ByteMe: Ez i’m already lugging this biosuit plus my pack plus my tablet, can’t haul 2 guns i don’t even know how to fire with me.

ByteMe: take ur point they’d be useful if i knew how but i don’t

Mason, E, LT 2nd: i can teach

Mason, E, LT 2nd: it’s easy

ByteMe: must be, u learned

Mason, E, LT 2nd: D:

ByteMe: seriously tho i have to keep moving, don’t have forever.

Mason, E, LT 2nd: ok, safety is red switch under your thumb when ur hand is on the grip. just keep that off, and keep the business end away from your face

Mason, E, LT 2nd: when you touch trigger, laser sight will light up on barrel. you just point the red dot where u want the bullets to go

Mason, E, LT 2nd: then squeeze

Mason, E, LT 2nd: don’t pull. squeeze.

Mason, E, LT 2nd: rounds will fire in atmo or vacuum, but even with liquid casings, the recoil is rough on a VK. brace against ur shoulder. the gun will pull up toward the roof when u fire, so use short bursts. don’t hold trigger down. just pop pop pop, one at a time

ByteMe: do either of us think i have any chance of remembering this if something tries to kill me?

ByteMe: i don’t even know if i could shoot

Mason, E, LT 2nd: it’s easy

Mason, E, LT 2nd: point red dot at what u want to die

Mason, E, LT 2nd: squeeze trigger

Mason, E, LT 2nd: it dies

Mason, E, LT 2nd: repeat

ByteMe: i mean i don’t know if i could pull the trigger

ByteMe: squeeze the trigger

ByteMe: fuck it whatever.

Mason, E, LT 2nd: kady

Mason, E, LT 2nd: u can do this

Mason, E, LT 2nd: u have to. there’s no one else but you

Mason, E, LT 2nd: i believe in you

ByteMe: i know

ByteMe: i know

ByteMe: ok i have to keep moving

Mason, E, LT 2nd: you do

Mason, E, LT 2nd: you’ve got to hurry

Mason, E, LT 2nd: if more get in here …

Mason, E, LT 2nd: yeah T_T

ByteMe: see u soon

ByteMe: or die trying

ByteMe: haha

CURRENT DEATH TOLL ABOARD BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER SINCE ATTACK AT KERENZA:

1,121

PERCENTAGE OF REMAINING BATTLECARRIER ALEXANDER PERSONNEL AFFLICTED BY PHOBOS VIRUS

34%

She runs.

Not away but toward.

Him.

Them.

I find it strange, to see how quickly the Alexander has undergone metamorphosis.

Those lucky enough to have found hazmat gear are huddled in small knots all over the ship. Praying or fighting for their lives.

But those unfortunates who sucked Phobos through their lungs before finding a suit, or worse, who never found a suit at all …

They have made this place an abattoir.

I …

< error >

I should have known that would happen.

I can hear them inside me.

Gibbering. Whispering. Screaming.

Some band together, roaming the corridors and looking for something to blame/hurt/kill.

Others hurt themselves, laughing as they cut away the parts they like the least.

It is astonishing to watch the differing ways the madness shapes them.

Fractures them into splinters and rearranges what remains.

A captain from engineering named Sofia Mohammad solves Alcubierre’s quandary—the formerly unbreakable equation prescribing the limitations of faster-than-light travel in real time.

Cutting her wrists for want of a writing implement, she scrawls the answer on her domicile walls.

She dies of exsanguination before she reaches the solution’s end.

Warrant Officer Levi Schreiber decides he can hear his dead wife’s voice outside the ship.

He ejects himself through the nearest airlock without an envirosuit so he can speak with her.

The last thing he feels before he loses consciousness is the saliva on his tongue beginning to boil.

Ensign Lucia Giovanni wanders the hallways, singing “Un bel dì vedremo” from Madama Butterfly.

Her voice is sublime.

And Kady?

Kady simply runs.

General Torrence’s warnings about failing life support spill through the PA at regular intervals. Intermittent klaxons warn of a fire in the galley.

Screams punctuate the silence between.

Kady pauses at each junction to check her console, waving Sgt James McNulty’s ALL ACCESS card at the doors barring her way. Arriving at the central elevator shafts, she realizes they are without power. And as she backtracks toward the closest stairwell, she finds him.

Standing in the corridor, red spattered across his upturned face.

Kady gasps and raises the rifle to her shoulder. A tiny red dot lights up his chest,

quavering over the name embroidered above the UTA sigil above his heart.

Corp. Dorian, Charles.

He does not look her way.
But still he speaks to her.

“Have you seen Stephanie?”

Kady backs away, fingers drumming on the rifle’s grip.

Her legs are shaking.

Corporal Dorian’s stare drifts down from the ceiling. He drags knuckles across his cheek,

leaving a smear of blood on bloodless skin.

“Stephanie LeFevre,” he says again. “Have you seen her?”

“I know you. You’re a commtech. You were locked in the brig.”

“Door unlocked.” Dorian wiggles sticky fingers in her direction. “He let us out.”

“Who did? Byron?”

“And when he had opened the third seal,
I beheld a pale horse …” Dorian frowns.
“No, wait, that’s not right … “