The first thing he felt was the heat. The fire. As he opened his eyes, blurry though his vision was, he could make out the oil and electrical fires around him. Where was he? Lazily his eyes wandered around, gathering what intel they could. He saw a cracked cockpit window, sparking controls on the dash, yet he just couldn’t make sense of it. His head pounded in thunderous waves. Had it hit something?

  Blood dripped down to his cheek from his forehead. He reached up and wiped it away, but his fingers hit his helmet. His vision began to clear now. There was the smell of acrid smoke wafting through his filters and filling his nostrils. His heart started racing. Now he needed to know where he was. Eyes darting around as he came too, he found he was in his gunship, still strapped in. He reached down and tried to unbuckle himself, but it was no use, the latch was stuck.

  He went to pull a knife from its sheath on his armor, but it had been flung out in the crash. Looking around frantically, he found a jagged piece of metal laying on the side of the tilted ship, and picked it up. Then, he hurriedly began to saw away at the belt, cutting into it, before it snapped. He was free.

  Everything hurt. Everything hurt. There wasn’t an inch of his body that wasn’t aching, and surely he’d cracked a rib. Still, he worked to pull his way out of the cockpit, grabbing onto the glass and the metal frame and pushing himself through the hole in it, the jagged shards scraping along his armor.

  Once he’d gained freedom, or found himself mostly free at least, he fell to the hood of the gunship, before tumbling to the floor. Around him, bodies floated in the low gravity. Some women. Some children. He tried to gather his bearings, examining his surroundings rolled and tried to push himself up to his feet. He was in a dayroom of sorts. There were screens on the wall, furniture like couches and comfortable looking chairs, all charred and broken. The door on the wall had been sealed with a bulkhead, and so there was no getting through that.

  He could hear something on his radio. Some voice, far away.

  “Shishone!” he heard, distant. “Shishone God dammit, come here!”

  He turned with confusion written in his furrowed eyebrows and frown, and saw another man standing next to the flaming gunship, waving him closer.

  “Shishone dammit! Come help me with this.”

  Taking a step, he felt a searing pain shoot up his leg. Looking down, he wondered if it’d been broken. If so, the armor would’ve locked up so that the bone wouldn’t move too much, allowing him to walk. Still, it hurt like a bitch.

  “Shishone, just – fuck. Come here,” the man said, walking over to him and putting an arm around him.

  He knew that voice.

  It was Captain Marks.

  “Marks?” he said, shooting him a dumbfounded look.

  “Shishone, are you okay in there?” Marks asked, wiping Shishone’s visor and tapping on his helmet. “Stay with me Shishone, we have a mission to accomplish.”

  They were on Ceres again.

  Panic flooded his veins as he fully awoke now.

  Captain Marks walked ahead of him and popped a side hatch on the gunship, reaching in and tugging something out of it. It was large, oval shaped, with two large metal squares on either end, both hollow. Though it was mostly smooth metal, he could see a keypad on it’s front that glowed light blue in the lambent flamelight.

  The bomb.

  “C’mon Shishone,” Marks said, panting and looking at him expectantly.

  Shishone limped up to him. “You can’t,” he said. “This isn’t the array.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “But this building is close enough to the array that we can depressurize all of it if we set it off here, so let’s go.”

  Depressurize the array? Sure, that would work, Shishone thought. But it would kill everyone in the apparent residential building they were in too. All those lives, lost. He looked around him to the dead, burnt bodies of their victims so far. Men, women, children, they’d all die like those here had. He thought back to Penelopi, pregnant with his daughter. Her face, fine featured and clever. Would his daughter look like him?

  Was war really worth it?

  Marks was talking.

  “Shishone? Pay attention, hey,” he said, waving in front of his visor. “When I arm this thing, it’ll give us fifteen minutes to evac. We’re gonna set it up, call for help, and dip. Understood?”

  “We’ll kill everyone here,” he said, staggering forward.

  Shrugging, Marks said, “Casualties happen. That’s what these ingratiates get. Now come on.”

  Shishone blinked. “No, sir.”

  Marks’ head turned and he stared daggers at Shishone. “What?”

  “Sir. I can’t let you kill all these civilians.”

  This just seemed to exasperate Marks. He slapped his hands to his side and tipped his head back, groaning. “You got hit on the head pretty hard. Why don’t you go test the radio, see if it works. I’m gonna set this thing up.”

  Marks turned back to the bomb and began to type on the keypad. Shishone watched, dazed, in shock. He would really kill innocents to achieve the mission. No wonder he was a gunship dropship captain. He was either that dedicated, or that cruel. Shishone didn’t want to know which, but whichever it was, he refused to be like him. If it were his wife, his child here, and this man insisted on their demise… he knew what he had to do.

  He bent down and slowly picked up a jagged sliver of the Calypso and held it in his fist. He couldn’t let those people die. But this, this was insubordination. This was murder. One, for thousands. He would face consequences for this. A lieutenant, murdering a captain. The Code would have a field day with him. But… it had to be done. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t let those people die.

  He wouldn’t shame his wife like that, nor his daughter.

  Stumbling forward as quietly as he could, he clenched the shard in his hand. Carefully and deftly he raised his fist, and then brought the jagged shrapnel down on Marks’ oxygen pack, right on the soft spot where the back hose connected to his helmet. It was a small weakness, but he’d landed it just right, and the splinter dug right into the hose before he yanked it out. Air began to hiss out of the hose.

  “What the – what did you do?” Marks cried, reaching back to try and plug the hole. “You fucking idiot!”

  Air continued to spray out of the back of Marks’ suit as the man began to suffocate. Shishone couldn’t see through his visor, the flickering of the flames reflecting off of it, but could tell that the man was panicking.

  “Why?” Marks asked, starting to gasp.

  “Because I couldn’t let you kill all those people,” Shishone said, his fist shaking. He let the sliver fall from his grip and stared at the palm of his glove. He did it. He’d just killed his captain. “I won’t let you.”

  Marks slumped, then fell to his knees grasping at the back of his helmet to try and plug the hole. It was no use; air continued to whine out of it. Casting Shishone one last look, Marks cursed and then, fell over, dead. It was over. Marks had made his choice, and Shishone had made his.

  Hunched over and breathing heavily, Shishone turned around and looked back into the room. Only it was different, now. He was on the edge of the stage of a large auditorium, looking into the stacked rows of seats before him. Looking behind him, he found the crumpled remains of the Harbinger, flaming and ruined on the stage. There was a hole in the cockpit window. When he looked down, he saw his knife by his foot.

  Some piece of him felt something click inside. Some understanding, some awareness had just come online. He tried his leg, but found it was hurting. So that part was real, then. Bending down, he picked up his knife, examining it as though it were the very shard of the Calypso he’d just been holding.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Then, he flipped it in his hand and tucked it into its sheath across his chest. Some final determination welled within him. He needed to find Xiao. He went back and inspected the ship. The ramp had fallen open, and so he went around and looked inside. It was smoky here, but he could make out that the crates of supplies had toppled and burnt, and that there was no going into the cabin as the top of the ship had caved into it. Really, it was a miracle it hadn’t exploded. On the floor by the ramp, he saw one of the grenades that had been on the wall had fallen and rolled to near where he was standing. He bent down and picked it up, attaching it to his magnetic belt.

  Slowly sliding off the stage and gathering his rifle – it had fallen off of the stage, and he assumed it was the reason for the hole in the cockpit in the first place – he started up the stairs of the auditorium, toward the doors in the back. He had to limp. Pain shot up his leg with every step he took, but, rifle in hand, he managed to open the doors at the back. Then, he started onward through a long curved hall that disappeared around the bend to the left.

  You’ve made peace, said the voice, almost in an observant manner.

  “Not yet,” he growled, cocking his weapon.

  Just then, Xiao’s voice entered his mind, intrusive, painful. He doubled over, holding his head as Xiao whispered to him, Come find me in the reactor, Corporal.

  He breathed heavily, in, out, in, out, trying not to heave. Standing back up, shakily, he scowled. Something had happened, he knew. He just knew. Something very terrible. Making his way out of the hallway and limping up a stopped escalator, he arrived in a main lobby for the Administration tower, its decadent chandeliers fallen and shattered on the floor, its plush seats and strong security gates all broken alike. He stumbled his way to the doors that led further into the Tower, leaning on the wall.

  Soon he found himself at a set of elevators. He tried one of the buttons, and to his surprise, it lit up, a car already on the ground floor waiting for him. He stepped aboard, and the door shut behind him. Before he could even figure out what button to push, the car started its descent, deep into the crust of Dysnomia.

  He watched the screen above the buttons as it listed each floor. About five down from the ground floor, the screen read Reactor Level and the car came to a stop. The doors opened, and he carefully stepped out.

  Then, Xiao’s voice came again. You’re here. Good.

  “Where are you,” Shishone hissed. He walked out onto the floor, and the elevator doors shut behind him. Here was a security checkpoint, but the blast door, which had been raised and sealed, was curled open like the lid of a can, and the security guards here were splayed out on the floor, dead.

  Get to the reactor controls. We’ll talk there.

  Dragging his way over the door, he found himself in a long hallway that led to a double door at the end, with several doors off to either side. There were indents in the walls and floor here, as though something great and horrifying had crawled through here. Shishone was careful not to fall in them, lest he hurt his leg even more, and soon he was at the doors at the end.

  The placard beside it read: Reactor Control Room. He took a deep breath. This was it. Xiao was on the other side of these doors, and there was no going back, no matter what happened once they opened. He thought back to Yu, and Yarns, hoping they were alright and that they had made it off of Dysnomia. He thought to Allister, and Thomas, and mentally wished them well once they got to Earth. His thoughts drifted to the great orange-burnt cliffs of Naschal, where Penelopi and Tay were probably sitting, enjoying the nature, waiting for his return. That hurt the most. He thought of them, too, and savored the moment. Their faces, their sweet voices, Tay’s lisp and Penelopi’s laugh. Some piece of him knew he wasn’t going home.

  Mentally steeling himself, he pressed the button beside the doors, and they hissed, parting from each other like lovers, never to meet again.

  On the other side was a large rotunda, and a control room observing it through a long, thin, tinted window where an even larger spherical room sat filled with wires and electronics connected to canisters that were plugged into the wall in perfect array. The control room itself was just a small sliver of this larger piece, a tiered place filled with computers and holoterminals.

  Something stood in the center of it, facing the core’s innards. A light from within the core pulsed every few seconds, throwing a pale blue light into the room before leaving it in the dimness again. Against the pulsing light, he could barely make out what appeared to have been a man, at one time or another. Now, though, it was something else, with six massive red tendrils escaping its back and propping it up, and multiple others writhing around freely. It was Xiao, he was sure of it. Or, it had been. He raised his weapon and trained it on the thing.

  Don’t be so eager, Xiao said in his mind. The thing turned to face him, and to Shishone’s horror, it had no face. Where his face had been, there was now only skin, though underneath it, something was pulsing. More tendrils, he could see from here, thin ones, like worms.

  He froze.

  Xiao crawled his way halfway up the tiers, and stopped, looking down at Shishone.

  Don’t be so afraid, either. I know you hear the voice too.

  “Get out of my head,” Shishone said, gripping his rifle.

  It’s too late for that. I’m already here. And I know what you know.

  “I know enough to end this,” he said. His conviction was steady, strong.

  I know what you are. And what you are willing – and unwilling – to do.

  Standing beneath this monstrosity made him feel small. He refused to back down, though, and took a step forward, pointing his rifle at Xiao. “I’m here to finish this.”

  Oh no, Corporal. You can try. But you cannot kill me with that.

  Something in Shishone shook, something in his foundation. Xiao was right. What was his little rifle against something so terrifying as what this man had become? A few bullets might pierce this thing, but ultimately, he would lose. He let the muzzle fall as this realization sunk in. A wave of helplessness washed over him.

  Good, said Xiao. Now, we can talk.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Shishone said, glaring at him.

  Don’t look so dejected. Xiao crawled even closer now, and Shishone took a step back. There is still hope for you. You heard it too. Stay with me for a while, there is much we need to discuss.

  Shishone looked at him, and then, when the reactor pulsed, to it. An idea flashed in his mind, before it was cut off by Xiao’s laughter.

  Corporal, you wouldn’t. I know you. You’d sacrifice all these people, just to kill one? Wasn’t it the other way around on Ceres?

  “Keep Ceres out of your mouth,” Shishone snapped.

  The thing slowly cocked its head. Point being, you wouldn’t. You want to see your family again. You want to go home. I can give that to you. Why throw that away, just to kill me?

  He thought on that for a moment. If… if it were true, he thought, if he could go home, if he could see Penelopi again, hold her, hear the sound of his daughter’s laughter… would that have made this all worth it?

  Or would he have been throwing everything he’d achieved, all he gave to get here, away?

  Inside of him, a battle began to rage.

  Sensing this, Xiao said, Come look upon the reactor with me. I want to explain something to you.

  Carefully, Shishone took a step forward, and then another, heading down the rows toward the window leading into the reactor. It pulsed again, sending another flash of blue light into the room. When he reached the bottom, and joined Xiao in staring into the core, Xiao said, Humanity is full of marvels. Fusion is an incredible technology, once thought to be the realm of science fiction. And it can help, or it can hurt. Fusion bombs are nightmares, Corporal.

  Shishone grunted. “What’s your point?”

  My point is this: we all have choices to make in life, that lead us down paths. Some chose to use fusion for good, to create reactors that propelled us into space. Others saw it as a tool, a weapon to be used against their enemies.

  Xiao turned his empty face down to him. Likewise, you have a choice. Join me, help me. You’ve been blessed with the voice too. The good it could do for us is immense. We could be the heralds of a new dawn for not just the species, but for the entire galaxy. The stars, Corporal. They could be ours.

  Or, he continued, you could destroy this place. Destroy me. Kill thousands of innocents in the process and for what? Do you even know what the Protocol dictates? It would be useless, and a waste of all of humanity’s talent and knowledge. Would you doom our species, or would you raise it to the stars above?

  Shishone stared blankly into the reactor as it pulsed again. Xiao had made some sound points, he thought. But… Penelopi, Tay. He thought back to them. Some piece of him started to collapse, a soulful cave-in in his deepest crevices. He wanted to go home. His very heart hurt, yearned for it, almost to the point where he would give anything, everything to see his family again.

  But then, he thought to his friends, to Yu, Yarns, Allister. He thought about them hard, thought of what they would’ve wanted. Their sacrifices. All they’d surrendered to the hands of fate in the hopes of stopping this madness. Something in his soul settled like sediment in once turbulent waters.

  He’d made his decision.

  Some thing in him felt, for the first time in years, for the first time since Ceres, truly, blissfully peaceful.

  “I think I’ll take my chances.”

  He raised his weapon and fired into the glass of the reactor, shattering it to pieces. Before Xiao could react, he then tossed the grenade on his hip into the core, keeping the pin firmly around his finger.

  Xiao hissed You absolute idiot! The progress! The potential! Wasted!

  Shishone smiled emptily. “Shut up.”

  Dysnomia was a hub.

  In the Kuiper Belt, it was the center of culture, of resources, of administration, military, it was the logistics center, it was the arts center. Dysnomia was the brain, and heart, and brawn of the Kuiper Belt. Lights, music, research, analysis, it had all happened here. There had been parties thrown, celebrations had, children born. It was an achievement unlike any other humanity had ever known. And now, as it crested Eris silently, like a dead world, a ghost of what it had been, the debris of the battle laying between it and the planet below, as it stood between the sun and the smoking farms that once fed the entire Belt, as corpses floated above it, and littered its surface, as the lights fell dark and the music went silent, the brain dead, the heart stopped, the brawn defeated, Dysnomia exploded.

  A massive fireball ripped up through the Admin Tower, blasting it out from the inside as flame consumed the entire Administration Zone in a tidal wave of light. The light was so bright that it lit up Eris’s surface, even began to melt the ice in its atmosphere. The very core of Dysnomia cracked, its crust splintering into massive chasms, splitting out as the explosion not only expanded upwards, but ate down. The once hub of life in the Belt, rocked by a thunderous, hot, expansive explosion, now reduced itself to chunks, ruble, and echoes.

  It was finished.

  Shishone had made his choice.

  Shishone had made his peace.