text: [Themes: sci-fi, science fiction]
  
  "So, Starman, when do you think we should set off for the colony site?" she asks.
  
  You hadn't quite thought about that yet. "I'm tempted to take off right now," you say. "The sooner we can get a signal out for help, the better."
  
  "There is an urgency to our situation," she agrees. "And as I understand it, Giri Minor is mostly desert. The temperature seems reasonable now in the dark, but I would expect it to be less so in daylight."
  
  However, a thought occurs to you while she's speaking. "But I'm not sure it's the best idea to cross a strange wilderness in the dark," you say. "It will be hotter in the daylight, but at least we can see where we're going."
  
  "Perhaps first thing in the morning," Andrade says, "while the desert is still on the cool side."
  
  She pauses, then adds, "Look, I'm 52 years old, and I've spent most of my naval career working at desks and computer controls. Before we're done here I'm probably going to wish I had spent more time working out. So if we're going to make this trek, I'm going to be relying on your youth for my inspiration. Therefore I'm leaving it up to you to decide when we go."
  
  > If you wait for daylight, turn to page 59.
  "To be completely honest," you say, "I think the best thing we could do is get a few hours of rest. If the colony site is only 8 kilometers away, it should only take us just a few hours to get there across even terrain. If we strike out at the crack of dawn, we can avoid the worst of the heat."
  
  "I can abide by that decision," Andrade says.
  
  The commander estimates on her WristComp that there are less than five hours before dawn, so the two of you lay out some spaces inside the cavernous cargo hold where you can each bed down for the night, along with all of the other survivors. To say these are makeshift arrangements would be an understatement; it is far from a comfortable rest lying on the floor, and the horrific events of the day are recycled in your dreams over and over. Your body may be in repose, but your mind is hardly at rest.
  
  In a way this does resemble camping out, but to you the flames that light up the night are no campfire. The burning ship is a funeral pyre for Captain Siggo.
  
  You must have fallen asleep despite everything, though, because when Commander Andrade shakes your shoulder to wake you, it catches you by surprise. "We've got a job to do," she says softly, as most of the others are still asleep. You lift your head. There is a faint glow on the horizon, telling you that the Girian sunrise is on its way.
  
  > Page 132
  The ship has ceased burning now, and so there is no further light--just a smudgy black cloud of smoke drifting over the desert. It smells putrid. As you expected, though, the morning air is quite cool; it prompts you to put on the jacket that served as your blanket overnight, as your standard-issue naval jumpsuit is not very insulated.
  
  "Are you ready to do this?" Andrade asks.
  
  "As ready as I can be, given the circumstances," you say.
  
  She taps her WristComp and calls up the holographic map once more, hovering in the space between you. "I'm picking up what looks like a small village of structures, but no signs of life, no energy signatures. What we're doing is a long shot, but I don't see where we have many options. If people lived there, it stands to reason they left something behind. Even if we don't find a fully functional hyperspace transmitter, we still may find other things vital to our survival: food, water, shelter."
  
  You nod your agreement. Andrade orients herself with the holographic map, then gestures toward the horizon. "There," she says. "The colony is in that direction." You see a distant but prominent peak where she's pointing, and you settle on that as the landmark to follow.
  
  > Page 93
  The terrain is indeed easy, but also very strange, unlike any desert you've ever seen before--but this place wasn't always a desert. Two centuries ago, when the human colony was established, this was a lush savannah of open fields, rich soils, and clusters of wind-twisted trees. But when the moon exploded and the planet tilted, life on Giri Minor was almost completely wiped out.
  
  Some sparse vegetation is starting to reclaim the desert landscape, but the desiccated remains of weathered wood scattered all over the place remind you of what was lost. Above you is a tawny sky, perpetually hazy with airborne dust.
  
  After nearly an hour of hiking, with the rising sun casting a long but faint shadow in front of you, a long rocky ridge develops on your right, almost paralleling your intended course. The commander confirms on her map that you will not need to cross the ridge to reach the colony site, but you move closer to its base to take advantage of any shade it may offer.
  
  And after two hours have passed since you left the crash site, you decide to take a break on an outlying rock positioned in the shade of the main ridge.
  
  > Page 18
  You can tell your hiking companion is appreciative of this pause in your trek. "You've been doing well," you say, trying to sound encouraging.
  
  She looks up and chuckles, then shakes her head. "I never was much for the outdoors." She assesses your condition, and notes that you've hardly broken a sweat yet. "Oh, to be young again!"
  
  "But you're not that old!" you say.
  
  "Ha! I have a son older than you, and grandchildren."
  
  Her eyes spot the oto leaf emblem on the collar of your uniform, a bluish-green leaf shaped like a whale's tail, with an indigo stem; many people from your planet wear this symbol as a way of telling others where they're from. When Andrade sees it, she says, "So tell me of your homeworld, Usul."
  
  "There's not much to tell," you say. "My family owns a small gava rice farm. If I was still on Usul, that's where I'd be. My family can trace its lineage all the way back to one of the original settlers from Old Earth. But I wanted to see the galaxy, so I joined the Astral Navy."
  
  Andrade chuckles again. "And so here you are, seeing the galaxy. Thank you for the opportunity to rest, my young friend, but I think we need to keep going."
  
  > Page 130
  About an hour later you crest a small hill, and from the top a strange and eerie sight reveals itself to you. Before you is a collection of raggedy buildings still standing despite two centuries' worth of exposure to the elements. The colony was situated in the middle of a broad valley, next to what had no doubt been a wide river, although there is no surface water anywhere to be seen now.
  
  You remember learning about this place, but you never expected to ever be here--and in its ruined state, the colony looks meager and desolate. However, one building does stand next to a tower that could very well be a hyperspace signal transmitter. But off to the south, about a kilometer outside the colony, sits something you never expected to see: a collection of small spacecraft!
  
  Commander Andrade scans the valley with her WristComp, and from where you stand you can read the holographic display as well as she can. "No people, no power," she says. "I can't tell if there is any equipment out there or not. That tower in the colony might be promising, but if those are naval shuttlecraft down to the south, who knows what tech we might find waiting for us?"
  
  > If you head to the tower first, turn to page 61.
  The sight of that tall tower in the middle of the settlement convinces you that is where you need to go first. Commander Andrade concurs with your judgment, and immediately you set off down the hill into the wide valley.
  
  Before Giri Minor's third moon exploded, this must have been a lush and verdant place, filled with trees and fertile meadows. Then the planet tilted slightly with the shift in gravity, and decades of dust storms stripped away much of the plant life, leaving this eerie and forgotten ghost town in the middle of what is now a desert.
  
  Many of the buildings did survive the initial seismic shock of the planet's shift, thanks to their plascrete and polysteel construction, but many others did not. The tall tower makes it easy for you and the commander to zero in on the one building you're most interested in inspecting: the former communication station. However, the condition of some of the structures that you pass don't make you very optimistic that you'll find anything useful when you get there; the buildings may still stand, but the interiors are partly filled with wind-blown dust, and the ancient furnishings are tattered and ruined.
  
  > Page 94
  You find the old comm station near the middle of town. The structure looks intact, but you can't see inside because the polysteel door is rusted shut. You try kicking it open, but a pang in your rib reminds you that using the brute force of your body is not an option.
  
  "Use that chunk of plascrete," the commander suggests, pointing to a large piece of debris lying in the dusty street. Although your bruised chest still protests, you lift the heavy chunk over your head and heave it against the door once, twice, three times. It finally gives, and you enter the dark building.
  
  What you find is discouraging. Although the building was sealed against the elements, it looks as though it had been looted and ransacked before abandonment. Fibrous cables dangle from the control board, with corroded components smashed and strewn across the floor.
  
  Nevertheless, Commander Andrade inspects the equipment to see what, if anything, can be salvaged. "There is a possibility," she says after scrutinizing the ancient machine. "All we need to do is transmit a basic signal into hyperspace, nothing fancy. It looks like enough of the transmitter remains that I might be able to cobble something together. But we don't even have a power cell, and the core processor is fried."
  
  > Page 62
  "We'll have to scour through these buildings to see if we can find substitutes, then," you say.
  
  "Maybe," Andrade says. "Power cells were pretty common tech 200 years ago, and most homes had private comm units that linked to this one."
  
  You feel pretty useless here in this antique comm station, so you volunteer to go look. "Take this plasgun," she says, pulling the weapon out of her rucksack.
  
  You take the plasgun, but the colony is so deserted you have no idea why you'd need one.
  
  You step back out into the street, looking at all of the derelict buildings around you, none more than three stories tall. Where to start? It is now very late in the afternoon, close to sunset. The long hike across the desert has made you very hungry, so you decide to splurge and eat your second (and last) NutriRation.
  
  You poke your head into a couple of the nearest buildings, but many are filled halfway to the ceiling with dust that blew in during the storms of old. Maybe there are well-preserved comm units and power cells here, but it would require a full-blown excavation to find them.
  
  > Page 63
  As the sun sets and the air grows cool, you start to hear strange noises. At first you assume its some loose piece of roofing material flapping in the breeze, and you pay no attention to it. But as the sound continues--and starts coming from multiple locations--you realize that the air is calm. There is no breeze.
  
  You stop to examine the sound more carefully. It seems to be coming from the upper floors of the taller buildings, where the windows have long since been blown out to expose the interiors to the open air. Then you recognize the sounds as screeches--animal screeches. In this particular street, you're surrounded by tall buildings, and the wildlife perched on these third-floor aeries must be waking up for the night. You carefully draw the plasgun, just in case.
  
  One by one you start to see movement in those windowless upper floors, and with a flutter of large wings the creatures realize you are there and drop down to the street to investigate. There are a dozen of them, bird-like creatures with long legs and necks, and short probosces that seem to be reaching toward you from both sides of every toothy mouth. They stomp the ground with their two-toed feet and form a circle around your position.
  
  You pivot with your gun now pointed forward, but there are simply too many targets. Before you can fire a single blast, the creatures close in and pounce.