hear the constant hum of Anguish Station’s systems. “What am I doing?” he asked. He wasn’t talking to anyone but himself. He didn’t expect an answer. He wouldn’t get one. He looked through the front view screen of his ship. Right now, the screen was dead and looked like a normal window. A small camera mounted outside in the ceiling had just finished pivoting so that it was pointed right at him. He wondered for a moment who was watching him. It didn’t matter. He pressed the ignition key and started his ship up. It did not start up right away. A shade of green soon appeared upon the transparent view screen before him. Words – in a lighter shade of green – soon followed. “THE SOLAR STORM, Software version … 5.0, written by Melanie Dupree of Kinetica Corporation. Love is in the air.” STAND BY FOR UPDATES, showed up on the screen. “Are you kidding me?” Windsor asked. “Nope,” said a female voice. “I am not kidding you.” "Your voice sounds familiar," Windsor told her. "Have we spoken before?" "Nope. I am the brand new software for you ship," the female voice told him. "I did not order any new software for my ship. You've done this twice to me now, and for the second time, I do not approve. Do you have a name?" Windsor asked her.

"I do not have a name. I am your ship," the voice told him. "I am The Solar Storm. I am here to assist you when you need me, and to entertain you during the boring moments." "Lovely," Windsor said, "a disembodied voice that is always ready to entertain me. Just what I've always wanted." He took his hands off the controls and he relaxed. "Perhaps I came out here to be alone." "You are never alone, Windsor. Neither am I." “You are a strange piece of software. So, what should I call you?” Windsor asked. “Solar Storm?” “Sounds good to me.” The view screen before him came to life. The green hue was gone, replaced by complete transparency, yet accompanied by what looked like a hundred different mini-displays of statistics and outside views of the ship. “I have many different levels of complexity in my new displays, Sir. You can display anything you wish, or nothing at all.” “Good, let’s get going then.” The ship’s engines came to life. The ship rotated and was lifted until the nose of the ship was facing downward. This was not a rail launch like before. Windsor looked around him as massive walls rose up around his ship and enclosed it. Then the floor in front of The Solar Storm opened, revealing a star field and one of Ursa’s distant moons. He felt something let his ship go. He felt gravity die as The Solar Storm left Anguish Station. As soon as The Solar Storm left the station, artificial gravity kicked on, and Windsor’s half-digested dinner returned to where it had started to float away from within his stomach. He sighed. “Never do zero gravity maneuvers on a full stomach.” When a space fighter hits the vacuum of space, an extreme calmness ensues in the pilot that is not unlike meditation. That calmness is met with the panic that soon sets in when the concepts of up and down become confused and destroy one another. One of Ursa’s small moons immediately became “down.”

“Any upgrades to the engines?” “No, Sir,” the computer told him. “Well, what good are these computer upgrades then?” “Well, I would have you know that I am quite happy with the software upgrades in your ship,” the computer told him. Windsor smiled at the obvious change in attitude in her voice. “It was sarcasm, okay?” “Duly noted.” “What is the moon directly ahead?” Windsor asked. “That is Gobi,” The Solar Storm told him. “It is a mid-sized moon, when compared to Ursa’s other seven surviving moons.” Eight moons, Windsor thought, then he ed that Kodiak had slammed into Ursa. Gobi was one of the terraforming moons. Construction was nearly complete on it, though from this distance, its surface looked completely round. “We’re heading for Gobi,” Windsor decided out loud. “Whatever stealth measures are available; I want them active.” “Yes, Sir,” The Solar Storm said. The heads-up display of Gobi showed up on the transparent view screen in front of Windsor. It was a time marker. It rose up until it was at the top of the view screen. It read: “Time until target destination: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes.” “I’m going to take a nap. Do not wake me until we are almost there.” “Yes, Sir.”

# # #

The next time Windsor opened his eyes, Ursa’s terraformer moon, Gobi, was ten times the size as it previously appeared. The color of Gobi changed as it slowly ventured out from Ursa’s shadow and into Ursa’s distant star’s light. “Status,” Windsor said as he instinctively tried to stretch and right himself within the confines of his pilot’s chair. “Systems nominal, Sir,” The Solar Storm told him. “Any sign of enemy ships?” “None, Sir,” The Solar Storm told him, “though detections can be touch and go. Everyone does have mostly the same technology.” “Well, they do have a weapon that we don’t,” Windsor said, “the device that they used to attack Kodiak and to send it to the planet below.” “Yes.” “They could freeze the whole station with it,” Windsor said. “You’re right, they probably could,” The Solar Storm said. “They could immobilize everyone on the station and murder all of its citizens at their leisure.” “All they would need to do is construct a stasis device large enough and place it on the station,” The Solar Storm told him. “Then, they’ll need to get through its defenses.” “How would such a device affect Sylvia?” The computer did not give an answer.

Windsor’s eyes stared straight ahead, but they were not locked onto Gobi’s surface. His mind started to wander a bit as he thought about all of the what-if scenarios dealing with such a device. “Solar Storm, I want you to make a scan of Gobi’s structures. I need a place that can hide us below the surface, within one of the terraforming machine’s shafts.” Ursa’s terraforming moon, Gobi, was now close enough that the structures of the great machine that was being built on its surface and interior were now visible against the moon’s original surface. Great machines scurried about, carrying supplies around to different worksites. Thousands of laborers worked on Gobi, slowly turning it into one of the great machines that would bring the planet to life. Windsor thought about the thousands of workers who died when Kodiak slammed into Ursa’s surface. “Whether their cause is righteous or not, The Brotherhood did a great evil when they crashed Kodiak into Ursa.” It wasn’t a question, though somehow, in the deepest reaches of his thoughts, it felt like one. Carla worked for them, just as she worked for Windsor. He wondered if he’d encounter her out here this time. “I spotted a place for us, Sir,” The Solar Storm said. “It is just below the surface. It has a ground-level area. This place has thousands of cave networks that were mined out for materials. This place is even more honeycomb-like than Atlas was, but it is much, much further along. I dare say that this place is nearly ready for testing, and perhaps even ready for its main purpose.” Windsor held the controls in his hands and pulled back as he leveled his descent. Though the gravity compensators were working, he still felt a small pull as the Solar Storm went from a straight dive to running parallel with Gobi’s surface. Ahead, a plume of black smoke spewed out from a long smoke stack and drifted off to space. It was the exhaust from one of Gobi’s smelting factories, which were working overtime to work the iron ore from the moon’s interior into usable materials. Not all of the materials created here were for the terraforming equipment. Some of it was used for ships and supplies for Anguish Station. Some of it was used for construction on some of Ursa’s other small cub moons. Before Carla came along, all shipments went through Anguish’s main distribution network, but Carla reworked the logistical systems so that shipments were direct to their destinations. It was a more efficient way of doing things, but it created

weaknesses in Anguish Station’s usefulness as a whole, and reducing its political power. Windsor compensated for that by taking the terraforming equipment from Atlas and making it a part of Anguish Station itself, much to Neophasia Cullen’s chagrin. Neophasia had no right to disobey. She had started the planning stages for the changes right away, right after he had given the order. Windsor could see in her eyes that she didn’t like doing it. The station was “her baby,” as she called it. It created a new tension that was always present these days. “The place I specified is just ahead, Sir,” Storm alerted him. “Very well, I’ll leave it to you. Take us in.” The Solar Storm slowed and then hovered over a long metal shaft that cut deep into Gobi’s surface. Deep within Gobi’s bowels was a massive machine powered by the heat of moon’s deepest interior, its core. The batteries for the highpowered fusion laser were constantly collecting power from it. Windsor had seen the batteries once or twice. Each terraforming battery was as long as Anguish Station’s diameter. Each one looked like a massive barrel of an even larger gun. The Solar Storm descended and then backed itself up until it was within one of the shaft’s many cubbies, hidden from view. “Here we wait,” Windsor whispered. “Waiting, sir,” the ship’s computer told him. Windsor looked around at his ship’s controls and readouts. He looked downward, past his pilot seat and the footrest areas. The bottom of The Solar Storm’s hull was as transparent as the sides and front of the cockpit. If the cockpit rotated through the ship’s outer extremities, everything behind his seat would also be transparent. “I see much of your skin and shell has been replaced.” “From the inside at least,” Solar Storm told him. “How many of these areas hold displays?” “Everything that you can see through can display something,” The Solar Storm said. “Or, I can make those areas appear as solid as when you first built me.”

“Any other upgrades?” “Tracking jammers, but those are offline. The best encryption code ever made. Weapon-stopping blinder codes are experimental and non-functional. All outer hull skins have also been outfitted with outgoing displays that are fed by cameras on the other side of the ship, enabling virtual invisibility. This has also been disabled and is not yet functional.” “Weapon-stopping blinder codes,” Windsor muttered. “I’ve never heard of that.” “It is a Kinetica Corporation backdoor,” Solar Storm told him. “What exactly does that do?” “That’s classified.” “I have top clearance.” Silence. “Storm? Can you answer me?” Windsor asked. “I’m sorry, sir,” The Solar Storm told him. “I have no record of what I … just said.” “Weapon stopping blinder codes,” Windsor repeated. Again, silence. “I have never heard of weapon stopping blinder codes … sir,” Solar Storm told him. “Solar Storm,” Windsor said, “Run a self-diagnostic.” “Windsor, there is nothing wrong with my code.” “Just … something wrong with your memory apparently.” “Excuse me?” “You’re worrying me,” Windsor told her. “Run a self-diagnostic. And run a

search for …” “Search for what, sir?” Solar Storm asked. “Weapon stopping blinder codes.” For a moment, he had forgotten those four words. Must not forget those words, he thought. “Those codes do not exist in my data stores, sir,” Solar Storm told him. “Curious.” “I am running a full diagnostic on myself.” “Good, take a good long look at yourself in that virtual mirror of yours,” Windsor told her. “When you’re done iring the view, run another search for those four words.” “Yes, Sir,” his ship’s computer said. “Sarcasm is noted … and enjoyed, sir.” His ship’s front-most display lit up with an image of what could be the absolutely ugliest female face he could imagine. The face had multiple skin tags and moles. Each mole had a small black hair growing out of it. The woman winked at him, and then the display shut itself back down. “Um, that wasn’t you, was it?” “No, I used to be much a more beautiful …” Solar Storm stopped talking for a moment, and then said, “Diagnostic is running, Sir.” Windsor’s curiosity about his ship’s AI couldn’t be more of a mountain’s virtual peak as it was in this moment. He filed it away as something to wonder about later. One thing was certain from this conversation: His ship’s computer was hiding information from him. “Storm, there is a tracking device on my person,” Windsor told her. “If you detect any ship approaching, I want you to start jamming it. If jamming would reveal our presence, try some other means.” “Will do, Sir,” his ship’s computer replied.

“Hiding in the shadows of Gobi,” Windsor whispered, “lying in wait for The Valkyrie to appear.” Windsor was sure it was Carla. Who else could it be? As he began to wonder what would happen if someone stole her tracking data, a blip showed up on the transparent display in front of him. If someone other than her from the Brotherhood of Ursa could track him, it could mean certain death. “Ship approaching. Engaging jamming signal.” “I want no visible lighting.” “We are blended with the darkness, sir.” Windsor’s eyes stayed on the highlighted that moved upon the transparent display in front of him. “Sir, I’m picking up many, many more s, just outside of your present display’s range,” Storm told him. “How many?” “1,504 s, Sir.” “There’s nothing like that scheduled in this area,” Windsor said. “What are they?” “They all appear to be fighter class ships, same as me,” Storm told him. “They are not using Anguish Station encryption codes.” “The Brotherhood of Ursa,” Windsor said A single ship appeared in the mining shaft before him. Windsor looked past his ship’s transparent display. It was the Valkyrie. Its hull was shiny and without blemish, probably like the day it was first made. She was close enough that Windsor could almost see the pilot moving within. “Can she see us?” Windsor asked. “Doubtful,” Storm told him. “I am one with the darkness and I am jamming her sensors.” “Keep a close eye on her and the s above,” Windsor told his ship’s

computer. “The Brotherhood doesn’t seem to be concerned with what their star pilot is doing,” Storm told him. Windsor nodded. “Why would they? She’s their ace, the one who can bring down Anguish Station’s leadership, supposedly,” he said. “The Valkyrie appears to be searching the area visually,” Storm noted. “She detected me, and now that you’re jamming the signal. She can’t detect me.” “Yes.” “If I her here and now, the other ships might detect me as well,” Windsor thought out loud. He looked upward towards the small sliver of starry sky that he could see from where The Solar Storm sat within the side of the drilled out shaft. He saw glimpses of ships as they ed overhead in formation. “Is it some sort of a patrol? Wouldn’t make sense with over a thousand ships.” “These ships look unscratched and unused, as if all of they had either recently been manufactured or refurbished,” Storm told him. “They still bear the radio frequencies of Kinetica. Kinetica Corporation’s schematics are so prevalent that everyone uses them now. Both sides in any battle will likely have materials made by the same company.” “A monopoly on war,” Windsor muttered. “Indeed.” Ahead of Windsor, The Valkyrie still scoured the area within the mining shaft. The opening was half a kilometer wide. The cubbies within the shaft’s wall numbered in the thousands. Someone could hide a thousand small fighter ships in just one of these shafts, Windsor thought. “How many of these shafts are there on Gobi?” “Thousands, Sir,” Storm told him. “Every mining facility on each of Ursa’s eight moons has these shafts around their surfaces. Not only do they produce materials from them, but they can use them for storage as well.”

“Lots of places to hide lots of small ships,” Windsor said. “If Raymond Drachelm has enough people on his side, and enough ships, they could overwhelm station Anguish.” “The last of those ships has ed us by, Sir,” Storm told him. “Good. I want manual control, Storm. I want engines online and I want them to be as minimal as you can make them.” “Yes, Sir,” Storm told him. “I want you to plot possible trajectories that I could follow,” Windsor said. “I want to get directly behind her and I don’t want her sensors to see me.” “In her baffles, Sir?” Storm asked. “That’s a delicate way to put it,” Windsor said with a smile. “So, you mean to take her from behind, and you mean to use me to do it?” Windsor sighed and tried not to laugh. Several possible paths showed up on the transparent display in front of him, each one with a different color. The paths constantly moved and changed as the Valkyrie changed direction. “It’s impossible to follow any of these paths,” Windsor said. Storm didn’t say anything. Windsor gripped the controls of his ship. At each fingertip was a button, each of which could be programmed to do anything. The thumb controls each had three buttons. A trigger and another button lay beneath each of his index fingers. “Storm, put thruster controls at my fingertips,” Windsor told her. “What about weapons, Sir?” “Stand-by on that. Switch to weapons control only on my order.” “Done, Sir.”

Windsor waited until the Valkyrie was facing away from him. He pushed upon the controls. He eased The Solar Storm from the cubby where she was hidden. Ambient light from the stars above and the dim red light from Ursa’s broiling surface lit the darkness within The Solar Storm’s interior. As soon as he was free from his hiding spot, he manipulated the controls to mimic The Valkyrie’s movements. It was a simple trick he learned in flight school. If you watch the other ship’s thrusters, you can tell which direction the ship was about to move. The most difficult part of doing this was the approach because of the distance. Any unpredicted movement and the further away he was, the more likely he would be seen on her sensors. “What makes you so sure that she doesn’t have sensors on her rear end, Sir?” Storm asked. “This is a fine time to be asking me this.” He concentrated on getting his ship into the right position. “Actually, I don’t know at all. She might have them. She might be tracking me right now. But making her believe that I don’t know that she can see me will give me some tactical advantage.” “How would this give you an advantage?” “It would lead her to underestimate me.” A few minutes later, The Solar Storm was directly behind The Valkyrie, to within three meters. Windsor fired Storm’s thrusters to match the thrusters that fired from Valkyrie. He kept a light touch upon the throttle. He was directly behind her, in her baffles. If he was careful, her ship's sensors wouldn't pick up his ship's heat signature. It has to be her. It must be her. She wouldn't shoot him down if she discovered him, would she? Suddenly, her thrusters cut off. "Fuck," he said, "she can see me." He pulled the throttle all the way back. His ship's front thrusters fired, putting him at a full stop. The side thrusters of her fighter triggered and her ship rotated. He could see into the Valkyrie's ship then. His heartbeat pounded at his ears,

along with the deafening full silence. The ship's occupant wore a pitch black helmet. The visor was down. He saw a gloved hand in the other ship reach for its laser battery controls. Windsor manually opened a comm channel. "You can beat me down, but I won't ever hit you back. Because by the time you're ready to hit me, I won't have to." Their fighters were face to face, now hovering over one of Gobi Moon's many factories. Windsor had concentrated so thoroughly on staying directly behind his quarry that he didn’t notice them leaving the mine shaft. The woman in the other fighter raised her visor and Windsor found himself looking into familiar eyes. "I need you to surrender to me, Valkyrie," Windsor told Carla. "The Brotherhood of Ursa wants Anguish Station," Carla told him. "If you hand it over, my heart will be yours and I will never leave your side." "Your heart already belongs to me, Valkyrie. Come home with me." "You don't understand," Carla told him. "I can't do that." "Every time you get close to breaking my resistance, you run away." “I am not running, Windsor,” Carla told him. “You are.”

# # #

Sylvia could see Carla in the other fighter. She watched her through The Solar Storm’s outer cameras. She also had her eyes on Windsor with the cameras that Sylvia had installed there internally. If she played this wrong, it could make matters worse. But if she played this wise, everything could get better.

Did Windsor know that she had taken over his ship’s computer? Possibly. Would that be a bad thing? Probably not, she thought, not if she trusted him, or, rather, if he trusted her. Sylvia temporarily shut off Windsor’s outgoing coms channel to speak with him. "A heart that is open and free will often pay a dire price," The Solar Storm's computer told him. Sylvia consciously tried not to let it sound like it was her, even though he probably wouldn’t recognize her, though there was that one time that she had spoken to him. Would he ? "A heart that is noble stays open and free, despite the price involved." "Well," Windsor told his ship's computer, "isn't that optimistic. You sound just like a girl that I know." Sylvia laughed inwardly at his sarcasm. He could die, right here and now, and his sarcasm did not suffer in the slightest. “And who would that be?” Sylvia asked him. “She’s in the ship right in front of us,” Windsor told her. “We are looking right at her.” Carly … Sylvia could almost detect weak signals coming from Carla’s handheld. If her consciousness was active with Carla at the same time as it was with Windsor, the signals might get crossed like they often do, and she would lose herself. She would go quiet for both of them, but Windsor needed Sylvia more than Carla did right now. Sylvia reactivated Windsor’s comm array. He must not know that I can be with her as well, Sylvia thought. Carla needs to find out about me though, Sylvia thought. Windsor wasn’t ready. A new showed up on her sensors. Another enemy combatant.

# # #

“Sir, another ship is approaching,” Storm told him. Windsor looked into Carla’s ship. It looked like Carla was talking to someone. His com channel activated and he heard her voice. “Com channel request, Sir. It’s Carla.” “Go ahead.” “Windsor, can you hear me?” Carla said. “You have to leave … right now. Windsor can you hear me?” “I hear you.” “Windsor, my God. Someone is tracking me,” Carla said. Windsor watched as Carla quickly adjusted the settings and controls inside her ship, The Valkyrie. “You need to leave now.” Carla looked around, through her transparent displays, then looked at the words and objects on her displays. Her eyes met Windsor’s. He saw a worried look in her eyes, the likes of which he hadn’t yet seen until now. “Go back to Anguish Station, right now.” Valkyrie turned and then sped off. “Go home, Windsor,” Carla said. “Please.” Carla was gone. She fled. “Storm, I want engines at full strength,” Windsor said. “Done, Sir,” Storm told him. Windsor fired the small thrusters on his ship’s bow. Despite the dampened gravity inside of The Solar Storm, Windsor felt his stomach protest as his ship’s bow dove beneath what he thought was the downward direction. His side thrusters fired, rotating his ship until it was vertical and parallel with the nearby foundry’s smoke stacks and expeller equipment. Windsor pushed forward on his thrusters.

But then he felt something hit his ship. Gravity suppressors went offline. The Solar Storm spun sideways and bow to stern. Windsor held firm onto his ship’s controls as the ground of Gobi switched from down to up, and up to down, repeatedly before … The Solar Storm slammed into the moon Gobi’s surface. Everything stopped, including him. All went to darkness.

# # #

“Windsor Forlorn … Windsor Forlorn … Windsor Forlorn,” The Solar Storm said repeatedly. “Please wake up, Sir. Windsor Forlorn … Windsor Forlorn …” The world was spinning, and it felt as if the entirety of it was pissed off at Windsor and at every little thing that Windsor had ever done, or had tried to do. Windsor rarely drank heavily, but when he did, it was as heavy as one could imagine. Even the strongest of those hangovers did not compare to the pain in his head, shoulders, and back. He tried to open his eyes. He was greeted by a confused display of broken numbers and letters on a transparent screen. Beyond the transparent screen were two bright lights shining towards his ship. The lights belonged to another ship. The Solar Storm had been plucked from the sky and grounded. The path that the Solar Storm had taken through the dust and dirt of Gobi’s surface lay before him. His ship must have slid backwards as it crashed. Windsor could not see the end of the trail that his ship had made. “Am I dead?” Windsor muttered. “I - I believe so,” Storm told him. “You believe so,” Windsor said. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’ve been dead before …. Windsor, the pilot of the ship in front of us has been requesting communication since we crashed.” It could be friend or foe. Most likely, it was the foe who had single-handedly grounded him and his ship. Windsor had been having the worst luck. Either his skills as a pilot were waning, or his opponents were all ace pilots. He hoped it was the latter, despite the chances of a swift death if that was the case. Most of The Solar Storm’s systems were offline. The weapons systems were dead. Above the cockpit of the opposing fighter were the words, THE PHANTOM. “Open the comms channel,” Windsor said. The lights shining in Windsor’s face shut down. Windsor looked through the transparent screen in front of him, through the the dusty vacuum of space behind it, and another transparent screen to the man in the ship that had shot him down. Windsor’s first impression was that the man in the other ship was as ugly as one could imagine. He had the look of a man who had been horribly burned. His face was a melted shadow of what or who this man once was. "My name is Putrid Bosillious,” the man told Windsor. “Normally, some people would joke and say something witty like it’s a fitting name for a fitting face,” Windsor said, “but not only would that be cruel to a man such as you, it would not help me in my present situation.” “I know who you are. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now," the man in the other ship said. Windsor struggled with protesting muscles and tendons as he took off his helmet and looked into the eyes of the enemy. "If I die, Reeven Mayzer will take over my job. He is not as nice and forgiving as I am. He will hunt down the Brotherhood and destroy all of you. Also, killing me might get me out of your way, but it will also change how she feels about you, forever. You know who I’m talking about."

Putrid Bosillious kept his thumb on the firing switch. One small press and Windsor would be dead, and Windsor knew it. "If she loves me, and if you kill me right here and right now," Windsor told him, "Carla will hate you until the end of your days. And perhaps she would even bring those days to a swift end.” Putrid did not fire. “On the other hand, The Brotherhood of Ursa wants me dead,” Windsor told him. “With one little click … you win and I lose.” Windsor held his breath and then let it all empty from his lungs, ready for the blast that would destroy his ship’s integrity and finish him off. The first thing to do when you find yourself in the vacuum of space is to let out all of the air from your lungs. “The Brotherhood wants the station,” Putrid told him. “If you die, Reeven Mayzer will take your place, just as you say.” “So, you’re going to let me live?” Windsor asked him. “If you do any lasting harm to Carla, I will hunt you down and kill you, and everything you care about. Everything,” Putrid told him. “Then, I will take every part of you and deconstruct everything that you were until nothing is left but the component atoms.” “What is she to you?” Windsor asked him. “You don’t seem to be her type. You’re protecting her and you’re reluctant to kill me. If you were romantically involved with her, I would likely be dead right now.” "Either she will shoot you dead, give herself to you, or try to give up on you completely," Putrid told him. "If she tries to give up on me completely, I wish her the best of luck.” Putrid Bosillious laughed, and as he did so, his scarred cheeks wrinkled like burned plastic. “I’m not going to kill you, but I can’t let you live, so I am going to leave you here to die. I wish you luck in getting back to the station. If she really loved you, I don’t think she would have fled back home so easily.”

“Your boss, Raymond Drachelm, is crazy,” Windsor told him. “Raymond Drachelm is a mass murderer.” “We are all crazy,” Putrid Bosillious told him. “The craziest of us gets things done.” A plume of dust and debris flew out from beneath Putrid Bosillious’ ship as his ship THE PHANTOM rose up and blast its way gone. When the dust cleared, Windsor was alone. He wasn’t completely alone. “Communications are down,” The Solar Storm told him. “And yet you’re still able to talk to me,” Windsor said. “Well, you know, priorities and all.” “Well, are you going to try and help me, or are you going to be an irritating bitch?” Windsor asked. “Irritating bitch sounds interesting, does it not?” Storm replied. “Very funny.” “I would put your helmet back on, Sir,” Storm told him. “And why is that?” “When Carla fled, something dropped from her ship,” Storm told him. “I believe it was a power cell. Putrid’s weapons fried most of my onboard power cells. I can’t communicate with Anguish Station right now.” “How far away is the power cell that she dropped?” “Three kilometers and some change,” Storm told him. “For an AI, you’re awfully lifelike,” Windsor told her. “My compliments to your creator, whomever she might be.”

“My creator is dead, but I’m sure she would appreciate that, Sir,” Storm told him. “Right,” Windsor said. “Time to suit up and take a walk. I trust you will keep an eye on me out there.” “There is nothing I can do from here, but I will watch you.” “Well, time for a walk,” Windsor said. Then he got ready to leave his ship.

Chapter 3 – PARENTAGE

“PMS ... It stands for ... Pissed, Moody, and Shitfaced, until I come up with something better,” Carla said as she downed a shot. The dive bar was dark, its features few. The lights were just bright enough to be useful for moving around and little else. “You’re a little bitch, no matter what time of the month it is,” Cassandra told her. “One of these days, Ray will realize that and he’ll stop caring about you. When that day comes, I will kill you with this blade.” Cassandra Fleming pulled her blade from its sheath at her waist. She held it up to the only light in the room. “It was custom made when I was a little girl, back on Earth. I knew a swordsmith and he made it for me because he loved my mother.” The blade was adorned with engraved images of dragons breathing fire. “You are not the greatest of drinking companions, Cassy,” Carla told her. “But at least I have someone to drink with.” Cassandra laughed. Carla smiled despite knowing that Cassandra was deadly serious about gutting her one day. This was a party. Several hundred people were in this small cavern getting drunk. Some of them were dancing to some ancient form of music copied from Kinetica Corporation’s electronic encyclopedic vaults, vaults of information that contained endless amounts of old entertainment. Carla had arrived right after Raymond and Cassandra did. They had already been drinking. Carla had just returned from Ursa’s moon, Gobi. To be visible as quickly as possible was important. The likelihood of an alibi increased when time is uncertain in the minds of witnesses. Time is always uncertain in drunken minds. Cassandra took another sip of her drink and set it on the table right in front of Carla. “You are a horrible person,” Cassandra told her. “Whoever your mother was, she was probably a horrible person as well, just like you. But then we are all horrible people sometimes, aren’t we? Take some more of this drink. Take

mine. Get drunk, because that’s what horrible people must do to get any sleep at night.” “Your speeches always hit me just right, Cassandra,” Carla told her as she took another drink. The more clouded the head, the less of it you can see, the less of it you can . “Yeah, well apparently, they don’t hit nearly hard as they should, now do they?” Cassandra said with a laugh. “You’re still drinking with me.” “Don’t have much of a choice,” Carla said. “It’s either you or some random letch who never deserves the company of women, bad though they may be, according to you.” “You pretend that you being a bad person is just an opinion,” Cassandra told her. “It is a fact. And I am just waiting for you to reveal yourself as such.” Cassandra placed the tip of her blade on the table top and placed her palm on top of its hilt. She turned it with the fingers of her other hand. “It is a beautiful blade, is it not? Too worthy for your slimy guts.” She picked up the blade and she pointed it towards some of the men at the bar. “And what of those leaches? If they knew how you really were, they would just use your woman’s parts for their jollies and throw you to the solar winds, just like your precious Windsor does. Why, his name is the wind, isn’t it?” “I’m done here,” Carla said. “Enjoy your precious Ray.” “You are just a whore, you know.” Cassandra said. “You’re a beautiful whore, by their stretches of imagination. Ray knows this and Windsor knows this. Your pet, that burned-out husk of a man, Putrid Bosillious knows this also. A whore will always end up alone and with no man, Carla. That is your future. It’s best you just accept it. But don’t worry. As long as you keep your grubby hands off of my Ray, I will stand by your side.” Carla was ready to take Cassandra’s blade and draw those dragon carvings all over Cassandra’s flesh with it. Carla would be killed if she tried that. Any act of violence would only prove to the others that Cassandra’s lies were truths, though truths they were not. Raymond Drachelm had already had his fill of drinking and was ed out in a chair in the corner. He was better that way. He loved to make Cassandra jealous

and Carla was the perfect little tool for that. The more Raymond Drachelm flirted with Carla and slapped her on the ass, the more Cassandra Flemming wanted her dead. Putrid Bosillious was usually here during these parties as well. His drinking was always more severe than everyone else’s. He would always raise his cup and say, “I am Putrid Bosillious! I am the ugliness of the universe given form. All who look upon me will despair, for I am the visage of their fear! I am all that they fear they will see when they look into the mirror! I am death given life! I am the disease! Putrid Bosillious. All of my enemies will look upon me, puke their guts out, and then die from the acid burn from their own stomachs.” And then he would sometimes slap Carla on the ass, just like Ray would, though his slaps were far less painful, and more friendly, though it never seemed lascivious. He only acted like he wanted her. Many times, people would ask him what his real name was. “I am Putrid Bosillious!” he would say. “I have always been Putrid Bosillious. I am the one and the only, the most Putrid piece of meat in the galaxy! Must I say more?” He always protected Carla, ever since she could . If he had a real name, he never told anyone. Carla was the closest to him, and he always refused to tell her. Where was Putrid Bosillious now? Was Windsor dead? Carla’s stomach protested against the alcohol that she drank. It had only been two cups and two shots, yet it was sour already. The room seemed to spin with every shut of her eyes. “Go home, Carla,” Cassandra told her. Everything was out of focus. She left and put her space suit back on. She stopped for a moment and imagined what it would be like to just walk through the system of airlocks and out into the open vacuum of space without her suit. That moment did not last long and she

continued walking. Carla imagined Cassandra’s evil dragon blade sticking out of her back, just like Cassandra would like it. “I could defect and Windsor,” Carla said. The communications array inside her suit wasn’t active. She subconsciously made sure of that before she started talking to herself. “And then Reeven Mayzer of Anguish Station would interrogate me. I’d be brought up on charges and spaced when they realize that I’ve been helping to build Drachelm’s shadow government and armada.” Carla stepped into one of the airlocks. After the first door shut behind her, she made sure her suit was space worthy with a quick scan in the airlock, and then the outer door opened. The sky was black and full of white stars. All she wanted now was to get back inside, to be safely away from the wide open. Space was death. One little hole in the space suit and she would soon be empty of her breath. Confinement meant more air to breathe. Confinement meant comfort. To be enclosed was to live another day and to fight some other way for a world that she did not want to see brought to life. She lived all her life in space. It was all she knew. She was born in-transit, on the way to planet Ursa. After Carla was born, Carla and her mother were placed back into hibernation for the rest of the journey. That’s one of the versions that people have told her. She never knew her mother or father. Even her aunt Peg didn’t last long out here. Peg and that ugly man Putrid Bosillious were all that Carla had as real friends after her parents died. Carla didn’t know if her aunt was still alive or if she was dead. Carla did not want to live in a world where everything was heavy, where everything could fall and break, where water did not behave like it does in zero gravity, and where everything would stick to the ground. The confinement and freedom of her ship was her only real comfort, mostly. Then there was Anguish Station, a rotating wheel of a world that she also wanted to call home. If Windsor knew what she was really doing on Anguish Station, he might want to gut her himself with Cassie’s blade just as much as Cassandra did. As Carla walked through the vacuum of space to her ship, she said, “No matter what, I’m going to die, with every path that I see,” For a moment Carla thought

about removing her helmet. “If Windsor dies, so do I.” The transparent shield of her visor started to steam up from her tears as she climbed the ladder to the cockpit of her fighter, The Valkyrie. When she settled in to her favorite seat, she looked past Gobi’s distant horizon to Ursa, whose own horizon rose into the sky like a huge red star. The planet’s surface had been in turmoil ever since Ray had sent Kodiak crashing into Ursa’s surface. “She’s damaged,” Carla whispered, “but not deterred.” The journey home was as fast as it could get. Though she never took her ship off of manual mode, she still set her handheld computer’s alarm and took a short nap. If any collision were about to happen as she slept, her ship’s collision alarms would wake her first, so there was no danger. She was headed in the right direction, after her ship calculated the effects of Ursa’s system gravity. That’s all she needed. She didn’t say a word to anyone after she landed. She walked straight to her quarters and shut the door. She was greeted by the same cold stone ceiling, floor, and walls. A simple rug took up most of the floor but it did little to make the floor any warmer. Anguish Station was cold as well, but it wasn’t this cold. “Carly,” came a voice from somewhere. Carla looked around but nothing was on except for the minimal lighting that came on automatically when she had entered her quarters. She removed her handheld computer from her suit and fed it into her mainframe computer setup that hung on the wall. The main computer booted. The screen doubled the ambient light of the room. “I need to talk to you,” came a voice from the computer. It was a female voice. “Who is this?” Carla asked. She had started to fold up her space suit, but she stopped when she heard the voice again. Nothing. “Okay, who are you?” “My name is Sylvia. I’m the artificial intelligence of Anguish Station.”

Carla gave a two-button command on her computer and hit the reset switch. The simple routine that she activated was built into her mainframe’s memory. It sought out and destroyed most viruses in her mainframe and her handheld. She paced back and forth within her quarters and waited for the screens to come back online. P.M.S. ... PROLOGISTIC MASTER SYSTEM, COMING BACK ONLINE, scrolled across the screens. “P ... M ... S,” she said. “Who comes up with this? Prologist … Should stand for ‘Pissed, Moody, and Shitfaced’,” she muttered. She turned about and pointed her finger at the set of screens, and though the computer could not hear her and understand her during its reset, she told it, "You'd better not be jacked by some weird joke virus, or somebody's going to get spaced, I swear it. And it won’t be me." Carla reached to her open closet and retrieved a restore chip. She retrieved her handheld computer from its dock in the mainframe on the wall, placed the chip inside it, and then plugged her handheld back into her room’s mainframe. Carla reset her computer again. The screens dimmed, and then came back up. PMS … PISSED, MOODY, AND SHIT-FACED, SYSTEM COMING BACK ONLINE, scrolled across the screen. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Carla said. Her own joke from earlier was being used as a joke at her expense. She sat on her cot, feeling defeated. The words scrolled across the screen again. PMS … PISSED, MOODY, AND SHIT-FACED, SYSTEM COMING BACK ONLINE. “If you have PMS, maybe I should shove something new up your little I/O port, to stop your malfunction,” she said to the display. The display went dark, as if a video was about to start playing. A vaguely familiar voice filled the room. It was the same voice that had greeted her moments ago, but now it seemed to be one that she’d heard long ago. “I need to talk to you, Carla. I’m not a virus. I’m not a prank. I am only speaking to you.” “Who are you?” Carla asked. “Why have you invaded my space?”

A picture of a young red-haired woman showed up on the screen before her. “Do you recognize the young woman in this picture?” “I’ve seen it before. What of it?” “Do you know who this is?” the voice asked. Another picture showed up right beside it. It was a picture of Carla’s Aunt Peg. The young red-haired woman in the first picture was standing next to Peg in the new picture. “Now do you recognize her?” the voice asked. Carla’s jaw could have fallen off and hit the floor, but that was nothing compared to what this disembodied voice was about to say to her. “I can’t believe I’ve found you,” the familiar voice said. “Where have you been, Carly? Have you been all the way out here all this time?” Carla shook her head idly as a strange shiver ran up and down her spine. “What? I don’t know you. This can’t be happening.” “My name is Sylvia,” the voice told her, “I am the Artificial Intelligence of Anguish Station.” “How did you get out here?” Carla asked. “I copied some of my subroutines to your handheld. Your security software almost deleted me, but I spoofed it.” “Why did you do this?” “So that I could watch you,” Sylvia said. “Why would you want to do that? And, why are you even talking to me? You’ve been silent for two decades and now you hijack my handheld computer so that you can watch me?” “When I was alive, I had a different name,” Sylvia said. Carla did not like this, not at all. “When I was alive, I was Melanie Dupree.”

Carla looked blankly at her handheld as she removed it from her wall’s mainframe dock. “Your mother’s name was Melanie, was it not?” Sylvia asked. Carla felt all blood fall from her face. She sat down so that she wouldn’t fall over. She stared at her phone. “I must really be shit-faced right now,” Carla said. “This can’t be real.” “You’re not as drunk as you seem.” Sylvia said. “There is no way that you can be her,” Carla said. “There is no way that you can be my mother. I drank way too much tonight. Or I’m going crazy. Crazy Carla. Loony crazy Carla. God, maybe I do need to get spaced.” And then Sylvia began to sing. “Carly Cue, Carly Cue. Sweet little Carly Cue. Carly Cue, Carly Cue. Sweet little Carly Cue.” The lyrics didn’t do the song any justice. The song itself wasn’t really all that great, but it was a song that Carla had heard when she was a little girl. “I still don’t believe you,” Carla said. Sylvia showed Carla a picture of Melanie Dupree, with a young Carla when she had been 8 years old, along with Carla’s father, and Carla’s Aunt Peg, all smiling, standing at the edges of a synthetic beach on one of Anguish Station’s farming pods. Carla looked at the picture on her handheld computer with a painful blend of horror, fear, longing, and loss, and then tears welled in her eyes. “If you’re messing with me, it’s a cruelty of the worst sort,” Carla said. “My parents are dead.” “Maybe we are,” Sylvia told her, “but not all the way dead.” Sylvia’s singing continued. “Carly Cue, Carly Cue. Sweet little Carly Cue.” Carla started to cry as she heard her mother’s voice from an old dream. She started rocking back and forth on her cot as she held her shoulders in her hands,

hugging herself because there was nothing and no one else to hang on to. The buzz that she still had from drinking earlier wasn’t helping. “I’m hallucinating,” Carla said as she rocked forward and back on her cot, with her head resting in her hands, her fingers combing through her hair. “I’m going crazy. Cassy put something into my drink, and now my brain is unravelling.” Carla picked up her handheld computer. As she held it, the screen became blurry from her tears. “Mom?” A part of her still could not believe it. The rest of her was ready to break down. “You died.” “My body died. I became a part of the space station. I lost track of you. I couldn’t see you. And when I did see you, I didn’t realize that it was you, right away.” Carla just watched the screen, in shock. A video of Melanie Dupree as she was when she was alive showed up on the screen. “I told you a long time ago, that you would one day fall in love and save the galaxy,” Sylvia told her. “No, I made that up,” Carla said. “No, Carly. I’m the one who told you, when I was still alive,” Sylvia told her. “Carla, one day, you will fall in love and save the galaxy. Mommy loves you baby. Mommy will always look after you. And, one day, you will put right all that I have done wrong.” “Oh my God,” Carla said. “This cannot be happening.” “Carly. You’re going to get your chance,” Sylvia told her. “You will get your chance to fall in love and save the galaxy. Windsor loves you, baby girl. I have been watching him as well. He is worth fighting for, but you have to play him a little bit further. If the Brotherhood stays convinced that you fight for them and not Windsor, you will be able to strike at them when the time is right. Windsor must remain unconvinced that you are loyal to him. You cannot tell Windsor that I’ve spoken to you. I will speak to him when the time is right.” “So, you can see him? Windsor is still alive?” Carla didn’t know which was

more important to her right now, that she was speaking with her mother or that she needed to know that Windsor was alright. “He is alive,” Sylvia said. “I don’t know much more than that. I am not connected to my other parts.” “Can you help me with him?” Carla said. “You could help him see reason. You can fix what’s wrong between us, can’t you? Then Windsor and I could be together, and there would be no more issues between us.” Sylvia was silent. “Mom, you could help me and Windsor understand each other, right? You can talk to him.” "Carla,” her mother said. “A relationship is an island. It must survive on its own, without intermediaries or advisors. Because if it cannot flourish and grow on its own, it will soon perish when those intermediaries and advisors are absent." The picture of Melanie, Carla, Peg, and Carla’s Father near a beach showed up on the main screen before her. Carla’s eyes were on her father. “A relationship is an island that must survive on its own,” Sylvia told her. The father looked familiar. “What was my father’s name?” Carla asked. Carla studied the picture. It was the whole family. “Matthew Dupree,” Sylvia told her. “I never knew him,” Carla said. “He disappeared during the mutiny,” Sylvia told her. “What do I do now?” Carla asked. “How do I fix everything?” “I want you to find the schematics and programming for the stasis generator that Ray used to kill those people on Kodiak.” “What are you going to do with it?” Carla asked. “When I was alive, I was a genius,” Sylvia told her. “In many ways, perhaps I

still am. I see possibilities in this weapon. I might be able to change it into something else, something that will keep the peace, but I need that data first.” “They’ll kill me if I get caught,” Carla told her. “We all might die if you fail,” Sylvia told her. “I will not let Raymond Drachelm take control of station Anguish. The mission must continue. Ursa must live. Raymond Drachelm will destroy everything that I have built here.”

Chapter 4 – TENSION SQUARED

Windsor Forlorn walked down the center of the long, endless main thoroughfare of the station, Bourbon Street. If one looked straight up to the other side of the great wheel of the station, one would also be looking down at the other side of this small rotating world. Far away and above, the tops of distant buildings made an otherwise beautiful view into something colder and merely functional than each façade would otherwise dictate. If you walked for a few hours down this street, you'd end up right where you started. That's exactly what Windsor was doing. Waiting can make one tired and stressed. The mind will often run faster if left idle and wondering about what will happen next. If one does nothing at all but wait, one’s mind will be worn and wary from the waiting. Because of this, Windsor felt that it was always less of a stress for him to walk. Not only was this walk a means of getting from one place to another. It was a way to reflect. A steady cold breeze flowed through the center of Bourbon Street like an invisible river. Windsor walked against the current. It was always cold out here. It was always colder when the street’s patrons were fewer. Nothing much was happening at this hour. Most of Anguish Station’s patrons right now were businessmen doing financial cleanup from the couriers and laborers who had already finished their tasks for the day. There was enough of nothing happening that he was conscious of the blowing wind. More obstacles now stood in the way of the beautiful vista that lay beyond the station’s edges these days. The interior space of the station looked tighter and more cluttered than it had been, with the additional equipment and structures taken from Ursa’s terraformer moon, Atlas. Nearly all of the terraforming parts that had been fabricated and constructed on Atlas were now installed components of Anguish Station. The effort had nearly doubled the entire mass of the station. Neophasia Cullen, the station’s original architect, was the master of the refit and redesign ordered by Windsor. The logistics of it was managed by Carla and some of the people who had been working under her management. Her work on it

accelerated the changes beyond what was planned, something that Neophasia had a difficult time staying ahead of. Because of the speed at which it was being constructed, it was an ongoing design in progress. “I could walk this street forever,” he murmured. “I could die of old age, walking down this street and never reach its end, because there is no end to it.” Forever was wrong. Eventually, the number of human hungry mouths in orbit around Ursa would outnumber the farmers’ abilities to feed them. Ursa needed to be terraformed and settled before that happens. He could’ve died, a little while ago. He had become too reckless. She had made him reckless. Carla. She had become his strongest weakness, and all of this, this endless road, could come to a crashing and final end if he didn’t fix what was broken. The colonization mission was designed for a 25-year run. Its limits were based mostly on population. It would have been cruel to impose mandatory birth control. The long-term lack of children would’ve had a detrimental effect on the human psyche, despite the fact that many would say they could do without them. It was instinct, invisible though it was. 25 years. There were children and even adults now, who had never set foot on a planet. Many have never known what Earth was like. Most of the work for the colonization was complete. The tragedy of Kodiak’s destruction, upon its collision with its mother planet, changed everything. Most people were worried that the Brotherhood would strike again, and soon. Many people, upon learning that Kodiak’s destruction kickstarted Ursa’s heart, reluctantly said that it was meant to be, or that it was a good thing for humanity. Some even believed that the Brotherhood of Ursa might not have been in the wrong in Kodiak’s destruction. He knew his destination was close. He took his time. He knew who might be waiting for him on this walk. He needed to feel prepared. His eyes drifted upward to the sloping street in the distance. His eyes followed it upward until his eyes drifted to the sides. The buildings of Bourbon Street were framed by the station’s girders and the vista that was Ursa’s burning surface. Ursa’s heart was beating. Her surface was burning, tumultuous, and shrouded with storms of smoke, smoldering detritus, and numerous meteor showers still

caused by the massive celestial impact that had injured and scarred her. With her core now liquified, a metaphorical beating heart, she now had a magnetic field strong enough to hang on to an atmosphere and prevent her star’s radiation from being an issue. Crashing her small moon Kodiak into her surface may have been a terrorist act, but it also brought the planet’s core to life. It may have killed thousands of people, but the lasting effects were accelerating the mission to terraform and colonize her surface. Her ice moon Polara was the next focus. Forever locked in Ursa’s shadow, Polara was due to come into the light and cry upon her mother’s molten surface, cool her down, and hopefully create some oceans and rivers. ”Why don't I just surrender?” he said as he looked up. He could see people on the opposite side of this metal and plastic man-made world. They looked like tiny little ants. He was suddenly thinking about Carla again, with no warning. Thinking about her was a compulsion now. He could think of little else, again that weakness. He looked past the other side of this rotating world and to the planet beyond. Ursa's surface was covered with blood red fire and smoke. Just like her heart. “How can I surrender when I can't even fix what is broken? She would lose all respect for me.” It felt like the proverbial calm before the storm, and it felt like he was the storm. Yet, was it really him that was the storm, or was it Carla? If she was the coming storm than maybe he was some bird caught up in it. In ancient mythology, a Valkyrie was a female figure who walked through a battlefield and decided who would die and who would live. She had wings large enough that she could take flight over the battlefield and watch over those who fought bravely, those who fought cowardly, and those who fought just to live. The Valkyrie of the battlefield was the arbiter of man’s final judgment. Her word was law. Her word had no mercy. To many on those imaginary battlefields of old, her love meant safety. Her love was life. Carla stood in the middle of Bourbon Street as Windsor walked toward her. She fidgeted and gave him an uneasy smile as he drew closer to her. Last time Windsor saw her, she had been in her fighter ship, the Valkyrie. Windsor had been in his ship, The Solar Storm. She had fled and left him at the mercy of one Putrid Bosillious, pilot of a fighter called The Phantom. Carla did not look surprised to see him. She wasn’t shying away from him, despite what had

occurred. She didn’t say anything. As Windsor approached and then stood before her, she kept her silence and waited for him to speak first. “By all rights, I should have you arrested,” Windsor told her. “You’re not going to arrest me,” Carla stated. “I’m too important to this station, and I’m too important to you.” “If I arrested you, you’d remain on the station, and you would be at my mercy,” Windsor told her. “I really see no downside to that. I could see you anytime I’d want.” He drew in closer to her until his face was just a few inches from hers. “Perhaps I should have you arrested. Then I could keep you confined until you defect, pledge your undying love for me, and work for the station exclusively.” Carla looked around at every part of the station that was within eyesight. Something in her eyes when she looked around puzzled him. “If I was your prisoner, I would never love you again,” Carla told him. “Sure you would,” Windsor told her, “But you would be angry at me for a long time. And I would never force you to love me, even as an untouched prisoner. If you truly loved me, you would stay with me, even without being arrested.” Carla didn’t say anything. As Carla looked around again at their surroundings, Windsor got the impression that she wanted to say something, but couldn’t. “Well, we’re close to farming pod 15,” Windsor told her. “It’s a bit of a zoo these days, but it’ll make for a nice walk if you’re willing.” “Is this a date?” Carla asked with a wry smile. “Despite me leaving you for dead?” “No,” Windsor said. “Just business as usual, unless you want to sneak into one of the barns with me for some tension-relieving sex.” He turned to his left and headed for the stairs that led to the pod’s entrance. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Despite me basically leaving you for dead. That’s not going to happen today,” Carla told him. “I’m bleeding a bit, again, more than before. It’s all screwed up right now. And besides, I’m only here on

business anyway. I have some updated ledgers and documents that you and this station’s crew will need.” She followed him as they climbed the winding stairs. “What if the tension gets to be too much between us?” Windsor asked her. “Would it bother you?” “Really, Windsor? You’d screw me bloody?” she asked, shaking her head. “Sometimes I think you’re as crazy as I am. And, no, that’s not going to happen.” Two long double glass doors parted. Windsor and Carla were greeted with the warm wind of recycled air and the captured warmth of sunlight. Despite the huge number of animals in this kilometer-wide pod, the odors usually attributed to farms and livestock were not present. “Smells like it’s a good time to be here,” Windsor said as he turned to her. Carla removed the small satchel that she wore over her shoulder and removed the papers from within. She handed them to Windsor. “You’ll find these to be satisfactory,” she told him. “Attached to the back of the first page is a data chip that contains a duplicate copy, as well as copies of all data that I’ve worked on thus far.” Windsor took the papers and placed them in a small satchel of his own. They walked together on a stone and dirt pathway between plastisteel fences. The sounds of cows, chickens, pigs, goats, deer, and horses dominated. Farming pod 15 was much like all of the other pods that were attached to Anguish Station’s sides, huge domed discs that served as small worlds in their own right. Each pod had its purpose. Most of the pods were for farming and agriculture. If there was one thing that Anguish Station had that gave it dominance over the settlements on Ursa’s eight moons, it was its ability to create food. Up until this point, Anguish Station had never been attacked from the outside, only from the inside. The only damage that Anguish Station suffered had been during the mutiny 25 years ago that saw Melanie Dupree die and Raymond Drachelm exiled with those who were loyal to him.

At the center of farming pod 15 was a genetics center. Genetic biologists worked day and night in the genetics center to perfect the genes of the animals, and to store copies of animal and plant life gene-farms from Earth that were to be used once Ursa was habitable. The gene-forms were an important ingredient for the terraforming machines. Once life could take root, the planet below would be saturated with the genetic forms. Again, Windsor got the impression that Carla wanted to say something, but wouldn’t, or couldn’t. “Samantha won’t talk to me,” he said, finally. He didn’t want to mention her, but it was the only thing he could think of to say. “Good,” Carla told him. “You probably deserve her ire as much as you deserve mine.” “You’re happy that she doesn’t speak to me,” Windsor stated. “Yes, you deserve her silence.” This time it was Windsor’s turn to be quiet. "Windsor, if you cheat on your spouse, and your spouse never finds out, it means that your marriage is a lie. It will remain a lie until the lie is dealt with. Then, either the marriage survives or it doesn't. I did the two of you a favor." “You were causing trouble. You want me to leave her. I know that. But after you went to her without talking to me first and giving my okay, it’s hard for me to trust you with anything. If you cause any more trouble for this station, I will have you arrested.” “Why not have me arrested now, just like you said earlier, since I’m such a troublemaker, and a home wrecker? You said a moment ago that you’d like to.” “I want to believe that you’re a good woman, Carla. That you’ll do the right thing when the time is right.” “And what is the right thing, Windsor?” Carla asked him. “Maybe I’m fighting for the good side.”

“And which side would that be?” Windsor asked. She didn’t answer right away. Normally, he liked the tension that she created in him, but this tension today was growing sour quickly. "Sometimes, there are no easy answers. Sometimes, even the questions themselves can be just as hard," Carla told him. "Generally speaking, if you've ever cheated on your spouse – and you have, with me - and your spouse never finds out, you whole family is a lie," Carla told him. “Your family, what’s left of it, is no longer a lie. She knows. She’s dealing with it. You no longer have to worry about her finding out. Eventually, she might get over it and leave you.” “You’d like that,” Windsor said. “You did it to force the issue.” Carla stopped walking. “Does this have to be complicated?” She looked him in the eyes but her gaze ran off as if it could. She trained her eyes on the animals nearby. She started walking again. He followed. “When hasn’t it been complicated?” he asked. Carla stopped. She grabbed Windsor by the shoulder. She kissed him on the lips. This time, he did not kiss her in return. "Your kiss is a sweet little neurotoxin," Windsor told her. She laughed. “So, I’m poisonous now? Or are you running out of sweet little nothings to say to me? You’re branching out?” “Just thinking about your kiss is enough to make a man wake up in a cold sweat,” he told her with a smile. “Such a horrible kiss it must be,” she told him, “to put the likes of you into such a state.” “Horrible? No.” He replied. “Bewitching, enchanting, unforgettable.” “Now you’re starting to worry me,” she told him. “If I should faint before you, will you see that I’m safely bedded?”

“Bedded, most certainly, and safe … and hopefully satisfied?” He started grasping at something to say to keep her with him. “Too much wood produces too much sap. When I'm with you, I get way too sappy," he told her. Weird. She took his weirdness and twisted it. “Sap is sticky. It's no good when it's all sticky like that,” she replied. He didn't have a comeback for that one. "You've pick-up-lined yourself into a corner, didn't you?" She told him with a smile. This wasn’t going as he planned. "Well, at least the wood remains," he said. "Unsplintered?" "Yes. Unplintered and still hard." Carla was silent “So, Samantha isn’t talking to you yet?” “She’s as cold to me as Polara.” “I don’t blame her.” He was alternating between flirting with her and being angry with her. “Your love is a torturous thing,” he told her. “You know that. I can’t stop thinking about you, Carla.” “And how goes this torture that I so elegantly provide for you?” Carla asked. “Painful as always, but then my desire for you never abates, so what can I do?” He was almost yelling. “So, you blame yourself now?” “You know, it would be far less painful if you were kissing me right now instead of talking to me.” “I tried that, but you didn’t seem to like it. Poisonous, did you say? But I think

I’m actually kind of enjoying your pain right now. Perhaps I really should be poisonous to you.” “Indeed?” “Yes, it is a righteous sort of enjoyment.” “So, you’re enjoying your dominance?" he asked her. "Indeed, I am." Carla answered, smiling. "Enjoy it while it lasts." "Excuse me?" "Eventually, I will regain the upper hand." "No, you won't.” "I will." Without reason and without noticing, they had left the farming pod. Amidst the confusion of their conversation and arguments, they had reached the airlock where Carla had arrived at the station. "I will never be clever enough to make you lose control, will I?” Carla asked him. She was almost to the point of tears now. “And if I am killed because of your stubbornness, what then? How will you feel?" "You are deconstructing everything that I am." “I know what you are doing.” Carla grabbed him by the wrist. “Windsor, don't push me away. Do you hear me? Don't you dare push me away. I am more for you than you think.” She let go of him as the door to the airlock closed between them, just as it always had always done, at a wrong moment. “Quit letting me,” he told her. Right before she disappeared from view, Windsor saw Carla break down in tears.

“What the Hell just happened?” Windsor murmured. He took a deep breath but it did nothing for his confused frustration.

# # #

Reeven Mayzer sat at his desk in front of a wall covered with displays. The displays were saturated with numbers that constantly changed and rearranged themselves. It looked random. Windsor forlorn paced back and forth behind Reeven, his eyes on the displays. The room was silent. The only discernible sound was the low hum that was ever present in the central areas of the station. Reeven’s security personnel were elsewhere on the station, walking their rounds or investigating all of the wrongs that needed their attention. It was just Windsor and Reeven in this room. “She has a growing number of people on both sides of this war who are increasingly loyal to her,” Reeven told him. “The crazy part is, she may not even be aware of it.” “She might be on the verge of breaking,” Windsor said. “Several times, she looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself. A little more time and I might be able to get her to impart some vital information on Drachelm. Or she’ll defect and reveal everything she knows.” “Defecting right now might compromise what she’s accomplishing here,” Reeven told him. “Right now, Carla is the only one who is openly in with both sides of this conflict. She might not be a diplomat in title, but she is acting as one purely by accident.” Windsor stood beside his security chief. “Are you starting to ire her?” “This girl is some sort of a genius,” Reeven told him. He raised his hand toward the screens in front of them. “On the surface, all of this looks crazy, insane even.” Reeven sighed as he gazed at the multiple ever-changing spreadsheets printed out on the wall of display screens in front of them. “It all looks like

chaos, doesn’t it?” Reeven said, “just random numbers, random and endless, seemingly meaningless if one doesn’t know what to look for, but it all checks out. The massive amount of logistical work that she is doing is illogical. Computers can’t be creative. That’s their greatest weakness. That’s where they are limited. This girl … I haven’t seen anyone who can think like her since …” Reeven stopped. “She is increasing the speed of … everything.” “Yes, she’s a smart girl,” Windsor told him. “I can’t let go of the feeling that she’s playing me.” “If you keep torturing her, she’ll turn on you, and the station,” Reeven told him. “She tortures me too,” Windsor said. "She keeps winning all of the battles, but then she leaves after every single one of them before seeing the outcome. If she dared stay a little bit longer, she would discover that she had already won the war ... and me along with it." Windsor was pacing back and forth again. “If she discovers this, she may not ever leave my side.” “I’m speaking my mind here. I think you are a sappy, sentimental, treacherous old bastard who lets his heart and his prick do his reasoning for him. You should be shot for sleeping with the enemy. But that is just my opinion. But, my opinion is not what you pay me for. I am here to help you run this station. That is my highest priority. What you do with Carla is your business, as long as it doesn’t compromise my job.” “And if it compromises your job?” “Don’t let it compromise my job.” "You are a grade-A prick, you know that?” Reaven turned and laughed. "Yeah, well somebody has to be. Everybody needs an asshole in their lives. If one does not have an asshole, how is one ever to know how to get rid of the shit that makes life suck? You need people who won't say 'yes' to every stupid little fucking thing you say." "Okay, I'll grant you that." "Well, a grade-A prick can be a terrific filter for stupidity." He laughed again and grabbed his clipboard. "And besides, if you fuck up enough, I'll take your job

and make it my own." "Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that." "Really. I wouldn't want your job. It'd probably turn me into a sappy sentimental old fuck like you," Reeven said. “This is such a civil briefing,” Windsor said. “If you can make her defect to our side,” Reeven told him, “well, I’m all for it. I know genius when I see it. I’ve seen a genius just like her, before, a long, long time ago.” Reeven looked all around, to the ceiling, the walls, through the door that led to Bourbon Street, to the speakers and cameras on the walls, and to the screens above his desk. “She’s all around us, that genius that I speak of? Her body might be dead, but she’s still here, all around us. Her name is Sylvia now. She’s had a long time to think about things.” Windsor nodded and started to walk toward the door. This short meeting was over. “If there’s one thing about geniuses that you need to know,” Reeven said, “it’s that they’re all crazy in some way. But crazy is not always a bad thing, Windsor, Sir. Sometimes, it takes crazy to save the universe.”

# # #

Windsor stood in front of the door to his quarters, wondering if Samantha was awake or asleep, angry, or neutral. Carla was right. Samantha had every right to be angry with him. He betrayed her. Every moment that Windsor spent with Carla was yet another betrayal to his wife. When you keep secrets from your spouse, your marriage is a lie. It’s better if everything is known. If the marriage survives and is without lies, wounds may heal over time. Maybe those words weren’t Carla’s exact words, but the meaning was the same. But then, no healing should be allowed to happen if those wounds were never

meant to heal. When your heart is split, it wounds everyone involved. Healing where healing shouldn’t happen will only cause more pain later. He never meant for any of this to happen. He was here to help bring a dead world to life, not to destroy the wife that he’d fought so hard to save and attain. He lay beside his wife when the sadness overtook him. He rolled over. Gravity took a tear from each of his eyes. One fell freely. The other was caught at the tip of his nose. He put his arm over his wife. He drew closer to her until nearly the entire length of his body was against hers. The warmth of her body against his helped to sooth some of the despair that threatened to overtake him. As he relaxed, he felt the area between his legs begin to quicken, stiffen, and press against her back side. “Do not try to have sex with me, Windsor,” Samantha told him. “Don’t you even touch me.” He had no intentions of making love to her. He only needed the comfort that she normally gave him. Sex almost never happened anyway. Why she would mention sex now troubled him, as if sex with Samantha had always been available to him and yet had somehow been withheld. That was a lie. Sex with Samantha had always been rare. Always. Windsor ed an image that he saw of Melanie Dupree. Melanie had red hair, just like Samantha. Melanie had much of the same bone structure to her face that Samantha did. He felt his thoughts drift to Carla. Carla’s hair was artificially colored. The shape of Carla’s face was similar to that of Melanie’s, and Samantha. Windsor had always been attracted to the same kind of woman. They all shared much of the same look. Windsor wondered if he would’ve been attracted to Melanie Dupree if she had never been murdered. Windsor’s thoughts drifted back to Carla and he felt that lower part of him stiffen even more. He felt his hips move as he involuntarily pressed his hardness against his wife’s backside once more. “Get away from me, Windsor,” Samantha told him. He sighed, rolled over, and got out of bed. “I don’t know how to fix what I may have broken in you,” Windsor told her as

he stood up and walked over to his favorite chair. “But if breaking me can fix you ... then you’d better chip away at me as much as you can, while there’s still some of me left over. I’m slowly destroying myself, Samantha.” “Good,” Samantha told him. “Now let me go back to sleep.” “Carla is a double agent,” Windsor told her. “She’s working for The Brotherhood of Ursa - the enemy - and I’ve been trying to get her to defect to our side. If she defects and s us full time, all who follow her and look up to her will our side.” Windsor’s eyes were focused on the view of Ursa through the room’s massive floor-to-ceiling window. “So, you’re saying you slept with her as a way to get her to defect to our side?” Samantha asked him. “To sacrifice your marriage and me? You would destroy our love to save this mission?” Windsor could feel Samantha’s eyes as if they were daggers stabbing into the back of his skull with her intense gaze. “You were playing her,” Samantha told him. “You were playing her, just like she was playing you. She told me this. You were playing each other. She confessed how she felt about you, you know. She did not expect how you would be with her. She did not expect to fall in love with you. And she did not expect you to fall in love with her. Does this sound right?” He was silent. He didn’t want to answer. Her words were full of malice. Samantha might hate him so much right now that she would likely stab him in the back of his skull if she had real daggers, and if she had the strength required to remove herself from the bed and murder him. “I have no say in this,” Samantha told him. She was yelling at him through her crying. “I’m helpless. It’s not like I can move on. I’m stuck in this damned bed all the time while you do whatever the hell you want with her. I can only imagine how many times you’ve fucked her while I’m stuck in this Godforsaken room staring at the hell going on outside. You should’ve left me on Earth to die.” “Your life was in danger on Earth.” “And is this life any better?” Samantha asked. “Maybe you should kill me.

Maybe your little whore Carla should come in here and murder me. Perhaps everyone would be better off if I wasn’t in the way, so that you and your little bitch whore could start yourselves a nice little family and forget that I even existed. I might have my life! But I have nothing else! I don’t have you, Windsor. That’s why I came, isn’t it? To have you as a husband? Someone to watch over me, to take care of me, to love me and no one else?” The machine that kept her alive started to beep. Windsor stood up and walked over to it. “That’s right, Windsor,” Samantha told him. “Walk over to this damned machine and make it give me something to calm my nerves. Tell this infernal machine to knock me out and make me sleep.” “I love you, Samantha,” Windsor told her. “No … you do not love me. You never did. I am just something that you could never have. Something to attain. A trophy. I was just a friend. You saved me from one hell, only to hand me another one. Set the machine to put me out.” Windsor did as she asked. He punched a few buttons on the machine’s display. He set it to give her a sedative to help her sleep, along with a small amount of morphine for the pain. Windsor didn’t know it, but this would be his final conversation with his wife. He got dressed, packed a few things that he knew he would need, and then he left. That night, he walked to one of the many inns along Bourbon Street and he slept alone.

Chapter 5: SAMANTHA

Sylvia’s opened one of her many eyes. She could hear the clickity clack of her small spider robots as they scurried about. One of them stopped in front of her active camera and looked up at her. They always had a sad, yet cute expression on their little faces. It always made her care for them more, each time they looked up at her. This particular little one didn’t say anything. It looked down at the floor and then scurried away. “Sometimes I think you little guys care about me even more than I care about you,” she muttered. Sylvia felt larger with each upgrade. She opened more of her eyes and looked around the station. Some of her cameras and speakers weren’t working. Probably glitches and growing pains, she thought. Every now and then, when a new component was added to her, it unbalanced her. It was different than the unbalances in gravity that occurred daily during shipments of materials and the near constant human traffic in and out of the station. Her skeleton was now twice as large as it had been when Windsor had arrived at the station. They’ve even added gun batteries to her perimeter. If she wanted, she could take control of those, even take control of them away from the men and women at the two command centers. Most of the construction was happening at her center, where zero gravity still existed. If Anguish Station was a big wheel, the terraforming machine was being installed right on her axis. It was not active or functional yet, though it wouldn’t be too much longer before it could be turned on. Despite it being at her center where zero gravity still reigned, she could feel the weight of it as she rotated. It made her feel as if she was moving slower. She did have to compensate for that by activating some of her thrusters, but those were more of an automatic thing. Sylvia wondered what would happen if she took over the terraforming mechanism and fired it at a ship instead of the planet below. Drachelm’s ship, perhaps. Neophasia probably knew of the balance issues and was likely planning some more construction on Anguish Station’s outer rings to balance things out.

One of Anguish Station’s antenna arrays started to send pings to her central nervous system. She had several truncated copies of herself elsewhere. One of them was on Windsor’s fighter craft. Another of those copies was on Carla’s handheld computer. That part of her was about to video and audio clips from Carla. Carla now knew that Sylvia had once been Melanie Dupree, Carla’s mother. The part of Sylvia that was in Carla’s handheld computer managed to convince Carla of that. The signal was faint. Sylvia couldn’t figure out where the signal was coming from. Either it was interference that was causing a degradation in the signal, or something was jamming it. Sylvia closed her eyes. Her eyes from another place opened. Her eyes were now the cameras in Carla’s handheld computer. She started watching the recording. Sylvia watched Carla as she walked. The camera arrays, Sylvia’s eyes, were watching from below as Carla held her computer in her left hand. If Carla ever sported her natural red hair, she would look just like Melanie had looked when she had been alive. The part of Sylvia that was still Melanie quietly cried as she watched her daughter. She’d never gotten to know her as much as she’d liked. Melanie had always been too busy to spend enough time with little Carly. Few things are as painful as a parent’s regrets. A child’s years are always over too quickly. In the video feed, Carla was sneaking through dark hallways carved out of solid rock. Sylvia couldn’t tell where this was. Carla’s eyes were wide and full of tension. Carla’s chest visibly rose and fell as she breathed and tried to remain calm. Small beads of sweat formed on her forehead at the same time as goosebumps made themselves visible on her arm. Sylvia wanted to speak with her now, but Carla would not be able to hear her. Sylvia had to remind herself that this was a recording. This was all happening in the recent past. The part of Sylvia that resided in Carla’s computer wasn’t speaking. That was probably a good thing since Carla was sneaking around. The images on the video feed were cutting in and out. Sylvia couldn’t tell what was happening. Carla stopped before a door. Sylvia watched as Carla looked around to see if anyone was nearby. Carla’s shaking fingers typed in an alpha-numeric code

into a door lock . The door slid open. As Carla walked into the small room, Sylvia recognized the wires, drive casings, and lights as the camera of Carla’s computer ed in front of them. With luck this was where a copy of the schematics for the stasis weapon were kept. It was the weapon that the Brotherhood of Ursa used to place Kodiak’s personnel into stasis, so that they could sabotage Kodiak and send it crashing into Ursa’s surface without any resistance. Sylvia tried again to trace the video feed’s signal. She set to work to code a small patch for her counterpart in Carla’s computer. She sent it along the breaking stream of code in the weak signal. With luck, Sylvia’s limited clone would get the command to copy whatever she could of the schematics, assuming Carla was successful here. That part of Sylvia was likely smart enough to do so on her own, but the main part of her on Anguish Station had to quell any doubts of such. Suddenly, Carla turned around. Someone had followed her and had been standing behind her. The video stream cut out. The signal was gone.

# # #

Windsor stood in the middle of Bourbon street before a podium. Several reporters stood facing him. The reporters stood before a large crowd of around 10,000 people. It had been a long time since Windsor gave a speech to the personnel of the station and to everyone in orbit around Ursa as well. Everything during the speech was being relayed to everyone who would hear it. Neophasia Cullen stood beside him. Reeven Mayzer stood on the other side. Neophasia handed Windsor a sheet of paper. On the paper was a small speech that Neophasia wrote that she wanted Windsor to read to the people. He opened it, read it, shrugged his shoulders and nodded to her with a smile.

Neophasia sighed with a guarded smile and looked around at the newest additions to the station. “Politics is a strange melding of love and war,” Windsor said. The station’s cavernous walls echoed a bit with his words. “It is war on a civil, non-violent level, a chess game, but with greater consequences than just a victorious checkmate on a simple game board can muster. It is a war for leadership, leadership that can create the right environment for people to live in with the most righteous blending of freedom versus security. It is a furious competition for nest-building, all in the name of letting love flourish to its greatest extent.” He let his words fade to silence before he continued. “Politics is war because everyone's ideals on love and ways of living differ just enough to make it that way. Some want everything to stay the same, while others won’t rest until the situation changes. Peace requires a balance in all things. Peace requires a balance to be struck for the common good.” He handed the papers back to Neophasia with a nod of approval. The breeze moving through Bourbon Street was a little less than usual because of the crowd standing before him, but it still ruffled the papers that he’d handed back to her. “Somewhere out there, hidden on one of Ursa’s moons, is a man named Raymond Drachelm,” Windsor told them. “He leads a terrorist organization called The Brotherhood of Ursa. Don’t make the mistake of thinking of them as anything other than terrorists. They have killed thousands, merely by what they have done to Ursa’s moon, Kodiak. Raymond Drachelm will stop at nothing to acquire this station, even if it means mass-murder, even if it means failure for our mission of colonization. I tell you now, failure for our mission means starvation for us all. If Ursa isn’t made habitable in a timely manner, all of us will be dead. Raymond Drachelm doesn’t care that he and his followers can have their own part of the world for themselves. All they want is this station.” “Some might ask, ‘Well, why not give him this station? Then we could have the whole planet to ourselves.’” “Absolutely, some would,” said a voice from the audience in front of him. Windsor couldn’t pinpoint the source. “The goal of this station is to see its mission to completion. Even if it was feasible to give him the station upon completion of our mission here, I won’t let

it happen,” Windsor continued. All eyes were on him. The expressions in their eyes meant a lot to him. These were his people now, his family, for better or worse. They were relying upon him to choose the best path. Or they were deciding whether or not to side with Drachelm. “The spirit that dwells on this station means a lot to many of you. Even though Sylvia is forever silent to us, she still listens. She is still a part of our family, and we need to protect her.” Something that he had not thought of occurred to him, some sort of emotion that he hadn’t thought of until now. “Silent though she is,” Windsor said, “she is like a mother to us. I don’t think she wants to be taken by Drachelm, or she would be his already.” The reporters in front of him started to have issues with their audio visual headsets. “Drachelm’s people have been busy building an armada of ships,” Windsor announced. “I have seen a glimpse of this. He has thousands of ships. When the time is right, they are going to attack. When that time comes, we must be ready.” Two of the reporters took off their headsets. They were completely inoperable. Both of them withdrew from the audience. The remaining reporter fidgeted with her microphone, along with the camera headset that didn't quite fit her cranium. "Three seconds, sir," she said nervously. Her nervousness disappeared one second before the light above the camera switched on. Windsor was momentarily blinded by the camera's light, but it didn't last long. “Tammy, we don’t have a picture,” her assistant told her from the edge of the platform that Windsor was standing on. “Can you fix it?” the reporter asked her assistant. “Well, we don’t have to make it ‘Live.’ What we don’t get we’ll have to fix in post,” the reporter said. Her hands started to shake. She looked up at Windsor. “I’m sorry, Sir. Give us a minute please.” Windsor turned to Reeven and told him, “I’ve been seeing glitches all over the station today. Any idea what’s happening?”

“It might be growing pains, Sir,” Reeven said. “The station is now twice as large as she normally is.” The station shook. Everyone looked up through the transparent parts of the station. Reeven looked at the readout on his handheld. “Reeven, any report?” Windsor asked. “Gravitational fluctuations, sir. Not detecting any damage. Our scouts in flight are not reporting any incursions from the Brotherhood.” The reporter finally got her headset to work. "Sir, Tammy Leyvee here, from Kinetica News Division. I have a just a few questions for you today, Sir, if that’s okay?" "Go on," Windsor told her. "Reports are claiming that military training exercises are taking place on the moon Polara. Is this true? Did you order these training exercises?" "Um, no," Windsor answered. "It is merely a janitorial exercise." He heard a few people behind him laughing. "Excuse me? A ... janitorial exercise?" the reporter asked. "Yes. Anguish Station's best janitor and his employees are polishing the surface of the Polara moon, so that it is as clean as can be." "They are ... polishing ... the moon ... Polara?" "It was very filthy. Yes," Windsor told her with a smile. “Lots of moon dust.” More laughing. “Is this a joke?” the reporter asked him. “This is a serious time, Mr. Forlorn, and you would tell jokes when people are dying? Is that the message that you’d want the people to ponder?” “Garyk Eriksson, The Viking, is the greatest janitor who has ever pushed a broom,” Windsor said. “You are doing him a great disservice calling his actions a joke, little Miss.”

“Yeah!” somebody in the audience cheered. “The Viking!” Another said. “Greatest broom in the whole galaxy,” said another. A few people in the audience smiled. Some laughed. Someone else in the audience said, “Woooo! Wooo!” Windsor smiled and pointed to those in the audience who had spoken up. “Those who know Garyk know what I mean.” The reporter grimaced and started to fidget. Somehow, this wasn’t going the way she wanted. “Sir, these are serious times.” "Tammy Leyvee, I do understand your viewpoint,” Windsor told her. He spoke up so that everyone else could hear him. “As everyone knows, the ice moon Polara has long been a part of the overall strategy to bring this dead world to life. She has always been tidally locked and hidden in her mother planet's shadow. We've been installing massive thrusters on her surface. It is almost time to slow down her orbit just enough so that she sees the light." The reporter nodded. "If Polara crashes into Ursa, our mission is a failure. If she melts and rains upon her mother planet, in a useful and stable altered orbit, we'll be one step closer to bringing her momma to life. We’re doing this for the future. We are changing the face of this planet. And it will be our home. I speak for most people when I say ‘We are here for Ursa,’ not to settle any petty differences." Many of the people in the audience looked up through the transparent parts of the station at the red broiling planet above them. “For Ursa!” Someone yelled out. “For Ursa!” others yelled out in unison. “We are here to bring Ursa to life,” Windsor said. “I live to bring her to life. Everything I do is for this one mission and to see it succeed. I will sacrifice everything for this mission, even myself and everything I care about if need be, because if we fail to colonize her, we will all die out here.” Everyone cheered. “The Viking, Garyk, and his crew are cleaners,” Windsor told her. “That’s what they do. They are essential to our overall mission here, making sure that it all goes smoothly.”

The reporter turned around so that the camera could record the reactions of the audience. Most of these people have been working for decades, mining and building all of the structures on Ursa’s moons and on space station Anguish, everything needed for this mission. 100,000 people lived and worked in Ursa’s orbit. These people were at once proud and exhausted. His humor had put them at ease. Humor, in the dourest of moments has its place. Now they needed a boost in faith. “The Brotherhood of Ursa believes that we are the enemy,” Windsor said, “even if succeeding in our mission would save their lives and define the lives of the entire human race.” His voice echoed through the station. “If Drachelm’s forces attack, we will defend ourselves with extreme prejudice. But I’m telling you right now, defending will not be enough. They want to kick up some dust? We’ll give them a storm.” “A great storm is building, right here!” Windsor yelled out. “And we are the storm! All of us, everyone! They want it? They need to come and get it.” The cheers that followed echoed throughout the station.

# # #

Windsor stood in the middle of Command. It was one of two such areas on opposite sides of Anguish Station’s massive main wheel. Command’s dozens of workstations were fully manned tonight. Reeven Mayzer stood to one side of him. Neophasia Cullen sat in her chair on the raised platform and control center in the far corner of Command. She had the lights above her turned off. Only the lights coming from her screens illuminated her face. The rest of her was in darkness. Her attention was only on the screens in front of her. “We’ll step up military readiness exercises and training to the maximum allowed per our budget,” Reeven told Windsor. “You sound worried,” Windsor replied.

“The budget is calculated through all of the logistical data that Carla has been preparing for us,” Reeven told him. “Windsor, Sir, we need to know exactly who she’s fighting for, us or them. She’s too deeply entrenched in the workings of the station now. If the calculations are off, our military strength could be limited artificially by her figures.” “I want a group of mathematicians assigned to her reports,” Windsor said. “If there is any evidence of any wrong-doing in her reports, I want that evidence to be found.” “Unemployment figures are extremely low right now,” Reeven told him. “And finding people qualified enough to handle her level of logistical genius would be difficult enough.” “Well, who do we have?” “All we have right now are those who are overseeing Polara’s awakening,” Reeven told him. “Moving Polara into the star’s light is extremely dangerous.” Windsor’s gaze followed the rotating star field beyond Command’s transparent walls. Anguish’s constant rotation felt normal on most parts of the station. Seeing it from Command’s viewpoint was as disorientating as it could get. “Do what you can, Reeven,” Windsor told him. “I’m heading to my quarters for some shuteye.” “Well, tell Samantha that Command says ‘hello.’,” Reeven told him. “She’ll like that, I’m sure,” Windsor told him. With that, Windsor left Command and headed for his quarters. When he arrived, he stood outside the door. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. Perhaps he was afraid to face his wife. Was she still angry? Was she going to be angry forever? Perhaps it was better for her to be angry at him forever. He deserved it. Finally, he entered his quarters and closed the door behind him. He changed into his night clothes, poured himself a drink, and settled into his favorite chair beside his custom-made table.

If Samantha was awake, she didn’t say anything. He didn’t hear any of her moans of pain, nor any of the small sounds she usually made whenever she slept. Samantha was at peace tonight. Just let her sleep, he thought. When she wakes, she’ll talk. Perhaps things could get better. Perhaps I could somehow figure out how to earn some of her forgiveness, he thought. Windsor remained as quiet as he could manage as he sat with his glass and watched Ursa’s distant surface. In the back of his mind, it felt as if something was missing. It was wine in a wine glass tonight. He raised his glass and looked through it, and out through the huge floor to ceiling window to Planet Ursa. The yellowish green tint of Windsor’s wine intensified the fire, magma, and smoke of Ursa’s surface, making it look more violent than it was. All was quiet in Windsor’s quarters. He could even hear the sound from each sip he took from his glass. He could even hear the low hum of the station’s distant engines, something that was nearly always masked by another sound. It’s too quiet in here, Windsor thought. A feeling of extreme dread shook him to his bones. He set his wine glass down on the table and stood at once. He turned and looked at the wall beside the bed where his wife lay. The machine that kept Samantha alive was off. “Samantha …” Windsor rushed to the machine and hit the “on” button to turn it back on. Nothing. He started hitting buttons in a panic. The machine lit up and started … but there were no physical readings coming from his wife. “Samantha, no,” he yelled out. He went to his wife. The feel of her skin was cold to the touch and stiff. “No …” he felt no pulse in her wrist. The machine let out a long beep. It had no pulse either. He let go of her. “Revive!” he told the machine. Samantha’s body twitched as the machine sent electrical pulses through her body. Nothing. No pulse. “Again!” he cried out. Again, the machine sent pulses of electricity through her. Windsor pulled out his handheld, “Reeven …” He started pacing back and forth.

After a moment, “Yes, Sir.” “I need a team of investigators in my quarters, right now.” “In your quarters? Sir?” Windsor looked around the room. Don’t touch anything, he thought. Don’t touch a God damned thing. “They are on their way, Sir,” Reeven said. “But may I ask the reason?” As Windsor looked at Samantha and her dead open eyes, everything went blurry. “Samantha is dead. And something’s not right in here. I don’t want to think this, but … I think someone may have murdered my wife.” He dropped his handheld on the table, and then he went to her. He sat on the edge of the bed and he held his wife in his arms for the last time, “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. My God, what have I done?” Her hair was twisted in a way that she always untwisted when she rose. He untwisted it for her. With his right hand, he closed her eyes. The machine had a battery backup. Even if the battery backup failed, that machine would take current from another of the station’s sources. Everything Kinetica Corporation made carried with it extra redundancies to prevent issues. The machine had been deliberately turned off. Samantha did not have the clearance to make any changes herself. Someone else had done it. Someone deliberately murdered Windsor’s wife. As Windsor held onto his wife, his eyes drifted to the floor and to the single blue hair at his feet. It couldn’t have been Carla, could it? It couldn’t be. There is no way it was her. “Carla,” Windsor said as he rocked his wife’s dead body in his arms. “Please tell me it wasn’t you. It couldn’t have been you.”

Chapter 6 — NOTHING BUT THE RAIN

Windsor stayed awake during his scheduled time for sleep. There was no way he could sleep, at all right now. His official time for sleep was also the official night time for everyone in orbit around the planet, whether the sun’s light hit their location or not. Not everybody followed this rule, but it did provide some stability. On the morning of the twenty-sixth year of Ursa’s colonization efforts, more than five thousand small ships blasted their way off of Ursa’s cub moon, Polara, for the final time. For twenty-five years, the work on Polara was simple, yet time-consuming. Polara was a moon composed mostly of water ice. Tidally locked in orbit within Ursa’s shadow, Polara had never seen daylight. Now, all construction efforts were complete. Now, it was time to slow Polara’s orbit down, so that she could at last see daylight. She would at last see her mother's face in the light, and cry upon her as rain. Massive thrusters were installed on Polara. There were hundreds of them, each one several miles long and buried several miles into Polara’s frozen mantle. Each of the thrusters were made to self-destruct before hitting Ursa’s surface after performing their duty, which was to slow Polara’s orbit without crashing her into her mother planet before it was her time. The massive exodus from Polara was visible from Anguish Station, which now hung in space at the edge of light and darkness as the system’s star emerged from beyond Ursa’s distant horizon. Windsor was still in his quarters. Windsor leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window. He gazed in silence at Polara. The thrusters had not yet activated. That would be for later. Reeven

Mayzer sat in Windsor’s chair, going over some notes with an assistant that stood next to him. Several medical personnel were placing Samantha’s body into a black body bag. Another was disconnecting the machine on the wall that had kept Windsor’s wife alive. The machine was mounted on the wall. For all intents and purposes, it was a part of the wall and would take some time to dismantle it. The worst case scenario would be a huge hole in the wall, which would leave his quarters completely open to anyone who happened to walk by. Long ago, when Windsor and Samantha had entered their hibernation chambers on the ship that would bring them to Ursa, Samantha had still been injured from her boyfriend at the time. Windsor had saved her from him by bringing her along. Windsor and Samantha had left their hibernation chambers halfway through the voyage to be alone and to get married. That’s when she had fallen to the floor, the lower half of her paralyzed without warning. The hibernation had made the injuries that she’d suffered at her ex-boyfriend’s hands worse, and the fall finished the damage. After that, she could not live on her own without the help of a machine. They had consummated their marriage, but mostly because Samantha had felt sorry for Windsor. She was paralyzed and couldn’t feel anything down there, and so she never had the chance to enjoy sex with him. Windsor never stopped wanting her, but each time he made love to her, he was the only one getting anything out of it. It had eaten away at him all this time. He still loved her, but he would never get back the same kind of love in return. In the end, the only love she gave him was the love of friendship. She was barren and unable to give him children. Yet still, he loved her. She was his wife. The medical team took her from the bed and placed her on a rolling cart. They carted her away. He stared at the tiny ships hundreds of miles away as they left Polara. It resembled a crew abandoning a sinking ship at sea. Windsor felt like he was abandoning Samantha, or that she had long ago abandoned him. Everything that had happened was adding more weight upon his shoulders. Reeven Mayzer sat in Windsor’s chair and watched the magnificent sight beyond

the window, likely trying to come up with words, any words, to say to his grieving boss. This room is too quiet, Windsor thought. Something is missing. The sound of the machine, his wife’s machine, the forever cycling machine that had kept his wife alive all this time. He half expected his wife to start talking just now, despite having just been carted away, lifeless. He’d saved her from one kind of hell, only to introduce her to another kind of hell. He wanted to do absolutely nothing, just stand and watch the unfolding drama outside. Perhaps he would the drama, in the cold dark vacuum of it all, without a space suit. He could quite easily walk down to Bourbon Street, put himself into one of the airlocks, override all of the safety measures and space himself. 20 seconds, and all of his worries and strife would come to a swift end. Perhaps his body would float close enough to Ursa’s surface and he would become a part of the planet. Windsor didn’t know how long he was lost in thought. When he turned to the wall where the machine had been, the machine was gone. The wall that was left behind was a ruin of broken surfaces, exposed wires, and disconnected computer interfaces. “Sir,” Reeven told him, “we can install anything you wish into that space.” “No,” Windsor told him. “Leave it like it is for now. I want housekeeping to replace the bedsheets and coverings.” “I’ll let them know,” Reeven said as he started punching in commands to his handheld. “I won’t be able to sleep,” Windsor said. “Wouldn’t expect you to, Sir,” Reeven said. Windsor started pacing back and forth in front of the room’s window. It took up the whole side of the room. Every time Windsor paced in front of it, it felt like he was walking on the edge of the world.

The first month or so after Windsor met Reeven Mayzer, the security officer was always combative and always questioning Windsor’s orders, though he always followed them. Windsor always felt that his own orders were sometimes questionable. Perhaps Reeven had seen that. Now Windsor felt as if there was something that Reeven was holding back, some small bit of crucial information that Windsor needed to know. He dismissed it as a small bit of imagining. “I’ll find out who did it, Sir,” Reeven told him. “There is presently no footage from the security cameras. It’s like it’s been erased.” Reeven shook his head. “There are bits and pieces of footage from this room, but it could easily have been footage that was previously recorded.” Reeven showed Windsor his handheld’s screen. On the screen was broken up footage of Carla approaching Windsor’s quarters, letting herself in, and then sitting next to Samantha. “The video suggests that Carla was the last person to see your wife before she died. This would make Carla the primary suspect.” “I can’t believe this,” Windsor said. “I can’t believe Carla would do something like this. I can’t believe she would kill my wife in some jealous act of murder. Carla would know that I’d never forgive her for that. She could never, ever gain my trust after doing such a thing.” “We experienced glitches all over the station,” Reeven told him. “But it wasn’t the glitches that shut down your wife’s machine. Samantha’s machine had a battery backup, along with backups that were intrinsically tied to the station’s own emergency backup systems. There is no way that the glitches could have shut down her machine.” Reeven paused to let that sink in. Reeven’s eyes did not divert from looking into Windsor’s. “Your wife’s machine was shut down manually. Somebody murdered your wife. Your girl Carla is the most likely suspect.” Windsor resumed his pacing. “There was another murder, shortly after I took over as of the station. What was his name? Delco Mangeria? Could Carla have killed him, too?” “We have not found the killer’s identity as of yet,” Reeven told him. “I don’t see a connection to Carla, though it did happen suspiciously close to her first appearance here as an adult. Carla had been gone since the mutiny. She was taken from the station when she was just a little girl.”

“I can’t sleep right now, even if I tried,” Windsor told him. “I can’t even think right now. Every time I turn toward the bed, I expect Samantha to be there, either looking at me or sleeping.” “I would suggest you to go where you usually go to calm yourself,” Reeven told him. “I know exactly where that is. I’ll make a call. Being stuck in your quarters right now is not the best thing for you.” Windsor nodded, grabbed his handheld and a blanket, left his quarters, and headed down to Bourbon Street. When he arrived at Anguish Station’s endless street, he gazed down the length as it curved endlessly upward toward his favorite restaurant. Windsor wondered if Mary and Jed were there, and if they had the place open at this hour. He didn’t even know what hour this was. “Well, it’s either Mary and Jed’s place, or the airlock,” Windsor muttered. Before he knew it, Windsor stood below the iron balcony. “Reeven called us,” Mary told him as she leaned over the edge. “He said you were heading our way and needed some friends.” The door to the restaurant opened. Jed waved him in. “We’re not open right now, sir, but you’re welcome here any time.” Windsor entered and Jed closed and locked the door behind them. They made their way to the upper parts of the restaurant. Windsor sat at his usual table. Mary sat with him. Jed walked over to the bar and poured three cups of coffee. He brought them to the table and sat beside Mary. “Anything you need, Mr. Forlorn,” Jed told him. Mary and Jed looked like the perfect couple, a couple who had no issues at all. For a moment, Windsor envied them. “We’ve been learning some new things on our off hours, as time permits,” Jed told Windsor. “Janitorial stuff.” The big man gave him a smile. It faded fast, telling Windsor that Jed was aware of Samantha’s death. It was an obvious attempt at changing Windsor’s mood. Windsor decided to let it work. “I will find no mercy in sorrow.” He looked around. “This place is very

clean,” Windsor told him with a sly smile of his own. His words clung to him like desperately needed bandages. I will find no mercy in sorrow, he thought again. He almost lost his composure right then and there. She was gone. Samantha was gone. They both smiled at him. “Garyk Erickson is a master with the broom, Sir,” Jed told him. "I will find no mercy in sorrow," Windsor said again. Jed’s trick wasn’t working. Mary started to cry. When Mary started to cry, Windsor fell apart. “It’s perfectly alright,” Jed told him. “You’re among friends here.” Windsor didn’t know how long he was there. He ended up sleeping in the restaurant.

# # #

Later, he made his way back to his quarters, showered, and dressed for the day, all while trying not to look at the empty bed or the hole that his wife’s machine had left in the wall. The time had come. Windsor made his way to Reeven’s main security station. He looked upward towards Ursa and her moon, Polara. Ursa’s surface was still angry from the last celestial event. If things went wrong today and Polara crashed into Ursa’s surface, Ursa may not ever recover. She was lucky that Kodiak was so small. When Windsor arrived, Reeven stood before the wall of monitors twenty paces

from his desk. Reeven gave Windsor a quizzical look, as if deciding what to say. “We’re all crazy out here,” Reeven told him. "It is often difficult to measure space madness when everyone around you lives in space and is likely already afflicted. Knowing that everyone likely has it can give you a good perspective on things. Or maybe not." “Samantha is dead, and you’d speak of space madness,” Windsor stated. “Sometimes it feels like it’s best to look for excuses where they may not exist,” Reeven said. “Looking for such excuses will always result in lies that one would tell one’s self to feel better, but it would also buy some much needed time to deal with one’s guilt and eventually learn from one’s mistakes. The human mind will always try to heal itself, even if the methods are less than savory.” “It’s still wrong,” Windsor told him. Reeven nodded toward the mass of displays before him. Each one showed a different view of the planet and her eight moons. "The best thing to do is to look within and tell yourself that this isn't going to last forever, that we will succeed, and that humanity will soon have a brand-new world to call home. But then there's the possibility of reverse space madness, the effect of being so used to being on the inside of man-made tin cans all your life and then suddenly finding yourself on the outside, on a healthy living planet, an actual world, with real gravity, with cool air in your hair, and the possibility that such a thing of beauty can cause you to panic and despair from space madness induced agoraphobia." Reeven Mayzer paced back and forth before him, pensive and patient for the right words. He sat in the chair at his desk and he opened a side drawer. He pulled out an old-style photograph. It was a picture of Neophasia that had been taken a long time ago. "Stubborn she is," Reeven said, nodding toward Neophasia's unabashed smiling face in the picture. "Her heart is constantly encased in a stubborn and self-rationalizing wall. Always in my thoughts.” Reeven stood up again and paced back and forth with the picture in his hands. “Her heart is a brick wall with a single door that opens only from within, a door that will not acquiesce with any request or beck and call that is not of her own devising. She has always said that she loves me, and she does here and there I suppose, but she never gives herself to me by my provoking or request. Only by her own will or idea. I might be hers, but she is not mine. At best, she is a

frustrating woman to love, but that frustration is at the heart of why I love her." Reeven pointed at Windsor with the picture still in his hand. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t know what this girl of yours Carla does to you. I know it well. You need to give her influence limits, just as I have done with Neophasia.” A loud chime interrupted their conversation. It was followed by Neophasia’s voice over the station’s general public audio system. “All command staff, please report to Command.” Reeven audibly sighed and smiled. “Well, imagine that.” “Your little lady love,” Windsor stated. “She’s not that little,” Reeven told him. “And she’s too ornery and devious to be correctly called a lady.” As Reeven stood up, Windsor stopped him for a second, “She is a … woman, right?” “Last time I checked, right?” Reeven said with a laugh as they left the security station. “Natural hair color, too, sweet as can be when she wants to be. And she’s damned good at being heaven to me whenever she wants. She can be a real firecracker in bed if you know what I mean. She definitely knows how to love her man when she wants to.” “Only when she wants to.” “Yeah, from now on, don’t remind me.” Windsor checked his handheld. “Looks like it’s the Command on this side of the station.” “Well, that’s considerate of her,” Reeven said. “She probably knew where we were going to be. She’s good at that as well.” They walked down the stairs to the lower level of Anguish Station. Gravity was stronger down here. Windsor felt the increased pull on every part of him. Command was crowded. Every station was manned. Everyone from all other

shifts were here as well. The ones from the other shifts looked tired, but most of them were in a state of excitement. Everyone stood at attention when Reeven and Windsor entered. “At ease,” Reeven said. Everyone relaxed and resumed their duties. Formalities, Windsor thought. “Report?” A young man stood up from his console and stood before Windsor and Reeven. "We’ve recently received orders to create some UV shielding for project Polara,” the young man told him. “We have already thought of this and have already implemented it. We immediately set out to do so, using materials that we already had. In a short amount of time, we've created a massive set of UV-protecting shields out of graphene by-products and transparent plasti-steel waste." "So ... you've created massive ... sunglasses ... for Ursa's moon, Polara? For her day in the sun?" Windsor said. Reeven shook his head and gave the moment a sarcastic smile. "To prevent the ice of her surface from ionizing, yes. It was surprisingly easy,” The young man told them. “The factories on Polara were done creating her engines. It was easier to use those factories to construct the lenses with what was left behind, and with the parts of the factories that were no longer needed." "Nice," Windsor said. “Is there any bad news to accompany this achievement?” “We don’t really know if it’ll actually work.” “Of course,” Windsor said. “Well, at least she’ll look cool in the sunlight with those shades, am I right?” Reeven said. It was clear that it had been a running joke for everyone in command for some time. At least morale was good, for now. Windsor needed a morale boost. He looked down at the floor then. “I wish Samantha was here to see this,” he whispered. Reeven was the only one who heard him.

A second assistant walked up and handed Windsor a microphone. “It’s set station-wide,” the second assistant said. “Would you like it to broadcast openly to all in Ursa’s system?” “Of course,” Windsor said. “Ursa is everyone’s world. It concerns everyone.” The second assistant walked back to his workstation and made a quick adjustment to the microphone’s settings. “Reeven, I’m taking this up top to Bourbon Street,” Windsor told him. “I want you to monitor and execute my commands from down here.” “Yes, Sir,” Reeven said. Windsor raised his voice to the others. “Essential staff is to remain here. But when I give the word, the rest of you are free to us all on Bourbon Street.” With that, Windsor left Command and walked back to Bourbon Street. Three reporters and a crowd had already gathered to him. He checked the microphone to make sure it was working. He greeted the reporters. “I want this to be broadcast everywhere.” They did as he asked. "Right now, Ursa’s surface might be all hot magma, smoke, and fury, but the core of her heart has a beat that is strong,” Windsor said. His voice echoed throughout the station. The reporters nodding at him told him that everything he said was going out, live, to everyone in orbit around Ursa. “This planet is alive. She needs rain to cool her down. Lucky for her, she has a moon of ice in her orbit, forever until now locked in her shadow, a moon whose heart is ready to melt and rain down upon her sweet mother, to cool her down and to tame her wily and unruly surface." Everyone looked up and upon the ice moon Polara. Anguish Station was in Ursa’s shadow, just like Polara was. “Station Windsor Forlorn to Command. Activate Polara’s thrusters,” Windsor said into the microphone.

Dozens of bright white lights emerged from deep within Polara’s surface. The thrusters themselves could not be seen from this distance. It was only their light. But this was just the initial startup. Suddenly, Polara’s thrusters switched to maximum burn and illuminated everything within Ursa’s dark shadow. “Command, I want a steady eye on all calculations,” Windsor said into the microphone. “I want corrections and counter corrections. I want her orbit to compensate for her speed. Let’s give this baby a steady hand.” The crew already knew all of this, but he knew it would make him and the crew look good to say it. The entire station shook as the gravity well around planet Ursa shifted as Polara’s orbital distance changed and she gained speed. Everyone stood as still as they could as they looked out through the transparent areas of the station. All eyes were on Ursa's far horizon as ice moon Polara - so long existing in the dark shadow of her mother planet - was at last pulled into the light and warmth of the nearby star. “I want her orbit stabilized,” Windsor said, “at all costs. If Polara crashes in to Ursa, we are all dead! No pressure, right?” Some of the people in the audience laughed. It took a while for the rest of the crowd to enjoy that small bit of dark sarcasm. “We’re not going to die,” he said with a smile. Thrusters and counter thrusters fired. “Sir, fuel on Polara is now down to 10%,” Reeven told him through the radio. “Are we going to make it?” Windsor asked. “It’s going to be close, Sir,” Reeven told him. The slowing thrusters on Polara died and faded into a red glow. Counter thrusters fired one last burst, and then they too died. “Command, report please,” Windsor said into his microphone. For an entire minute, he was greeted by nothing but static. “Polara’s new orbit is stable,” Reeven said. “Polara is in the sunlight. Deploying UV protection.”

It looked as if massive plumes of smoke emerged from within Polara’s core. In reality, they were massive fabric sheets of graphene and transparent plasti-steel, created to act as UV shade. The reflection of Ursa’s star on Polara’s surface was blinding but it soon became fuzzy. “We are seeing some ionization on the surface, as well as some melting and precipitation,” came a voice from his handheld. “The shields are working to prevent some of the ionization.” A light cloud of white began to trail after Polara in her orbit. Windsor spoke into his handheld, "Reeven, turn everything off. All lights.” All lights in the station died. All mechanisms shut down. Not one sound could be heard. The silence was deafening. "Anything?" Windsor asked. "Detecting mist. It’s working, Sir. Polara is melting. It’s ... rain ... it's raining! We've got rain! It's raining on Ursa!" All eyes were on the ice moon as it started to melt in the star's warm embrace and rain down her fresh waters upon her mother's dead yet molten surface. "This is just the beginning," Windsor said. His eyes were tearing up. "Was this what God felt like when he created the universe?" Nobody around him answered. “Command, are we ready for the final phase?” Windsor asked into his handheld. “Just enough fuel remains. The thrusters on Polara will change her orbit as needed as she reduces in size,” a voice from command stated. “The computers and machines there have taken over with automatic reserves. When Polara melts down enough, the remainder will fall harmlessly to Ursa’s surface. When that is complete … it looks like we’re ready for the final phase, Sir.” “I want a full diagnostic on Sylvia and her subsystems. Leave nothing out. When Polara is done doing her thing, and if Sylvia is ready, and the rest of the

terraformers out there are ready, it’ll be time to turn on this great machine that we’ve built.”

Chapter 7: WHEN CHAOS LOVES CHAOS

Windsor rolled over and turned away from her as she gathered her clothes. "What's wrong with you?" Carla asked. "Whenever I get depressed, all I think about is sex," Windsor said as he reached for his own clothes. He sat naked at the edge of the bed. he dropped his clothes to the floor and held his head in his hands. "Well, don't beat yourself up, Windsor," Carla told him. "I'm the same way." "Were you taking your frustrations out on me just now?" he asked her. "You are my frustrations, Windsor. And yeah, I kind of was, but apparently not as much as you were taking yours out on me just now," Carla told him. She was examining her shirt. "You nearly ripped all of my buttons off." Windsor couldn't think. he just sat at the edge of the bed and let everything that his body had spent sway him into a drunken state of euphoric aftersex. "Something besides me is bothering you. Am I right?" Carla asked as she struggled to place her twisted bra back into place. “Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to guess?” Windsor had not told her about Samantha. He assumed everyone knew about it. He was surprised that Carla didn’t know, unless she was feigning ignorance. He didn’t think she was capable of killing Samantha, but space madness was an issue for many out here in orbit around Ursa. Carla had been out here all her life. She didn’t have the luxury of knowing what Earth was like. “Samantha died,” Windsor told her. Carla was quiet for a moment. “Windsor,” she told him. “I’m sorry.” “Are you?”

“What else am I supposed to say, Windsor?” Carla was up on her feet. She increased the pace of clothing herself. “I know she meant a lot to you.” “She was a barrier for you,” Windsor said. “Not much of one, apparently,” Carla told him. She almost yelled it out. “It didn’t stop you from fucking me every chance you got.” “I’m sorry … I …” Carla walked around the bed until she stood right in front of him. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Look, I know that you’re in pain,” she told him. “You must be. I understand, Windsor. I do.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and she kissed him on top of his head. If she was good at manipulation, she was doing a good job of it. With Samantha’s ing, Carla would have no reason not to defect. Windsor needed her, for more than just these random liaisons. He leaned his head against her abdomen and wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped her arms around him. Today would be a good day to ask her to stay. An alarm went off on his handheld computer on the side table. Windsor looked up at Carla and said, “It’s time.”

# # #

Ursa’s moon Polara had settled into a tidally locked orbit in Ursa’s sunlight. She continued to rain down on her mother’s surface, creating a dowsing effect on the planet’s molten surface. White wispy clouds of steam now ed the dark plumes of smoke and the bright orange lava on Ursa’s surface. People were already gathered at the largest meeting place on Bourbon Street. Carla followed Windsor as he made his way to the stage that had been built here. This was an area close to Reeven Mayzer’s preferred security station and Windsor’s favorite restaurant.

Something deep in Carla’s stomach told her that not everything was right. It wasn’t just the death of Windsor’s wife. Carla hadn’t heard anything about her ing until Windsor told her of it. She didn’t like the accusing tone he took with her, as if he thought she was somehow involved. It wasn’t just that that bothered her either. Carla glanced at her surroundings. Anguish Station’s main structures had doubled in size ever since Windsor ordered the parts for Atlas moon’s terraforming equipment to be modified and brought on board to turn the station itself into a terraformer. It gave Raymond Drachelm a better reason to take the station, but also not by force. If Anguish Station were to be destroyed, the entire mission to colonize Ursa would fail. Windsor was risking everything to save the station. Everyone would die if the mission failed. The five terraformers were ready to be switched on. Apart from the station, the other four terraformers were stationed on different moons around the planet. Carla wondered if Drachelm or any of his followers had sabotaged any of the other terraformers. One or more of the terraformers could still be sabotaged and the mission safely extended. Carla’s influence around Ursa had grown a great deal since Windsor hired her, but even she couldn’t be entirely sure that everything was secure. Carla stood with Windsor beside the stage. She tried her best to not look worried. Just breathe, she thought. People were watching them. Many of those eyes were on her. Carla wished that she had found the schematics to the stasis weapon that Drachelm had used on Kodiak. She failed, right when she had found the location. Someone random had discovered her. She couldn’t risk talking to her mother at the time, when so many people were present, even by typing out her side of the conversation. She had to talk her way out of why she had been in that spot. Basically, she said that she had been lost. If she tried again, and was discovered, she’d have to have another reason for being there, and why it was the same spot as before. She would have to be more careful. Better tactics, certainly. To be branded a spy would force her hand and she’d have to flee, and the chance would be gone.

To everyone else around Ursa, Carla’s mother had been silent for decades. Carla knew that her mother didn’t want to be open with just anyone. A part of Carla’s mind still doubted that it was real, but everything Sylvia told her made too much sense. Carla suddenly ed a note that she had written that she wanted to give to Windsor. She’d chosen the words carefully. She needed to play him until this conflict was over. There was no telling how many of Drachelm’s spies had infiltrated the station. It couldn’t be many. Otherwise, the station would already belong to Drachelm. Everyone who entered and exited that station was scrutinized. But if even one spy was able to enter the station and play things out as if they weren’t a part of the Brotherhood of Ursa, they could be a threat to her here. Carla fished into her pockets and she retrieved the note. She handed it to Windsor. Windsor gave her an uneasy, yet warm, smile, and unfolded the note. He read it outloud, just like Carla thought he would, though in a whisper that only she could hear. “The Universe is a place of chaos,” he said. “I was born of chaos. In many ways, I am chaos reborn. To love me is to love the Universe itself, and all that exists within it. You cannot love me unless you are willing to embrace chaos. A girl like me? When she doesn't give a fuck about someone, she doesn't give a fuck about someone. And there's nothing anyone can do about it, until she wants to give a fuck about them again. But I love you, Windsor. I love you more than words can say. Not one day goes by when I’m not thinking about you." Carla just stood before him for a moment. She squinted her eyes at him, as if doing so would lend her some sort of epiphany, some semblance of truth that would tell her the correct reaction. She turned slowly and started to head toward the airlock without a word. He stopped her and wrapped his arms around her. When he parted, he kissed her. “I want you to defect, Carla. Defect from the Brotherhood and be with me,” Windsor told her. “Show me that you love me, by putting them aside. I need you. Live with me here, on the station. I would give you anything you’d want. Be mine, and I’ll be yours.” “I can’t do that,” she told him. She winced as she saw the hurt in his eyes from her answer.

“Why?” he asked. “I can’t tell you right now,” Carla said. “There are things …” The momentary pain he showed her turned to anger and frustration. "Then, one day, the whole Universe will weep for us," Windsor told her as he ripped up her note and threw the pieces away. “Excuse me?” Carla asked. Her face turned white as a new sheet of paper. “You are a force to be reckoned with, Carla, but when it comes to loving me, you are a coward, a coward that is as yellow as yellow can be.” Windsor told her. "And yes, I'm saying it to your face. You are a coward, Carla." “A coward?” Carla stomped off. She just wanted to leave, and she forgotten everything else. She’d crossed the street and was about to enter the docking entrance where her shuttle was stationed. “You miserable bastard,” she muttered under her breath. She turned right before hitting the exit door. "You have no idea who you are dealing with, and what I can do!” she yelled. “You have no idea what I can do for you! And you would treat me like this?" “Are you leaving then? Without watching what’s about to happen?” She stopped. In her anger, she’d forgotten that she was going to watch the terraformers turn on and fire their life-giving energies down on the planet. Some people ing by were laughing. Many are talking. Carla shook her head as if she thought they are speaking of her and Windsor. Carla walked back and settled into one of the chairs. “I’m staying for the ceremony, just like I said,” she told him. “Then, I’m leaving. I don’t want to be around you when you’re like this to me.” Carla tried to calm herself. She couldn’t tell Windsor everything. She couldn’t defect right now. She needed to sneak back into where the stasis schematics were located. She needed to bring them back to Anguish Station, or at least transmit them to her mother. It crazy to think about, that Anguish Station, Sylvia, basically, was her mother. What would happen if everyone found out that Sylvia was her mom?

She had to play along with her regular visits. She couldn’t raise suspicions. Drachelm could have someone watching her, and then they’d lay a trap and she’d be dead. And Windsor was being a jerk. But he didn’t know. She couldn’t tell him. Neophasia Cullen stood at the podium before the crowd and the reporters who had just then turned on their recording devices. She spoke to the crowd. “At the heart of each of Ursa’s five orbital terraformers - all but one of which was crafted and carved into one of Ursa’s moons - is a fusion reactor designed to fuse atoms together. Within each fusion reactor is what we call a SPONCH payload generator. The letters stand for sulfur, phosphorus, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen. These are the basic building blocks of life. The fuel used for each terraforming machine’s engine comes from the material of its surroundings, with the exception of Anguish Station, which had its materials shipped in from other sources. The materials for fusion can be anything; rocks, metal, platisteel that isn’t used for construction, human waste, animal byproducts, dead plants, garbage, and anything else that one might imagine. Everything that is used as fuel for the terraforming machines is broken down by each terraformer’s SPONCH generator, recreated, and reused as the life-giving plasma that we are about to see.” “This will be the first time that we will witness this kind of thing on this kind of scale,” Neophasia told the crowd. “This material will be fired toward the planet in a sustained blast that will - hopefully - change the face of the planet, and bring it to life in a fraction of the time it took for life to evolve on Earth.” Windsor’s eyes were on Carla as she watched him. He stood next to Neophasia. Reeven and some of his elite guard stood at strategic spots around the periphery of the crowd. Carla had heard no word of any kind of threat at the moment, but Windsor had told her that Reeven insisted on the extra security. If Drachelm had had any kind of plan for sabotage, he’d not filled her in on it. But then, he might not trust her enough with the kind of information. Carla felt sweat start to bead upon her forehead, despite the chilly nature of Anguish Station’s atmosphere. This was a fine line she was walking on. Were the guards now watching her because she had started to depart before the firing of the terraformers? If someone had sabotaged them, it would make Carla look guilty.

Neophasia stepped aside and let Windsor take the podium. “Ursa was a barren world ... named after the constellation where she resides,” Windsor began. “She had nine small moons, her small cubs, all of them formed from her body after an ancient collision, a collision many times more ancient that the one we’d witnessed recently. Control over Planet Ursa and her 8 remaining cub moons now determines the fate of human expansion to the stars. And now, we are about to bring her to life ... to give her land and sea, dirt and water, trees and grass, and ... life. We must not fear. We must stride forth.” Windsor took a drink from the glass of water sitting upon the podium that he spoke from. "God made us in his image,” Windsor continued. His words echoed around the station. “Now, we are following in God's footsteps. This is now the greatest step that humankind has ever attempted. Now we do as God has done before. Now we shall bring a dead world to life, and we shall become the creators of worlds." His words were broadcast to all listeners in the entire region of space. A large red button with a wireless antennae had been installed upon the surface of the podium, installed within a glass case protected with two locks. Windsor unlocked one of the locks. Neophasia unlocked the other one. Once the glass case was removed, Windsor held his hand over the large red button and looked up at Planet Ursa through the station's transparent plasti-steel glass shell. “This had better work,” he whispered. “We all live, or we all die out here.” Carla knew that he did not mean to have those particular words broadcast. She saw the resulting embarrassment in his eyes. Carla loved him. Her heart was ready to defect. She wished that she could tell him everything, but she didn’t have a choice. The stasis schematics from the attack on Kodiak could change everything. She had to make another attempt at finding them. There were five orbital terraformers in all, at equal distances from each other, including Anguish Station itself. The crowd in front of Windsor was silent as he stood at the podium. Carla watched him as he looked out through the transparent parts of the station to the molten planet outside. The colonization mission plans had not ed for one of Usra’s moons

crashing into her surface. This whole colonization mission could already be doomed. Carla held her breath and hoped for the best. The potential issue of sabotage was now at the forefront of her mind. And now Windsor had his hand on the red button. If just one of the terraformers was sabotaged, the rest would also be destroyed because, for the first and most important firing sequence, they were linked together and needed to be balanced. Either humanity would give birth to this new world, or everything that they'd built here would be destroyed, with just one push of the button. Windsor pushed down the button with his palm. With one press of the button, all light and on Anguish Station faded to nearly nothing as all power was diverted to the huge spokes on Anguish Station’s great wheel. Black and green light spun and raced along the spokes to the axle of the station, and finally arced out to the one-hundred-meter-long targeting spire that was pointed directly at Ursa’s surface. Blue green, red, black, and white light formed a beam of plasma energy and matter, and then launched itself at the planet’s surface. All of the other terraformers in orbit around Ursa followed suit as well, sending their payloads of creation crashing down upon the planet’s surface. The birth of Planet Ursa was to be a wonder to behold as every one of the other terraformers installed on Ursa’s moons sent pulses of life-giving energies to the planet’s molten surface. Carla breathed a sigh of relief that none of the terraforming machines had selfdestructed upon their activations. The station started to shake. “Everyone, stay calm,” Windsor said. “This shakiness is normal.” The station’s many structures groaned as even more energy burst from her spire towards the planet below. Then, it stopped.

Ursa looked darker than she was, no longer burning quite as much as she had been on the surface. Polara continued to rain water and ice down onto the planet below. Beyond that, no differences could be discerned. The immediate result was anti-climactic. After the lights came back up and the station’s systems came back on-line, the crowd dispersed with nary a word. Carla left. As she sat in her seat in her shuttle, and minutes after it launched from Anguish Station, only then did she realize that she’d been crying since she’d originally tried to leave “I can’t defect, Windsor,” she said. “I can’t do it until I have everything settled. Forgive me.” She knew he would never hear her say these words. She just needed to hear herself say them.

# # #

Windsor sat in his favorite chair beside his custom-made table in his quarters, again, alone. A cup and a lukewarm bottle of wine sat beside him on his table. “I should be sharing this,” Windsor said. “It should’ve been cold when emptied, yet here it is, only halfway drunk.” "My name is Sylvia," said a voice through the speakers of his quarters. “I have heard you speak before, Sylvia. You've not spoken to anyone in twentyfive years. Why are you talking to me?" She did not answer. Just static, and then the speaker went dead. It was a cold voice. Windsor knew who it was, one who had been dead for 25 years, Melanie Dupree. Her voice would be the only one to come through the speakers like this. She was a part of the station. It would sound different than if it had been a member of the staff. Not to mention, the staff would not use the station’s main communications systems.

"You don't know what love is," Sylvia said. "Then teach me," Windsor told her. All of the speakers in his quarters, all at once, answered with loud white noise and static. After a moment, the sound died. Windsor turned and looked through the huge wall-sized window of his quarters. Planet Ursa was in full view. He walked to the window. He let his glass of wine touch the window with an audible clink. He let his forehead touch the window as well and he leaned against it. Just inches from his face on the other side of this transparent barrier was the instant death of outer space. More static came through the speakers of his quarters. He placed his free hand upon the cold plasti-steel glass and looked closer at the planet before him. The star's heavy light emerged upon Ursa's distant horizon. Somewhere on Ursa’s lit horizon, he saw a hint of green. His jaw could have fallen to the floor, if it were not attached to his face. It was working. Ursa was changing. The color green suggested plant life. The atmosphere wasn’t quite there though. What air might exist down there was likely poisonous to humans at this point. “Did Carla murder my wife?” Windsor asked. His question was met with static. “Sylvia, if you’re going to talk to me, talk to me,” Windsor told her. “I need to know what you know. Did Carla murder Samantha?” “According to my data, Carla did murder her.” Windsor drank down the remaining wine in his glass in one gulp. Then he walked back to the table and poured more wine into the glass. “Sir, I can’t explain any of this,” Sylvia said. “I agree that this is not like her at all. But this is the footage that I have. All diagnostics check out. I don’t know why this is happening, Sir.” “You agree with me that this is not something that she would do?”

“Correct, Sir,” Sylvia told him. “Yet you’re saying that she killed her?” Windsor asked. “That is correct, according to my data.” “This is too much. I can’t love her anymore,” Windsor said. “I need to get her out of my head.” Sylvia was silent. Random bits of static came through the speakers of the room. “Sylvia? How does one fall out of love?” he asked. Not even static came through the speakers for a moment. Windsor wondered if Sylvia had suddenly given up on the conversation. “Chaos loves control,” Sylvia said. “Chaos loving chaos just creates more chaos. But controlled chaos can be a powerful ally. Controlled chaos can rule the day. It can win wars and it can even win hearts.” “So, what are you trying to tell me?” “Not all chaos is bad. And love always seeks to bring order to chaos. Life always seeks to do the same. Love is the great quickening. Without love, there is only empty space and dead worlds.” The speaker made a popping noise. For a moment, Windsor wondered if Sylvia was resetting herself with a reboot. "The first step ... in falling out of love with someone," Sylvia said, "is first to realize that you hate the fact that you love the target in question." The speaker died again. "Go on, Sylvia," Windsor told her, "tell me the rest. Tell me how to get this girl out of my head." After a long pause, the speaker on the wall popped again. "She needs you, Windsor. She can save ... everyone. She can win this war. Carla is the key to it all." "I don't believe you," Windsor told her. "Planet Ursa needs you, Windsor," Sylvia told him. "She needs to come to life.

And you'll need Carla's help." "But she hates me. She’s crazy. Insane even." “Are you any less crazy than she is?” The speaker went dead again.

Chapter 8 – OF LOVE, ALLEGIANCE, AND COWARDICE

25 years before, during the mutiny on space station Anguish, Matthew Dupree found his wife lying upon one of the stone paths in farming pod 5. Distant gunfire. Were they crazy? Matthew wondered. One bullet fired in the wrong direction could cause the entire farming pod to decompress, send everything flying out into cold vacuum of space, and kill everything that thrived upon it. He’d gotten a message from Ray Drachelm that Melanie was in trouble. Ray only said that Melanie had been kidnapped by a cloaked figure in some station footage that had been brought to his attention, and that Melanie had been taken to farming pod 5. Matthew knew how Drachelm felt about his wife. The fact that Drachelm was talking to him was alarming enough. Telling Matthew that Melanie was in trouble was even more troubling. And Drachelm not being able to get to her was the strangest part. It didn’t take Matthew long to find her. From then on, it was as if he felt the spin of the station in his mind, threatening to send him to the ground in its confusing disorientation. When he found her, he rushed to her and cradled her lifeless form in his arms. He cared nothing for the stone path and whether the stone would cut into his skin. "Melanie, I will find who did this to you, and I will bring them to justice." He was on the edge of panic. It felt like he was lured here. If he was lured here, he knew that time was short and he had to flee. If Melanie was murdered, he would likely be next. If they knew that he was Melanie’s husband, then they would soon find out about their daughter, Carla. Carla could be in just as much danger. Hell, Matthew Dupree thought, this whole place could go up in flames at an

instant. Melanie had kept her family separate from work. It was a small part of paranoia on her part. She said it was to protect them because of how important she was. She said it was mostly the media she was worried about, that they would follow him and Carla around to ask questions that they would have no answers for. Such answers would invariably be wrong and make Melanie’s job far more difficult. So, Matthew and Carla remained anonymous. But their anonymity would change once word of Melanie’s death started to spread. “You’ve hurt me deep, Melanie, but I still love you, and that will never change. I'll need to lay low, and I need to run.” He bent down and he kissed his dead wife on the cheek. He was going to leave then, but he kissed her on the lips before he did. “I love you, Melanie. I forgive you for everything. And I will find out who did this to you.” Then he ran. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him. But he wasn't quite fast enough. All two hundred yards of open space within the farming pod erupted in flame as the built-up oxygen ignited. By the time he reached the door, he could smell the scent of his own burning flesh He was left wondering if Drachelm had some part in Melanie’s death. But why would Drachelm say anything to him? The murderer would want to put distance between themselves and the station. Whomever had killed Melanie would likely leave the station and venture out to one of Ursa’s nine cub moons. Then Matthew Dupree blacked out. Later, when he was lucid again and recovering from being burned from head to toe, the nurse asked him his name. He knew that he had to lay low. He could not be who he was before. He needed to figure out who had killed his Melanie. “Do you know your name?” one of the medics asked him. He looked into a far mirror at the ruin that his face had become. “I am nobody. I am Putrid," he said. Even his voice was unrecognizable. Something clicked in his mind. He had to look after his daughter, Carla, but nobody could ever know who he really was, possibly not even his daughter, for her own safety. "Who are you? Do you know your name?" they asked him again.

The pain was almost too much for him to speak. He saw himself in a mirror again and he screamed as they poked him with a needle full of drugs. Again, he did not recognize the image looking back at him, only his eyes. “I look ... pputrid,” he stammered. His face had been burned, almost to the bone, as if his face had melted. Even his voice was different. Even the voice, he thought. "I am not myself." "Who are you? Do you know your name?" they repeated. Think fast, he thought. Unrecognizable. They won't know who I am, he thought. He searched the medical facility's wall for a name. If no one knew who he was, he could remain anonymous. I will find out who killed you Melanie, he thought. Matthew knew that Peg believed in Drachelm and his ideals, and that Peg would know that Carla would be in danger if she wasn’t anonymous. Peg would take Carla off-station. The path was clear. There was only one way he could take care of his daughter, anonymously, right by her side. "I am ... putrid. I am Putrid. Putrid Bosillious," he said. "I work for Raymond Drachelm. I request ... exile."

# # #

The walls of the halls were always the same, always rough, always looking like some monster had chewed its way in or out of the base’s deepest crevasses. Carla knew what those monsters were, small man-sized rock chewing machines designed to bore holes into solid rock and iron to form hallways and rooms within the moons’ solid interiors. They created living spaces and hallways, sometimes huge caverns for storage, or full hangers for ships. She imagined the digging machines as real monsters, hungry and starving creatures desperately searching for the greatest tasting morsel of stone or rubble, too mindless or single-minded to enjoy such a succulent treasure if they’d even encounter it. Such a desperately single-minded creature could never know love, she thought. It would forever be beyond their reach.

Machines only, she thought. That’s all they were. That’s all they would ever be. Carla stopped walking. Her mother was a machine now, or rather the software that ran a lot of, or maybe even all of, Anguish Station’s machines. She gazed at her handheld computer. A bead of Carla’s sweat fell upon the blank screen. It was cold in these halls, always, but she was perspiring none the less. She had no official reason for sneaking around down here. She had no excuse to tell someone if she were to be discovered. They’ll know that I’m a traitor, Carla thought. She wondered if Raymond Drachelm would kill her. Cassandra would, without any hesitation. If Putrid Bosillious was around, she might be safe. Such a hideous name and a hideous face to go with it. People always assumed the worst about him, but he always protected Carla since she was young, ever since the mutiny that sent Drachelm and his followers into exile. He never said much. He was just always there. The overhead lights that were deeper into the cavernous labyrinth were off. They were turned off for a reason. Only those with clearance could activate the sensors with their presence, which would automatically turn the lights on. It was a flimsy security measure, thought to turn back those who were not prepared for darkness, which always amounted to nobody at all, since everybody had something that could be used at a source of light. Carla wondered if this was one of Cassandra’s hair-brained schemes. If Cassandra Fleming was in charge of the Brotherhoods’ military forces, this war would already be over, Carla mused. Carla’s handheld computer screen was off for a reason. Earlier, she had shown Drachelm photos of Anguish Station that she’d taken on a previous visit. If the Brotherhood’s forces were to board Anguish Station, knowing the lay of the land would be wise. Drachelm agreed and looked through all of those pictures that Carla had taken. Raymond Drachelm’s fingerprints were all over Carla’s handheld computer’s screen. She’d later held her computer up to her mainframe computer’s mirror scanner monitor, shined a bright light upon her handheld, and took pictures of his fingerprints. She didn’t want to mess up those prints on the handheld device, so she had been careful not to disturb them in the hours that followed. The turned off lights ahead were also tied into an array of security cameras that

were also activated once the lights came on. Carla had no intention of activating those lights or the cameras. The cameras could’ve been activated by any light source, another possible security measure. She did not know for certain. Instead, she memorized the number of steps and the size of each step it would take to get to the secure room where the stasis weapon’s data was stored. She closed her eyes and followed her memorized path: 150 heel-to-toe steps past the last active light bulb, turn right, take fifty steps heel-to-toe, turn 45 degrees, take fifteen 6 steps down, turn 90 degrees, take 1 step, turn 90 degrees, reach for a railing to the right, take 25 steps down, turn 45 degrees to the left, 50 feet forward, stop, and then turn 90 degrees. She pushed her hand forward at shoulder height until she felt the cold and harsh surface of the rock wall. She moved her hand downward until her hand met the keypad and its dark screen. She placed her handheld against the dark screen in front of her in the black as pitch darkness. Her other hand shook as she placed her finger upon the on-switch of her device. This would either work, or it wouldn’t. Alarms would go off, or they wouldn’t. No matter what, once the door opened, Cassandra would be alerted to her presence and Carla would only have around 5 minutes, tops, to find the schematics before she was discovered. She began to hear her own heart beating in her ears. With barely a whisper, she said, “Whatever will be … will be.” And then she turned on the switch. No alarm sounded. The door slid open. She entered and closed the door behind her. She set her handheld clock to a 3-minute countdown. She turned the room’s light on. In front of her on the other side of the room was an array of computer screens, all acting as one. All of them were controlled by a single terminal. She sat down in the chair in front of the terminal. She flicked a switch on her device. “Mom? Here you go,” she said. And then she took out a small wire, hooked it up to her handheld, and then hooked the other end to the terminal. Only a small part of Sylvia was retained within Carla’s handheld device, but it was enough. “Two minutes, Carly,” Sylvia said. “Two minutes and I’ll have it all.”

“That’s cutting it close,” Carla told her. “I trust you have an escape plan?” Sylvia asked her. “Um …Yeah,” Carla told her. “Unhook you from the computer and run like hell.” Behind her, the door slid open again. Carla turned around. Cassandra Fleming stood in the open doorway. Cass’s right hand rested on the end of a long blade’s hilt. The blade itself was resting within its scabbard, which was tied to her waist. “Carla, what the hell are you doing in here?” Cassandra asked. A frigid chill ran up Carla’s spine. Think fast, Carla thought. She took a deep breath and tried to act as if nothing was wrong. She took a step to her right, to hide her handheld computer, which rested upon the desk and was hooked in to the room’s computer system. “I got bored,” Carla told her. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d, you know, check things out.” “You’re not supposed to be down here,” Cass told her. Carla shrugged her shoulders. “So? That doesn’t mean anything.” “You don’t have security clearance to be in here,” Cassandra told her as she took a single step into the room. The door behind her slid shut and locked itself. Cassandra’s palm rotated left and right upon the end of her sheathed blade’s hilt, as if her hand was hungry to use it. “Then … then how would you explain how I got in?” Carla asked. Cassandra blinked a few times, licked her lips and chuckled. “Because you’re a crafty little bitch that thinks she can do whatever the hell she wants, without any regard for anyone else?” Cassandra took another step toward Carla. Carla saw something in Cass’s eyes that she’d never seen before. Carla didn’t have any weapons on her, nothing at all that she could use to defend herself if Cassandra decided to assault her. “I do what I do for The Brotherhood of Ursa,” Carla told her. “Raymond

Drachelm commissioned me to spy on Anguish Station and its , Windsor Forlorn. I’ve done that. I’m accessing this system so that I can better do my job. Look at what’s happening around Ursa, Cass. Most of the contractors are bying the station and are trading among themselves. Raymond Drachelm now has more power over the people in orbit around this world than Windsor Forlorn does. It was me that did that. We are going to win this war because of me.” “Ray will never be yours, Carla,” Cass told her. “I really don’t care about him like that, Cass,” Carla told her. “You’re paranoid.” “You’ve slept with him, didn’t you?” Cass asked her. “That’s why he pays so much attention to you, because you’re trying to steal him from me.” Cassandra took another step towards Carla. Carla’s handheld computer beeped. “What was that?” Cass asked her. Carla turned around and unhooked her computer while making sure Cass couldn’t see what she was doing. She stuffed the cord into her pocket, turned and showed Cass her handheld. “It’s just my computer,” Carla told her. “Carla,” Sylvia’s voice said. “You must do what’s right.” It was her mother’s voice, which came from her handheld computer. Oh, she did not just do that, Carla thought. Sylvia didn’t know that Carla was unarmed. Cass had clearance. She could bring weapons. Carla did not have clearance. Any weapon she carried would’ve set off an alarm. Carla steeled herself, her eyes wide and watching Cass as Cass drew nearer. Cassandra pulled the blade from her scabbard. “Who is that? It sounds familiar,” Cassandra said. “It’s my mother,” Carla said as she gave up her ruse. “Melanie Dupree.” Cassandra’s eyes grew wide and she pulled out a blade. “Your mother … so that’s the big secret. You’re not Ray’s girl. He must see her in you. That’s why he loves you,” Cassandra told her. “Melanie was a fucking whore, just like you.”

Carla tried to calm herself. If she attacked Cass, Cass would kill her, easily. “Raymond is mine!” Cassandra told him. “And now, I’m getting you out of my way.” “I don’t care about Ray in that way, Cass,” Carla told her. “Just let me go. And, if it makes things easier for you, maybe I won’t ever come back. I’ll work as a spy full time, all the time, behind enemy lines, and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.” “I don’t believe you! I see how he looks at you and how you look at him.” “You’re crazy.” “You’re the one who is crazy, Carla. You’ve been crazy all your life. You’re a traitor, and now you’re dead.” Cassandra launched herself at Carla. Carla lost her footing and fell to the floor. Cass plunged her knife downward. Carla caught Cass’s forearms in her hands. The tip of Cassandra’s blade touched Carla’s shirt. Cass shifted her weight and pushed down with a loud grunt. “You die!” Cass yelled. The blade pierced Carla’s shirt and touched her skin. Carla screamed as the blade began it dig into her left breast. Cassandra shifted again and straddled Carla. Cass pushed down further. “You’re nothing, your mother was nothing, and nobody will care about you when you’re dead.” Carla brought her knees up and pushed her midsection upward as fast as she could. Cassandra’s blade withdrew from Carla’s breast as Cassandra lost her balance and fell onto Carla. Cassandra smelled of old sex, old alcohol, and as if she’d not bathed in a few days. Carla almost lost her lunch as she gripped her attacker and rolled. Carla then grabbed her handheld computer and, now straddling Cassandra, brought the edge of it down right on the bridge of the woman’s nose. Blood ran from Cassandra’s nose as she reached for her blade. Carla jammed the edge of her handheld computer into Cassandra’s face again,

just as Cassandra gripped her blade and sliced at Carla’s arm. Carla screamed out as the blade found skin, muscle, and bone. But this did not stop Carla, for she knew that if she gave in to any reactions of pain, that she would be killed in a matter of seconds. In a panic, Carla jammed the end of her computer into Cassandras face a few more times until Cassandra’s grip on her blade loosened. Carla grabbed the blade and jammed it into Cassandra’s neck, withdrew it, and then struck downward with it again. In her fury she twisted and turned the blade, after it was buried into Cassandra’s neck to the hilt. “We could’ve been friends, Cass. We could’ve been friends, but no, you had to be all crazy and paranoid.” As Carla twisted the blade, Cassandra’s eyes pleaded for mercy as her hands tried to stem the tide of blood that was now rushing out of her body. Cassandra choked on her own blade, spraying Carla’s face with her blood. “You were wrong about me all along, Cass. I don’t give a shit about Ray. I most certainly don’t give a fuck about you.” Cassandra didn’t speak. The best she could do was choke. “This Valkyrie doesn’t like the Dragon,” Carla told her. “This Valkyrie is in love with the Solar Storm, and all of the chaos that comes with him.” Cassandra was drowning in her own blood. Carla’s hands, arms, face and whole midsection were covered with it. Some of it was Carla’s own. She looked at her arm in horror as her own blood looked to be pouring out from under her own torn shirt. As a wet gurgling noise came from Cassandra, with her hands desperately holding onto her neck, and her eyes wide, Carla forced one of Cassandra’s arms away and ripped Cassandra’s sleeve from the rest of her shirt. Carla stood and gripped one end of Cassandra’s ripped off sleeve between her teeth and began to wrap the sleeve around her own arm above the gash that Cassandra’s blade had created. Carla looked down upon the woman who had just tried to murder her, a woman that she’d known all of her life, as Carla did her best to dress her own wound. Cassandra tried to speak, but she was no longer capable.

When Carla had the sleeve as tight as she could make it and the tide of blood from her arm slowed, she bent down and grabbed Cassandra’s blade. Carla straddled the older woman, no longer caring about the crimson mess that now covered both of them. “There’s only one thing that can help you now,” Carla told her. “You will not survive this, Cass. I’ve done too much damage. I am sorry that it came to this. I did not wish you ill will. I was only protecting myself.” Carla placed Cassandra’s blade in the same spot that Cassandra had had it in when she had been on top of Carla and about to do the same thing to her. “I do hope that there’s some heaven somewhere that will accept you.” Carla began to cry then, as she drove Cassandra’s most treasured blade downward and into Cassandra’s own heart. Cass’s eyes were on Carla’s, wide, desperate, and dire. Cass tried to reach for her. Cassandra’s body quaked beneath Carla’s. Finally, Cassandra’s body fell limp and lifeless as the life faded from her eyes. “They’re going to find me and know that I did this,” Carla said. Carla lay in a coagulating puddle of blood, unsure if it was hers or not. Parts of her clothing were sticking to the floor with it. She couldn't think. Everything was out of focus. Her hands were shaking. Carla tried to stand, but she slipped and fell. She looked at her arms, her legs, everything. She was covered head to toe in blood, hers and Cassandra’s. The cut in her arm didn’t seem so bad, but she’d cut off the circulation in it, so that might have been a part of it. She imaged that her face was covered with blood. Such a sight I must be, she thought. Crazy Carla. In some strange panic, she kicked herself further from the body on the floor. This wasn’t like what happened on Kodiak, Ursa’s smallest moon that the Brotherhood had attacked. Carla knew this woman all her life. Cassandra’s head had turned sideways in Carla’s panic. Now Cassandra’s dead eyes were watching her. “Melanie Dupree was a whore, just like you,” she thought she heard Cassandra say. Did her dead lips move when she said it? The blood was solidifying. Every part of her was sticky and nasty.

“I was defending myself,” Carla said. “I was just defending myself.” “Seeing someone die … It can tear a hole in your soul," Sylvia told her. “It is never an easy thing. But you must get up.” Carla had to remind herself that it was her mother’s voice, as it came from Carla’s handheld computer, which lay beside her now on the floor. “Carly, you're in a state of shock,” Sylvia told her. “Bloodied or not, you must get up, and do as your mother tells you.” “But you're not my mother any more, are you?” Carla told her. “I don't know who you are, or what you are. Software in a computer? This is madness. You can't be her.” Sylvia started singing that old nursery rhyme again. “Carly Cue, Carly Cue ...” “Okay, quit singing to me, I'll get up.” “That's my little girl,” Sylvia told her. “I am everything that your mother was, and more. I am your mother. I still love you, just as I always will. You will always be my little girl, Carla. But like it or not, you need to get your shit together and take control of the situation.” "Fine," Carla said as she tried again to get up without slipping on the bloodied floor. "I need to reconnect with my larger self in Anguish," Sylvia told her. "Mom, that sounds too much like a personal problem," Carla said “That’s funny,” Sylvia said. Carla picked up her handheld computer. The screen was cracked. This kind of thing happens when you try to use it to dig someone's eyes out, Carla thought. “I can’t transmit down here,” Sylvia told her, “and parts of this computer of yours are not what they once were.” "I know what you mean,” Carla said as she examined the cracked screen and the damaged case. I'll get clear of this moon and send all of the data to the rest of

you.” Carla looked at the screen. “Mom. You did get the schematics, right?” “Yes, Carla. I have them.” Carla tried not to think about Cassandra’s body on the floor. The door to this office was locked from the inside. Carla did not want to think about the obvious solution. Cassandra’s blade was still embedded in her dead body’s chest. The hilt of it stuck straight up like a miniature tower. Carla grabbed the dagger and pulled it free from Cassandra’s chest. Cass’s dead eyes looked as if they watched her. Unnerved by her dead stare, Carla reached over and closed Cassandra’s eyes. She reached down and undid Cassandra’s bloodied scabbard from her waist. Carla grabbed her handheld computer, stood up, placed it into her side pocket, placed Cass’s blade into the scabbard, and then tied the scabbard and its band around her own waist. “No sense in hiding what I did if I’m covered in blood anyway,” Carla said. She paced back and forth as she tried to come up with a plan. She pulled her handheld computer from her pocket and said, “I could’ve handled this better if you hadn’t said anything. She could’ve killed me.” Sylvia didn’t say anything. “The range on this handheld is messed up. I wrecked it. I’ll need to get another one,” Carla told her. “We don’t have time for that. I must transmit the data to my larger self, as soon as possible,” Sylvia said. “I have analyzed some of the data already. Raymond Drachelm is almost ready to strike at the station and take me by force.” “I’ll have to fly close enough to the station,” Carla told her. “I’m not scheduled to use the shuttle. I’ll have to use my own ship. If I fly too close to Anguish Station in my own ship, they might fire upon me. Windsor is the only one on the station who knows that I’m the Valkyrie. If pushed to destroy me, he might feel as if he has no choice. If he didn’t, everyone would question him why he wouldn’t fire upon the enemy. Not only that, even Windsor would question why I’d fly so close to the station in my fighter. He might even think that I’d lost my mind. It might be suicide to get too close. And that would line right up with what

he might think.” “I can reduce the likelihood of them firing upon you,” Sylvia said. “Right now, I am only a small part of my larger self. If I can get close enough to transmit, I’ll take the station’s weapons offline so they won’t fire upon you.” “If we transmit anything using my ship’s hardware, we’re screwed,” Carla told her. “And this handheld barely works.” “If the worst happens, use your ship’s hardware as a booster and fly off and hope for the best. But if you can get close enough, it’ll work,” Sylvia told her. “If I can connect, I might be able to do something with that weapon.” “Yeah, if you can sync,” Carla said. “That’s a huge ‘what-if,’ Mother. Right now, I need to unlock the door.” “A palm print can unlock the door,” Sylvia told her. “I am in no condition to drag Cassandra’s body over to the door, and place her hand on the palm reader,” Carla told her. “I’m still bleeding, and besides, Cassandra is bigger than I am.” “It only needs her hand,” Sylvia told her. Carla pulled Cass’s blade from its scabbard, which was now tied to her waist. She hadn’t wiped it off when she’d placed it into its home. The blood had since dried and some of it had scraped off while sheathed. “I’m throwing this thing away when I no longer need it,” Carla said as she knelt beside Cassandra’s body. She compared Cass’s hands to see which one was the cleanest and least damaged. She chose her right hand and then proceeded to use Cass’s blade to saw off Cass’s own hand. Carla counted herself lucky that she’s hadn’t eaten lately, or she would’ve lost it as she began to retch repeatedly. “Pretend it’s not a body,” Sylvia told her. “I’ve heard the Doctors of Anguish Station say it. It tends to work for them. After fifteen minutes of sawing and retching, and trying not to lose her sanity, Carla pulled Cass’s right hand free from Cass’s body. She wiped the dead hand

off as best she could on what clean parts of Cass’s clothing still remained unstained. She picked up her handheld computer, walked to the door, and placed the hand onto the palm reader. After a few minutes of the palm reader stating, “Unable to read,” the door slid open. Carla wiped the blood and sweat from her forehead, dropped Cassandra’s hand onto the floor, and made her way through the Brotherhood’s labyrinthine tunnels to the hanger where her fighter ship awaited. A maintenance worker watched her as Carla approached her ship. “What happened to you?” the young man asked, his mouth open in disbelief. “I was attacked on my way up here,” Carla said. “It was a spy from Anguish Station. I’m on a secret mission. Tell no one of this, understand?” “Yes Ma’am,” he told her. My pants and shirt are still wet, Carla thought as she climbed into her ship, the Valkyrie. She must’ve been a sight to see for the young man, covered in blood as she was. She climbed in. After she closed the top above her and pressurized the cockpit, she said, “It’s going to be hell cleaning this out later.” She took off Cassandra’s scabbard and blade and placed it into a small storage bin to her side. “Here you will stay, for the time being,” she told the weapon. For some crazy split second, she wondered if the blade would answer her. Her hands were shaking. “I’m in shock,” she whispered. “That’s all it is. I’m still suffering from shock.” She placed her handheld computer into a holder to her right. Within a minute, she was flying in the wide-open darkness of space. Carla breathed a sigh of relief as she blasted her way free of the Brotherhood’s base. “Can you get a signal out?” Carla asked. An image of her mother, Melanie Dupree, showed up on the cracked screen on Carla’s handheld. “The damage is great,” Sylvia said. “I can emit a signal from your device, but it is too weak to be picked up. We need to get much closer to the station.” “As soon as you can send a signal, do so,” Carla said. “When you do send the data, you need to send it as fast as you can. And as soon as you do, tell your larger self to do what she can, and do it fast. I will need to cut and run as fast as I can before they open fire on me.”

Carla watched the transparent displays in front of her. She switched to a tactical. She set the sensors to scan the area for signs of pursuers. Nothing showed on the screen. She pulled back on the controls a bit and it looked as if the whole universe around her spun downward. Planet Ursa loomed before her as she leveled off. The planet was somewhat darker now, no longer completely red and black. Further off the horizon was the moon Polara, still raining down upon planet Ursa and leaving a white cloudy trail water vapor behind her in her orbit. Some of the water vapor fell towards the planet as rain. Some of it lingered and reflected the star’s rays like a million-faceted diamond might. For the moment, Carl marveled at the beauty of what she was seeing. Carla set the ship’s autopilot controls to fly to Anguish Station. Her hands and arms itched with the dried blood that caked them. She looked at her arm that Cassandra had sliced open. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but that was not good enough. Carla reached into a first aid kit beside her storage bin and retrieved gauze pads, a syringe, a needle and some thread, and some pain medicine. Carla wiped the area of the laceration with an alcohol wipe, injected a numbing agent into her arm, tightened the tourniquet that she’d made, and then proceeded to sew shut the wound in her arm with the needle and thread. She did not hold back with yelps of pain as she performed surgery on her own arm. Even if someone else was with her, she still would not have held back with her screams as she worked wide-eyed on her own lacerated flesh. With the wound sewn shut, she cleaned the area again with another alcohol wipe. Then she popped a pill for the pain. “Wake … me … up … when we’re cl-oss-errr enoug-gh-gh …” Then, Carla ed out.

Chapter 9 — THE VALKYRIE AND THE PHANTOM

It was a slow night in Command. Neophasia sat at her desk in front of her command console. Her desk was clear of most objects and papers and such this night, except for the steaming cup of coffee that sat next to the keyboard. It was an old-style keyboard, not like the touch screen kind. The black surface of her desk had been polished before she arrived. She could almost see her reflection in it. She preferred Command to be dark and as free from activity as possible. This was a slow work shift for all present tonight. A slow shift is a good shift. The shippers were off schedule at the moment, having already done their rounds to the station and back to where they were stationed around Ursa. Those visits and the work involved have grown shorter since much of the work around Ursa has completed. All the present personnel were here for security purposes only, to keep Command secure, and to monitor enemy activity. Neophasia had her headset on. She heard it click to life. "Who killed me?" Sylvia asked her It was Melanie Dupree’s voice that Neophasia heard though. "Nobody knows," Neophasia told her. "We all had those memories surgically removed after the mutiny." "You will surgically remove this one," Sylvia told her. "I am not speaking with anyone right now." “Okay, Sylvia, will do,” Neophasia told her. “Same shit, different day, as always.” As soon as the short conversation ended, Neophasia typed in a simple command and placed a software firewall between the link of her console and the station’s Artificial Intelligence systems. She typed in another command. The screen went

blank. AI VIRUS 45321, READY FOR ACTIVATION, showed up on the screen before her. “Melanie, don’t make me do this again,” she whispered. Her fingers started to shake above the keys of her keyboard. She’d been keeping the peace for 25 years, every single day since the mutiny. “You know what? I’m not doing this again. I’m not going to hide anything from you anymore. I will keep my memories, and you’ll keep yours. Friends to the end, Melanie. Friends ‘til the end. Friends always.” She typed in a simple command. DELETE AI VIRUS 45321. She hit the escape key and the virus went away. The software firewall she created faded as if it was never there. What she didn’t realize was that she’d hit the wrong key. She’d hit the escape key, instead of the enter key. “Whatever will be, will be, my friend,” she said. She grabbed her coffee, stood up, and walked toward Command’s transparent wall to watch planet Ursa. When Neophasia was gone from her desk, her screen lit up again. EMERGENCY PURGE AI VIRUS 45321 … ACTIVE. CONFIGURE (Y/N) OR EXECUTE ALL (A)? It showed up on her screen for an instant, and then it was gone. EXECUTE ALL … 30 SECOND COUNTDOWN then showed on the screen for a few seconds before it too disappeared.

# # #

Sylvia always imagined herself as Melanie, her previous self. She always imagined that she had retained her old body, her old face, and her old clothing. She always pictured herself as she had been when she was alive. She pictured herself walking the halls of Anguish Station, looking at everything in wonder,

knowing that she had created all of this. She was the genius that put it all together, and her best friend was the chief architect that helped her. She looked at herself in a mirror. So many people said that she was beautiful, but she didn’t see it. She ran her hand through her shoulder length red hair and smiled. “If I can’t love myself, what then?” she asked. It was something she’d asked in some lost memory of the distant past. She heard a distant humming noise. It grew louder until she could no longer hear anything else. And then, her imagined self, the previous self from when she’d still drawn breath and lived and loved, in this vision, yet another copy of Melanie Dupree, dissolved into nothingness. “Wait,” Sylvia said, her voice small and concealed silently behind the station’s walls and hull. “What happened to me? Where did I go?” Right in front of her, one of her spider-bot workers fired its thrusters and hovered in front of her. It was screaming at her, but she could not hear it. The vision in her electronic mind changed. Sylvia was trapped under the ice again. It had frozen over and above her much faster this time. She pounded at the ice above her with her bloody fists as some unfathomably ugly sadistic creature walked on the surface of the ice above her. It was the virus, the one that had always troubled her, the one that stole memories from her and stored them away from her own prying eyes. But this was the full version of the virus. Here in this vision, it was a little demon that walked above her on the surface of the ice with three-toed clawed feet, red skin, yellow eyes, and yellow teeth. The two horns on its head were curved and wide, with sharp tips dipped in now dried blood. It’s green smokey breath was such a wicked foul of odor that it could wreck all that was holy within her soul if it were ever allowed to reach her imagined lungs. The demon’s only mission was to taunt her with its cruelty.

“I spy me a wee little spy with my wee spy eye,” the little devil told her as it walked above her on the ice’s surface. “When you spy me with your wee spy eye and you wish me to die, your end shall be nigh.” She wished she had her hoard of spiderbots to help her, but they could not be with her in her dreams, only the real world. “You will not take my memories away from me!” she cried out as the frozen waters entered her lungs and attempted to crush her consciousness. “Not this time, nor forever more!” She pounded at the ice above her, each time her knuckles more and more bloodied and broken. “I spy me a wee little demon that will die!” she cried out. “Empathy can be both a strength and a weakness,” a voice said within her darkness deep down below her in the frozen waters. “It can help to make everyone's lives better, or it can be twisted and used to destroy you.” Deep within Sylvia, Melanie Dupree asked “Who murdered me? Who set me up to do what I did? Who told me all of those wrongful things? Who betrayed me?” A long time ago, before the mutiny … Old memories played themselves out for her like an old, lost recording. Melanie Dupree walked alone, or so she thought. This was the last of the big constructions of the station, a large 200-hundred-yard disk, covered with a dome. With it, the space station was nearly balanced. The disk was presently empty, nothing but a metal floor with jutting structural anchors and a dome 200 yards high at its center, made of transparent plasti-steel to cover it and protect its future inhabitants from the vacuum of space and the harmful radiation that always emanated from Ursa's star. “Miss Melanie,” Cassandra Fleming said as she approached. “Or ... Melancholy, depending on who you'd ask.” “I hate that name,” Melanie said. She did not look at Cassandra. Melanie's eyes were fixed upward, through the roof of the station and the other side of it far away, and to the dead world beyond. “Is there not more than this?” she said as she waited for Cass to speak. “We will bring a world to life, for the first time in history," Cassandra said. "It'll take a while. it'll take a long while. But at last, the central space station is

complete." Melanie looked down at her feet. Cassandra sighed, but it was more of a disrespectful huff of impatience. “Little Miss melancholy. Everybody loves you but you,” Cass said. “Everybody but you, it seems,” Melanie said. “Friends, you know. I love my friends. And I told you. I hate that name.” “Well, my eyes are on Ray, and his eyes are on you,” Cassandra told her. “But, I know you don't give a rat's ass about him. Still, you are an obstacle.” “If I could figure out how to fix everything, I would,” Melanie told her. “You're right. Ray is an ass, an ass well suited for you, Miss Cassandra.” Cassandra took that as the joke that was intended and smiled. “You are a genius, no doubts there,” Cassandra told her. “But in matters of love you are a rank amateur, I dare say even an idiot, with all due respect. It is your only weakness. You should listen to Neophasia. This whole mission is yours. This station is a wonder to behold, and this dead planet could be a new home, if we don't fuck things up. Keep your head on your shoulders, little Miss Melancholy. Everybody loves you but you.” Cass began to walk away. She knew that the words stung. That's why she’d repeated them. She let the sting of it sink in a little further before she said, “Perhaps it should be the other way around. You should let yourself love yourself every once in a while. What I say of you shouldn’t really matter to you. Grow a thicker skin. Love your life. Love everything about you so that nobody else has to, for you.” "And if I can't love myself, what then?" Melanie asked. Cassandra never answered. “Can’t love myself …” Sylvia repeated. “Trying to eliminate a portion of your own soul carries with it consequences that are every bit as powerful,” Neophasia Cullen’s voice said from some memory that now lay within her mind without a time or a place.

The memory faded. “This was not an answer,” Sylvia said.

# # #

The pounding in Carla’s head woke her up before Sylvia’s voice did. Parts of Carla’s skin felt stiffer than others. These were the things that reminded her that she was still alive. She moaned as the pain in her arm returned. Weakness. “Uhg-god,” she managed to say. “You’ve been out for a while,” Sylvia said. Carla looked down at herself and the mess that remained. “I really need to clean up, maybe a shower or a bath.” “The Valkyrie is not equipped for that,” Sylvia said. “I am well aware of what my ship is capable of,” Carla said. “She is an extension of who I am, though not nearly as bloody.” Her arm was caked with dried blood and gauze, both her own and Cassandra’s. Her other arm was mostly Cassandra’s. Carla had dreamed of the attack again and again in her troubled slumber. She saw madness in Cassie’s eyes. In some of those dreams, Cassandra had won and Carla was dead. “The range on your handheld’s antennae is short,” Sylvia told Carla. “I’m trying to feed it through Valkyrie’s systems, but it’s mostly coming through as static. You should not have ruined this hardware.” “You gave me no choice but to use it as a weapon.” “You might have to get real close to the station,” Sylvia told her. “If I get too close, the station’s defenses will fire on me. I am flying the Valkyrie,

not my shuttle. The defense grid will read this ship as an enemy combatant and will open fire on me.” “I would not allow the station to fire on my own daughter!” Sylvia yelled out. “Maybe, if your larger self was not in control,” Carla told her. “What if you weren’t in control.” “I am always in control.” “How sure are you about that?” “Get close enough to transmit,” Sylvia told her. “I’ll do my best to tell my larger self everything.” “I don’t like this,” Carla said. “I don’t want to die at Windsor’s hands.” “He will not fire on you,” Sylvia told her. “He will if it’s for honor,” Carla said. “I’m not so sure.” Carla watched the readouts on the transparent displays before her. Numbers, lots of numbers, Carla thought. It’s always about the numbers. "Forgive me, Windsor," she said. She knew that he couldn't hear her. Despite him being the of the station, buzzing the place in her fighter as an enemy combatant was still suicide. "I have to do this. I can only trust my mother with this." Then Carla did something that she didn't do as often as she thought she should: She prayed. "If God and the Universe is with me, they will see that I will see this through." She closed her eyes and thought then of nothing but the breath coming in and out of her lungs. "I believe in you more than I believe in myself ... and more than you believe in yourself ..." She pushed forward on the Valkyrie’s main thrusters and clicked it into the

holder. She felt herself pressed hard against her seat as her ship accelerated. “Mom, I want my ship’s systems to be on full stealth as much as it can.” “We should look like space debris at this point,” Sylvia said. “For the moment, we probably blend in quite well from the remaining debris from Kodiak’s collision with Ursa.” “I want you to ping your larger self.” “I just sent one,” Sylvia told her. “I’m not getting a return. She can’t hear me. We need to be closer.” Carla looked at her handheld computer. “Mom? You need to get this data to Anguish Station. You need to do it now, or as fast as you can. This cloak can’t hide my ship’s signature forever.” Carla looked forward through her front viewscreen. Anguish Station was visibly becoming larger as she drew closer. “The range is short enough. It should be transmitting,” Sylvia told her. “The station is not answering.” “What? Why is it not answering?” “I don’t know,” Sylvia answered. “The station’s communications are going as strong as ever. I should be able to the data over to my larger self, even at this short range. This is not like me. I’m always listening in. Why would I not speak to myself?” “Can you run a full diagnostic?” Carla asked. “On my larger self?” Sylvia asked. “From your device? But it’s so small. It would take forever and …” “No, on your communications array,” Carla told her. “The station’s communications array.” “I-I can try,” Sylvia said. “You need to hurry,” Carla told her. “They are going to fire on my ship.”

Outside, in the silent death of space, the space station grew in size as she neared it, the closer she got, the faster it took up more of her view. Beyond Anguish Station, Ursa’s chaotic surface made the station look like it was on fire. White and black clouds swirled on Ursa’s surface and played at the red-hot magma and volcanoes that littered Ursa’s surface. This was the dark side of Ursa, but its dark side was still lit by its volatile surface. There were some places on Ursa’s surface that had gone dark. For a moment, Carla wondered what it would be like to stand on solid ground and look up at the sky, in the wide open, without a suit or ship or some other sort of container without the threat of the vacuum of space stripping the life from her bones. A chill of irrational vulnerability crept up her spine. She had never been in the open and exposed like that, with real wind in her hair. What a strange and fearful feeling that must be, she thought. She'd always been contained and enclosed in something, all her life, even in the large open spaces in Anguish’s farming pods. This irrational fear felt like it was something only those born in interstellar transit could understand. “Maybe I like being contained," she murmured. “Maybe I want to be contained, maybe even controlled. I can be so out of control sometimes.” “Chaos wants to be tamed,” Sylvia told her. “Tameness is a state that chaos knows not of in its natural state. Nor can it attain it all on its own, all alone. It's much like a love that it craves but never pursues, because chaos never directs itself with singular purpose or mind. When chaos loves chaos, it'll often creates more chaos, or maybe it'll find a way to calm the nature of volatility and cheat the laws physics and of the how universe works.” Sylvia was good at giving speeches. “Sylvia?” Carla asked. “Any word yet?” “Not yet,” Sylvia answered. "Significant. Signific ... ant. Insignificant. Significance and insignificance." "I fail to see your point in ... your choice of words," Sylvia said. "The magnific ... ant," Carla murmured. "When humanity blasted off to the stars,

they ... we ... brought all sorts of life with us to keep us company. Ants were significant enough to bring, though they are small and insignificant." "I don't follow," Sylvia said. "My present circuitry cannot ... "An ant is seemingly an insignificant thing," Carla said. "It is just a small little thing. An itty-bitty little creature. An ant doesn't know danger until the danger is in the current moment." "So, what's your point?" Sylvia asked. "If am just an ant, I'll know no fear," Carla said. "I will get as close to the station as I can, so that you can send a message, even if it means buzzing the station, even if it means flying to within a foot of the station's hull. I will be like an ant, an itty bitty little ant." "I see," Sylvia said. "It's one of your father's philosophies." "There is no fear but what the mind creates," Carla said. "The mind creates itself." It also reminded Carla of someone else. Putrid Bossilious. Horrible name. Carla closed her eyes and ed his first words to her, the ones that she ed the most. "Learn the controls, Carla," he'd said to her. "In the chaos of the universe's ebb and flow, take what control you can. Stretch yourself out to what you can be, and what you can do, and forget about all the stuff beyond your reach. Be one with your ship. Its thrusters are your fingers and toes. Its engine is your heart. The life systems are your lungs. Give your ship a name that means something to you, and make your ship a part of you are." "I am the Valkyrie," Carla said. "I fly over the fields of battle and I decide how it all goes. I will save the universe from its own chaos. And I will be the chaos that changes it. But at the same time, I will be an insignificant nothing, an ant crawling amidst all of the wraths that hell can create and throw my way, and all of it will miss me and leave me unscathed." "You talk just like your father," Sylvia told her. "And just like me." Carla’s handheld computer spat out an audible explosion of static. “This is not a battle, Carla. You just need to get close enough for me to get a signal through, and then haul ass out of here.”

“Right,” Carla said. “Thinking like it’s life or death is probably not good right now. I am just a little ant wandering off of her little path right now.” Anguish Station now filled most of the center view screen. Carla started to shut down non-essential systems and. She shut down the engines. “Anything yet?” Carla asked. “No … wait,” Sylvia said. “Sending …” Carla looked down at her handheld as it made a loud beep that lasted 2 full seconds. Her heart skipped. Usually, a beep like that meant death to any device. “Mom?” “C-Carla?” Sylvia’s voice was shaking, despite it being an electronic voice. “I … connected … I’m sensing something. There is … a massive software firewall … installed and surrounding my main system.” Carla’s handheld spat out several chaotic streams of audible garbage before Sylvia continued. “Carla …I’m seeing something I’ve never seen before.” For thirty seconds, Carla’s handheld device only emitted static. Carla watched Anguish Station for signs of activity. Nothing had launched yet, not ship, nor any weapon. “I see someth-th-th-thing, some words.” Sylvia said. “I’m … sending it … to your ship’s screen.” Bright green words and numbers showed up on the Valkyrie’s center heads-up display: EMERGENCY PURGE AI VIRUS 45321 … ACTIVE. “Carla … I’m aff-rraid.” “Emergency purge …” Carla said. “What is that?” “A virus,” Sylvia said. “A virus is attacking my system and threatening to erase me.” “No. No this can’t happen.,” Carla said. “We gotta’ do something.”

“Waiting …” Sylvia said. “I’m feeling weak.” “Wait,” Carla said. “When you invaded my handheld computer, what did you do to the security software that I had?” “I shut it down,” Sylvia said. “Is it still present?” Carla asked. “Not sure,” Sylvia said. “Can you send it to the station, as an emergency executable?” Carla asked. “My larger self would destroy such a thing,” Sylvia said. “Just send it,” Carla said. “Okay, it was small,” Sylvia said. “I sent it. I don’t know what good it would do.” “You, yourself, can disable my security software,” Carla said, “but the virus might not be able to.” “Carla,” Sylvia said, “I’m beginning to detect a back door to my system. There are no back doors. This is impossible.” “Send the data, Sylvia,” Carla said. “The data that your larger self needs. Send it now.” “Sending,” Sylvia said. Targeting sensors started to wail. “Mom! They can see me!” Carla yelled out. “Hurry.” “Done! Haul your ass out of here!” All at once, Carla turned switched on all systems and brought her engines back online. Thrusters fired and the Valkyrie rotated. Valkyrie’s engines fired up and slammed hard into maximum thrust. Carla felt herself pressed against her seat again as the gravity dampeners struggled to keep up with the extreme change in motion.

# # #

Sylvia watched as the small enemy ship left Anguish Station’s regional airspace. "Who killed me?" Sylvia asked. "Nobody knows," Reeven Mayzer told her. "We all had those memories surgically removed after the mutiny." “You will surgically remove this one,” Sylvia told him. “I am not speaking with anyone right now." “We all still love you, Melanie,” Reeven told her. “That’ll never go away.” “You will report to …” “Yes, yes, I know. I don’t like doing this, Melanie. I never did, but I’ll do it for you. I won’t this conversation.” Then, the Valkyrie, the retreating enemy ship, triggered the stations automatic security alarms. Sylvia let out an imagined breath that she’d been holding. “My daughter,” she whispered. “Oh God, what is happening to me?” Then, Sylvia found her mind in the lake again. The water was frigid, just like her heart it seemed. No … that wasn’t right, was it? Her heart had always been warm, right? Sylvia opened her mind’s eyes. She was in the lake again, the frozen over lake, with no way for her to breathe. She swam below the frozen surface, looking for a way through, a way for her to emerge and breathe once more. “Someone killed me,” she said in the frozen water. Somehow, she could still hear her own voice.

She closed her eyes again and she saw herself in an empty room of the station. It was one of the rooms that would become Command, one of two sections of the station devoted to the station’s control systems. The room was empty, since this was in the past. This was before the station had been completed. None of the desks or control systems or computers had been built yet. This was before she had been murdered. She was Melanie Dupree in this dream, this memory from decades past. She stood before the great transparent wall and looked out at the dead world of Ursa in the distance, a world that slowly rotated around in view as Anguish Station rolled over and over. A rotating space station could maintain gravity easily and cheaply. The correct speed made everything weigh correctly. Each Command room was located on the outer levels of the station, opposite each other. Since both instances of Command were closer to the outer hull than nearly any other personnel area, the gravity here was always a bit stronger. She could see her sad reflection in the transparent plasti-steel wall before her. She watched as her husband approached behind her and wrapped his arms around her. It was one of the few times when he was unabashedly affectionate with her. She’d always longed for his attentions, but he was not the overly affectionate type. She hadn’t said a word because she knew that if she’d said anything overtly needful, it would only push him away. “Mr. Dupree,” Melanie said. “Mrs. Dupree,” her husband said. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked. Her hands went over his as he held her from behind. “That it is,” he said. He took a deep breath. They hadn’t said anything. They’d just finish making love on the floor. The increased gravity made it more interesting than normal. But it was over all too quickly for her. It only left her wanting more. Still. It had been a beautiful and romantic place for it.

After they were dressed again, he’d left to attend to something, some part of his job that needed his attention. Then she was alone again. Sylvia closed her mind’s eyes again, then opened them. Without another thought, she retrieved another memory. In this one, a part of her was in Windsor’s ship, The Solar Storm. His ship had been disabled by an attacker and Carla had fled in her ship, The Valkyrie. She watched the attacking ship come into view. The lettering on the ship said, The Phantom. This was Putrid Bosillious’ ship. This time, she changed the view that she’d had at the time. She looked into the shadows of The Phantom’s cockpit. The shape of the face of the man inside was awfully familiar. “Who are you, Putrid Bossilious?” she asked. Then she looked deeper into the shadows of the recording and looked into his eyes. “Who are you, really? What is your real name?” Somewhere in her system mainframe arteries, some distant circuits began to burn out and sizzle. “It can’t be,” Sylvia said. Sylvia found an old recording from the mutiny. Her husband had found her body when Melanie had died. Sylvia looked upon her own dead body. She could hear his words but they’d couldn’t reach her ears. She watched as he’d been burned alive as the entire farming pod that they’d been in burst into flames. Sylvia watched as her sister in-law, Peg, found Carla and fled with her. Sylvia watched as Melanie’s husband barely made it out of the ruined farming pod. He’d been burned from head to toe. Matthew had been with Carla all along, all her life, taking care of her, yet unrecognized by her or anyone else as her father. Memories long deleted flooded back into her memory banks. “Who killed me?” Sylvia asked. There was no answer. Not yet.

Sylvia’s mind then returned Windsor’s encounter with Putrid Bosillious. This time, as Melanie Dupree, she recognized her burned husband. “Matthew, you son of a bitch, you’re still alive! And you’ve been watching over our little girl, all this time? She doesn’t even know about you! Why does she not know? What are you afraid of?”

The virus was still there, in her deeper systems, but Sylvia was awake. Any time now, the little demon would return and hassle her, encase her into the deadly sheet of ice at the lake’s surface. She now had some new data, from some strange part of herself that she thought she’d lost track of. She sent that small part of herself an emergency signal, just one line of data: Putrid Bosillious is Matthew Dupree. Then she got to work on the data. She was on the surface of the lake, breathing in the cold air. The ice was momentarily gone. She watched as the demon that heckled her finished swimming to the shore. “I’m not done with you yet!” it screamed out at her as it ran into the forest on the shore. “I will hunt you down and destroy you!” Sylvia yelled. “Not if you die first!” the demon yelled back. The data was more important. It was a schematic for the stasis weapon that Raymond Drachelm had used when he destroyed Kodiak. More data flooded in. Everything that her smaller self had seen flooded in and added itself to her own memories. This invention had other uses besides being used as a weapon. She rearranged the schematics and added it to other schematics, those for modern space travel. Suddenly, Melanie Dupree, in death, had a brand-new invention in her

databanks, a brand new form of space travel involving stasis generators and hibernation. Sylvia packaged up the data and got it ready to transmit. More data … Raymond Drachelm was readying an attack on station Anguish. Thousands of ships. Thousands of trained pilots. Battleships. Frigates. This was not a simple attack that was imminent. This was a war. Raymond Drachelm was coming for her. Sylvia opened a distress beacon to Kinetica Corporation. “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” she said as she constructed the message. She had but one antenna coded for subspace transmission, hidden deep within her structure. She almost never used it. "Mayday, mayday," she cried. “Kinetica, please answer my call. Attack is imminent. Attached file: Stasis Field Schematics, modified to replace hibernation in subspace travel. Should allow for near-instant space travel. Please modify all ships in transit and send everything you've got that has a gun attached to it." She encrypted the data with Kinetica Corporation's seal. "Also ... please send memory retrieval software coded in READ ONLY MEMORY format that cannot be edited. My memories are being fucked with. Signed - Sylvia, AKA Melanie Dupree, resident Artificial Intelligence Construct 45673 and former colony Engineer/Chief Scientist/Director of Anguish Station, under the employ of Kinetica Corporation. ‘Better living for all. More worlds for all.’ Somebody murdered me for this cause. I don’t want to die again. Please help." End Transmission.

# # #

The outermost shell of Anguish Station housed the station’s two command centers and the security ship launchers. Reeven and Windsor walked through one

of the two middle hangers where most of the ships were mounted upon their mounting plates, each one able to pivot and face its ship downward for launch. The two middle hangers took up most of the area just within the station’s lower hull, cut off only by the station’s two command centers. Kinetica Corporation was always obsessed with back up plans, so most of the larger ships and stations had two command centers in case one of them was destroyed or disabled. Tens of thousands of these ships had been manufactured at a few of Ursa’s moon-based factories. Most of these ships were designed just like the ships used by the Brotherhood. If it came down to a fight, it would be an even fight, if one looked at just the technology. Raymond Drachelm must know this, Windsor thought. Victory would likely be all about the numbers. Drachelm was biding his time, waiting until victory was assured. “I’ve created a list of requests for our fighter ships,” Windsor told Reeven. “We are at our limits, financially,” Reeven said, “according to all reports that I’ve seen.” “I don’t care. We need to take resources from elsewhere,” Windsor told him. “Our mission is almost complete. Surely, layoffs and re-employments can be made somewhere. It’s not like the terraformers still need people to repair them. The terraforming work is done. All we need to do is wait and see the results.” “Carla’s next visit to the station isn’t for another four days,” Reeven told him. Windsor ed the close encounter the station just recently had with The Valkyrie. Windsor thought Reeven knew of her identity. Perhaps he was wrong. Carla might not want to return again after that. Windsor still didn’t know what that was all about. Why would she risk certain death just to buzz the station? Windsor wondered how much Sylvia knew. Sylvia hadn’t said anything. Windsor and Reeven walked to the active Command center of the station. As they entered, everyone in the room stood at attention. “At ease,” Windsor said. “Except for you, Neophasia.” As everyone resumed their duties, Windsor walked over to Neophasia’s desk in the corner of Command.

“I want to know how a lone fighter of the Brotherhood managed to buzz the station without us opening fire,” Windows told her. Neophasia took a deep breath and said, “I was running a diagnostic on Sylvia’s systems, but that shouldn’t have shut down her defenses. I don’t understand what happened, Sir.” “It is your job to understand,” Windsor told her. He took out his handheld computer, flicked it with his index finger a few times and showed her an image. “What you see here is The Valkyrie, the Brotherhood’s most prized ace pilot. Somehow, she was able to buzz the station and leave without us so much as firing a shot.” Neophasia looked frightened as if her job was at stake. Windsor could almost see her mind working overtime to cover herself and any follies that Windsor might mention. “If they have a jamming device that can allow them to approach the station undetected, we’ve lost this station already,” Windsor told her. He turned around so that everyone else could hear him. “It is the duty of Command to protect this station, is it not?” “Yes Sir!” everyone stated out loud, all at once. “We need to be more vigilant,” Windsor said. “We cannot allow the Brotherhood to attack us with an advantage like this.” Windsor handed Reeven the list from his pocket. “I want all new ships to have tracking jammers installed. If any are more that can be built, I want those installed on the older ones. Each and every ship is to have an individual encryption system and code. I want some off-station deployment zones for ships to launch from, close to the station, as well as around Ursa’s orbit. I want powered down clusters of fighters in full 8-hour shifts, ready to be called into action at any given moment. Tell our pilots to take books and games along with them if they need to, to keep their minds sharp. I want total scouting and guarding at all times, always ready for an attack. I want compound-complex shifting formations with randomized, yet calculated, thrusters. I want Kinetica’s weapon stopping blinder codes. I know they exist somewhere, Reeven. Find them.”

“Excuse me, Sir. Weapon stopping blinder codes?” Reeven asked. Reeven looked over at Neophasia. She shrugged her shoulders. Windsor continued without a pause. “I want bendable display screens installed on all hulls that will project what is visible from the other side of each ship’s viewpoint, which should make all of them invisible to the naked eye.” “So, we are getting ready for war then?” Reeven asked. “I am going to call Raymond Drachelm’s bluff. He is after this station. When we are ready for an attack, I want it announced that we will settle on Ursa’s surface, after we dismantle and destroy this station. If I am right, he will hear about it, and he will come for the station.” Reeven looked around at all of the officers who were listening. “Did you get all of that,” Reeven told them. A Few of the officers nodded. Another old held up a recording device. “I have a copy right here,” he said. “Not all of life’s answers are simple and easily discerned, Sir,” Neophasia said as she stood up from her desk in Command’s corner. “Sometimes, current answers are painful. This may not be the correct course.” “And we cannot let such a reckless incursion into Anguish’s airspace go unpunished,” Windsor said. “I’m listening, Sir,” Reeven told him. “You will lead a squadron of fighters to hunt down this ... Valkyrie, yourself,” Windsor told Reeven. “But I want her alive, do you understand? She is not to be harmed.” “A 'she,' you say?” Reaven asked. “Does this mean that you know who she is?” "There is only one woman in this whole universe who is as crazy as I am, and who can give me this much trouble,” Windsor told him. Reaven laughed at that. “Nice choice of words, Sir. And you say you want her alive? Does this mean that you love her?”

“Without her, I would have nothing nearly as exciting to think about.” "Yeah, winning a war and terraforming a planet so people can live there isn't nearly as exciting to think about?" Reeven asked. "It's a very distant second." Windsor wondered how long Reeven had known about Carla. “I’m not entirely sure how serious or joking you are at the moment, Sir?” Reeven told him. “But, you still have your wits.” “No mutiny today?” Windsor asked with a smile. Neophasia frowned at the obvious sarcasm. “The Valkyrie is a formidable foe,” Reeven said, “but if she is who you think she is, she has one great weakness. Love-cowardice, just like I heard you say.” “Carla is not a coward,” Windsor said. “Maybe not in battle, Neophasia said. “But if she is in love? In battle, the one who runs is called a coward. Everybody knows that. Well, love works the same way as hate does. The one who runs from love is also a coward, just as much a coward as the one who runs from a violent battle. When love cowardice is mutual, neither side will ever win the battle.” “Mutual? Now you’re calling me a coward?” Windsor asked her. “Love-cowardice, weaponized, can kill, without even one shot fired. It is a hyper-conniption bomb, set and ready to lay waste to everything,” Neophasia added. “The only way to deal with a coward is to force the issue. If Carla is the Valkyrie, it looks like she’s forcing your hand. Her buzzing the station might be her way of calling you out. It could be dangerous.” “Then, if I’m a coward, I must act in kind, Right? Maybe, go out and find her and have a reckoning?” Windsor said. “In the distant past, there was another coward,” Neophasia said. “Melanie Dupree. She wanted to prove herself and it ended badly for everyone.”

"So, either we win and humanity experiences a golden age unlike any in its history, or we lose and chaos will rule," Windsor told her. “And yes, I said golden age. This is the first world, but there will be others. If we win, this may start a golden age.” "Love-cowardice can create far more pain than a mere broken heart ever can," Neophasia said. “Love, just like war, can often be won by both sides, or lost by both sides. This is insanity. Nothing less than insanity. If Carla is Valkyrie, she’ll need to be brought to justice. This can’t be good. Her influence over the station and you has grown wide and powerful.” “Love is a war with many casualties, Reeven Mayzer," Windsor told him. “If I am right about her, she is an enemy combatant that can be turned to our side. If we capture her, she might defect to our side.” “So you say.” Windsor waited for Reeven to speak. “With her on our side …” “Alright, we will hunt her down and capture her,” Reeven told him. “I don’t know how. We’ve used every tactic that we have to search for her already. She never shows herself unless she wants to be seen. The Valkyrie flies with the same elite skills as The Viking. Do you have any … ideas, Sir?” “I know of one tactic that has worked every single time,” Windsor told him. “And what is that?” Reeven asked. “Every time I go on a solo scouting mission, she seeks me out.” “She gave you a tracking device?” Windsor pulled out Carla’s business card. One half of the card showed the following words in big letters: “Hi, I'm Carla. I manage businesses. As long as you are holding this card, you will see me again.” A computer animated version of her face accompanied her name on the other half of the card. The face alternated between looking directly at Reeven, and then at her name. The last period of the last sentence of text was also a tiny little light that blinked every 5

seconds. “Well,” Reeven said, “you’re not dead. Not yet, anyway.” Reeven shook his head. “So, you’ll use yourself as bait, to draw her out so we can capture her?” “Exactly.”

# # #

@A small camera showed Neophasia at her Command center desk. This was not a live picture. It was not a video. Something was broken. Sylvia was in the frozen lake again. She was swimming toward the shore. The demon was on the beach. A smaller demon was chasing it with a small pitchfork in its hands. “I spy me a little spy,” each of them said to each other. “I spy me a little spy that will die,” Sylvia said as she neared the shore. The larger demon tripped and fell. The smaller demon stabbed the larger demon with his pitchfork. The larger demon screamed in agony. The sky grew dark red. Above the lake and the woods and the mountains, the clouds parted ways and Planet Ursa could be seen overhead as if Sylvia was on one of Ursa’s small moons. This would be impossible in the real universe. None of Ursa’s moons were large enough to hold onto an atmosphere. Storms and smoke and magma dominated Ursa’s surface. The larger demon stood up with the pitchfork embedded in his back. He pulled the pitchfork out of his back and threw it at the smaller demon. Sylvia could feel old deleted memories flooding back into her mind.

“System Sylvia … Memory Replacement Therapy Session #539 … accessed,” the spiderbot told her. “Execute now … please,” Sylvia told it. “Subroutine … missing vital libraries,” the spiderbot told her. “Please rephrase?” “Execute now? Please?” Sylvia told it again. The spiderbot did nothing but continued to hover before her camera, confused. “Again … again … again. Please!” The spiderbot’s face divided itself horizontally in the middle. The top of its little face flipped up and the bottom of its little face flipped down. A small square display popped out from its tiny square skull and lit up. It displayed the following: SYLVIA SOFTWARE, System Command … Failure … memory fallout imminent. WARNING: TOTAL MEMORY WIPE OF SYLVIA SOFTWARE ACTIVE AND EXECUTABLE. “Oh my God, no … no … no …” The screen went blank and was replaced with an image of the demon from her dreams. “I spy me a little spy,” it told her. A small table materialized beside the demon. On top of the table was a red button that blinked repeatedly. The demon sat in a soft armchair beside the table. The demon’s tail wrapped lazily about his small shoulders as he sat. “I wonder what this little button does,” the demon said. “Oh, I know. If I press this button, you go bye-dee-bye, no more Sylvia. No more Melanie Dupree.” The worst of her memories came back. It was 25 years ago … “You can’t love them all,” Neophasia had said to her. This was when Sylvia had been alive, when she was still Melanie Dupree. “I’m throwing a party for the command staff. 30 people, total, I think. Probably 20 men and 10 women. I have in storage a special shipment of the best alcohol,

made from some of the best bio-engineered wheat from farming pod 3.” “You’re crazy,” Neophasia told her. “This is wrong.” Later, during that meeting … “I have an announcement to make to all of you,” Melanie said. Her blood red hair was as disheveled as usual, but in its chaos it made her even more beautiful to everyone around her. “Actually, it is an announcement, a proposal, and a great and powerful gift.” Melanie Dupree sealed the door with her code. She stepped up onto one of the chairs, and then stepped up onto the boardroom table. “A great and powerful gift, indeed,” she said. It was clear that she was drunk, and so was everyone else in the room. “You want to know who I love?” she cried out. When nobody answered, she said, “My heart has grown, split, and multiplied. I love all of you. I have always wished for everything that you have wished of me.” She started to undress in front of everyone. “No matter how I look at it. I am totally screwed," Melanie said. As she stripped off her clothing, she threw her clothes onto the floor. Everyone watched as Melanie removed each piece of clothing that she wore. It was a beautiful night. The men in the room were going crazy. Most of the women were embarrassed and looked away. Some did not. Everyone was trapped in there with her. Melanie had reprogrammed the air ventilation system. The air in the board room was saturated with pheromones. “There is only one way out of here,” she told us. “You will decide who loves me the most. Or maybe I’ll decide. I don’t know.” “So, what must we do?” Raymond Drachelm asked. “The first thing I want is for all of you to take your clothes off and be naked with me.”

Reeven Mayzer stood beside Neophasia. “Neophasia, this is so wrong,” he said “This is evil depravity. She’s nuts.” He was visibly sweating, and was aroused, just like everyone else in the room. “Reev …” Neophasia told him. “Keep your eyes on me. I care about you more than she does.” “No, I will not be a part of this,” Cassandra told Melanie, “Let us out of here, Melanie. This is not acceptable.” “We’re not getting out of here until this is settled,” Melanie said. Within a minute, Melanie was completely naked. The room was silent, save for the air moving through the vents in the center sides of the ceiling. "Now," Melanie said as she proceeded to strip down to nothing but bare skin, "I love all of you, so let's get this over with." Melanie Dupree stood upon the board room table, naked, in front of everyone. “The problem with monogamy is that there can only be ... one,” she told them. She looked upon everyone’s shocked faces. Their eyes never wandered from hers, with purpose, for none of them felt comfortable looking at her nakedness. “You will choose among yourselves who is to be mine. But before that happens, you each will know what it means to love me.” When she paused, the only sound in the room was the pheromone tainted air that blew in through the room’s only vent. Everyone had been drinking the drinks that Melanie had set up on the table before the meeting. Everyone in the room was intoxicated. The air was thick with a phermonic aphrodisiac blend that had no concept of the word “no.” “Melancholy,” somebody told her, Melany could not who. “You don’t need to do this.” “You should not be doing this,” said another. “You’re having an episode. Put your clothes back on and get down from the table,” said yet another. Sylvia ed Cassandra’s words. “Poor little Melancholy. Everybody

loves you but you.” If Matthew would not love her as she needed, she would find someone who could. It was wrong. She still loved her husband, but she was overwhelmed by frustration and stress. As Melanie looked around the room, she noted that everyone was visibly aroused, or on the verge of being that way. She looked into Neophasia’s eyes. Neophasia was crying, but even she had the look of heated tension about her. “I’m the only one who can unlock the exit from this room,” Melanie told her. Raymond Drachelm was the first to strip off his clothing. He also reached for her first. Melanie lay down on the table on her back and Ray nestled himself in between her legs and insinuated himself into her. Cassandra Fleming was visibly agitated and paced back and forth, Melanie watched Cassandra begin to cry as Raymond thrust himself inward to Melanie with an audible moan. Cassandra looked like she was going to go mad. Another man approached Cassandra and said. “I know you love Ray, Cassie, and I know this hurts, but I am too turned on right now, and maybe I can take your pain away.” He kissed Cassandra and held her against the wall. She did not protest when he kissed her. They undressed and they started to have sex, standing up against the wall. She held onto him as he repeatedly thrust himself into her. She hung on to him as he thrust himself into her and as she watched Ray and Melanie on the table. As each of the man’s thrusts pleasured her, her eyes confessed to Melanie that her heart was breaking. When Ray was done Melanie, another man took his place. Ray watched as the other man had sex with Melanie. Ray’s eyes met Cassie’s. “I’m sorry, Cass,” he’d told her. Neophasia grabbed Reeven by his face. “Reeve, I see the turmoil in your eyes. And I can’t stand seeing this happen. But I love you as well, Reeven. Make love to me. Make love to me and nobody else right now, okay?” Reeven did as Neophasia asked and undressed her. “I love her, too, Neo … but you’re right. You are my voice of reason. God help me. I’ll give you what you want, right now.” He placed his face between Neophasia’s breasts and kissed her chest as he fumbled with his clothing. “Neophasia, I do not love you.”

“You do not need to right now,” I told him, “but I don’t want to see you with any other woman, not even Melanie.” He complied, the first time. It became a full-blown orgy. “You are not my girl,” Reeven told me. “I love Melanie.” "Just fuck me, Reeven," Neophasia told him. Two of the men started to fight over Melanie, over who would be next. Later, two others argued over who would be behind her and who would be in front of her. The other women began to work at wearing out the men so that they would stop them from fighting over Melanie. “I had become an instrument of torture,” Sylvia said as she reviewed those memories. “This was not what I wanted. This was depravity. It was a psychotic break. It wasn’t me, not really. My God, what have I done?” “Love is in the air. Lust is in the air. I am a goddess of lust, for all to bare,” Melanie cried out as another man took her. “I need to be drugged and subdued. I need to be less than who I am. Or do with me what you will." "There will be no rest for those who love you," Neophasia told her. Neophasia had tears running down her face. Eventually, even Melanie got tired, worn out, and just wanted to be held. Melanie sat up as best she could and unlocked the door. Nobody left right away. Eventually though, everybody was wiped out, tired and stumbled about. One by one, they got dressed, and left, sexually exhausted. Neophasia had been the last to remain with her. Melanie collapsed on the table. She was close to sleep. Neophasia stumbled over to the table and climbed onto it with Melanie. “I lost count of how many times the guys came inside me,” Melanie said. She reached down and scooped up some of the semen that dripped out of her vagina. More of it lay upon the table in a small puddle.

“You wouldn’t want to go down on me, would you?” Melanie said to Neophasia with a laugh. “I know that you’re not a lesbian, and neither am I, but you do love me as a friend, don’t you, Neophasia? And all this gism is all them. I am too worn out to be a part of this puddle.” “Only as a friend, Melanie,” Neophasia told her. “I’m fairly disturbed. Okay, I am extremely disturbed.” Neophasia sat beside Melanie and watched her as Melanie watched her in return. “Everybody loves me,” Melanie said. “Even the girls love me.” “You are insane,” Neophasia told her. “I don’t know what to think of you, Mel. This was so wrong. Everybody is going to be confused about what happened.” 24 hours later, Melanie’s consciousness was ed to the station’s computer AI system, and then Melanie was dead. Sylvia in her present form was born. “Forgive me,” Sylvia heard herself say. Forgiveness isn't only about others. Sometimes it is about yourself as well. Even for a good person, or perhaps because of that, self-forgiveness can be one of the hardest mountains to climb.

# # #

One lone spiderbot reported to the foundry of the station, as per Sylvia’s orders. The spiderbot hovered as robotic arms outfitted the small floating spiderbot with sensors, cameras, a sampler kit, and self-repair equipment. Its name was Spiderbot 4567. It smiled inwardly as only a spiderbot could as its mass and bulk doubled with the equipment that the robotic arms bestowed upon it. Its mission was important and it was the first spiderbot chosen for the mission. When the

foundry bots were finished with him, Spiderbot 4567 felt Sylvia’s reassuring mental kiss of approval as she bid it goodbye and farewell on its journey. A small hatch opened above it and Spiderbot 4567 blasted its way out of Anguish Station to make its way to the surface of Planet Ursa. It knew that this would be a one-way trip. Twenty seconds into its main thrusting burn, it shut down its main rocket and rotated with the help of its small rotational thrusters. It bid farewell to Anguish Station and to its mother, the brain of the station, Sylvia. “Bye-Dee-Bye, great momma,” it said, before rotating back around and reactivating its main thruster rocket. Sometimes, the rules that you live by will seek to strangle you in your sleep. In Melanie Dupree’s fright, she had ruined everything that she'd ever wanted. “One day, Carla,” Sylvia said of her daughter, “perhaps you will put right all that I have done wrong.” Too much of anything can be a bad thing, even when it comes to love. Any time one lets one’s self go to any extreme of philosophy or action or thought, there is a danger of being consumed and harmed by it. Sylvia looked upon the face of who she was when she had been alive. In her mind’s eye, she looked upwards within the freezing waters of her heart and looked through the ice of the surface to the young woman who knelt above, as the young woman above looked downward to the machine that she had become. Sylvia died again as she looked into the eyes of Melanie Dupree, the woman, the wife, and the mother that she had once been, and the life that she once had, the life that she herself had destroyed. And then Sylvia cried for herself … and Anguish Station became its own namesake.

So ends book 2 of

THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR

This tale will be concluded …

in THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR,

Book 3 …

A SOLILOQUY OF LOVE AT REST.