text: same green-and-blue-and-white orb you've always known it to be, spinning on its rotational axis just as it always has, as if this were any typical day. Clouds swirl over the greenish-brown continents, and a typhoon is growing over the Aandhee Ocean. It would be an ordinary day at home, alien invasions notwithstanding.
  
  To your surprise, you feel uncomfortable now at the controls of the pod. Isn't this the moment you had once fantasized about: an independent young woman at the helm of this fleet little ship, making the journey from the mine to your home without anyone nagging you, coming and going on your own schedule? Except that now the situation is all wrong. You are heading to an unknown peril, with an enemy that surrounds you even if you can't see them. As far as you know the Sanrakshak fleet has been destroyed, eliminating all hope of salvation should you get into trouble. Thus you are likely the last human who will ever dare to make this journey. How will you be remembered for attempting to do what you are about to do? Will you be remembered at all?
  
  For three months you had taken shelter at the mine, watching helplessly as everything you had ever worked for — everyone you had ever loved — was gassed out of existence, by a force no one had predicted. The Naya Gyaan and their curious beliefs about their relationship to God — gone. The city of Ummeed ka Shahar and the jhabbe village where you grew up — gone. The Sanrakshak forces — gone, without anything close to a fair fight. The home you bought with Diden just before you got married — well, let's not jump to conclusions. But very likely gone, too.
  
  So here you are, returning to Chaandria, committed to a course of action that seems less clear the closer you get to your destination. Perhaps all of that isolation had starved your human need for adventure, until the desire for action burst out of you and inspired this ill-advised quest. But where else can you go, when you really think about it? Channdria and Chhota Chandrama are the only two worlds you've ever known. Listening over the wireless channels to the destruction of one planet as you huddled in the distant reaches of the other was like being stripped of your identity, of the meaning that had once given every day its direction. The Chaandrian banks that had held your accounts, the ministries that recorded your marriage, your licenses, your property titles — all of them up in flames, probably, the records of your existence now ashes incapable of proving anything. The men at the mine still called you ma'am out of habit, even though there had been no pay since before the attack. All productive activity had become immediately pointless; you had merely been seven people sheltering in the same place, adult orphans with nowhere else to go.
  
  Thus you now approach Chaandria with growing dread, a small speck in a gigantic sea of indifference, adrift on its unknowable currents with far less control over your fate than you have been led to believe. At any moment an enormous maw could emerge from the darkness to swallow you whole, but Chaandria would never flinch in its rotation, nor would the Chaandrian sun wince at the tragedy of your demise. Yours are the only eyes in this vast blindness, the only heart in this unending numbness. A billion stars may shine in every direction, but they do so coldly, at an impossible distance.
  
  For a moment, trapped in the cab of the cargo pod, surrounding only by the flat, static images of the people you loved, you sense your life as it really is: alone and purposeless, lurching from one momentary preoccupation to the next, oblivious of your own spiritual agony. The vacuum that surrounds you is actually a crushing pressure that would've already compressed you into a crumpled rag, but for the meaningless constructs with which you have been filling your life all these years.
  
  Once, when you were very young, you asked Dad why your family did not observe all of the same religious practices as the Naya Gyaan. Even in your jhabbe village their vibrant culture was like a living force that surrounded your home, with its long list of holy feasts and spiritual pilgrimages, with the dancing bhedak women and the pujaarees with their colorful robes parading through the streets almost on a monthly basis. Their happiness was seductive, even if you couldn't understand the words to the songs they sang.
  
  "Because, Shahad," he replied, "they see nothing but mysteries."
  
  "So?"
  
  "So, they seek answers to the wrong questions."
  
  At the time, questions were merely questions to you. How could some be wrong, and how could they divide people from each other?
  
  "They see life as a series of riddles that only their Bhagavaan ke Bachche could solve," Dad continued when he saw that you had been confused by his explanation. "They don't understand that if they had picked his pocket when he was still alive, they might have found his code book. Then each one of them could be his own prophet, and they wouldn't need all of this ritual to give their lives meaning."
  
  You still didn't understand what he meant, but because these words were spoken by your father you presumed them to be true. Still, for all these years there has been a nagging doubt, a lingering question you didn't dare raise for fear it might be the wrong one:
  
  If the Naya Gyaan were living in ignorance, then why did they all seem so contented?
  
  Your head is dizzy, your heart rate accelerated. You feel like a kaee tree that has been knocked askew by a strong gale, never to stand straight again unless guyed into place. But what draws you back into the present moment is a chirruping noise on the control panel before you. Something urgent requires your attention.
  
  Deep breaths. Take deep breaths. In, out, in, out, until the anxiety recedes, however long it takes.
  
  The bird-like sound is a proximity alert, an oddly gentle reminder that an object has been detected in your direct flightpath — and you might want to do something about it. The sensor is very rudimentary in design, capable of giving you no further details. The best you can do is scan the open space ahead of you, but still you see nothing.
  
  Minutes pass before your breathing returns to normal. Never have you felt so out of control of your own psychology before, so overwhelmed by circumstances. Whoever that was who had been sitting in this same space a moment ago, it wasn't the daughter your father had raised. There is a peril in thinking of existential matters too objectively, of pulling back the magnification with which you examine your own life as you would an amoeba. The amoeba known as Theryl Ureste, overwhelmed by the currents of metaphysical context in which she as been swimming all her life. Another panic attack like that, and you might as well point the pod at the nearest Iib Ch'iib hive ship and get this over with quickly.
  
  The chirruping alarm is becoming more frantic, indicating the object is getting closer. Should you bring the pod to a stop? Change your heading? Maybe the sensor is malfunctioning, because you still can't see a thing.
  
  There it is — something very small, dead ahead. It can't be more than three meters in length, like a torpedo coming straight for you. Except it's not a torpedo. It veers to the side, removing itself from your path, and the proximity alarm suddenly falls silent. Whatever the object is, you've just lost track of it.
  
  You nearly jump out of your seat when it abruptly appears in the periphery of your vision, so close outside the pod's pressurized cab that you could throw stones at it, if you had any. Whatever this thing is, it's flying on its own power. A drone? But whose? It seems to be checking you out, spewing small puffs of vapor as its maneuvering thrusters edge it closer to your pod, then back away. You see no markings on its cylindrical hull, nothing to identify who it might belong to.
  
  So this is an unexpected development. Have you just been discovered by a distant operator — and if so, whom? What if this were an Iib Ch'iib device, a mechanical drone operated by an insect-like drone? Or it could just be a lost Sanrakshak probe, wandering this interplanetary space like a stray dog. Although you had never seen one, it was well known the military had employed unmanned drones like this in its mission to run down smugglers. But an asset of the Sanrakshak would've been clearly marked as such, right?
  
  The probe is now paralleling your course, flying just a few meters away. The maneuvering thrusters puff away some more, and the little craft nudges up so close outside your window that for a moment you think its going to ram you. But it stops short of that, and you see a camera eye looking you over. This looks very much like a human device, and its actions are becoming so specific that there almost has to be a human operator somewhere nearby.
  
  Then, as unexpectedly as it appeared, the drone angles away from your pod and zips away into deep space, almost at a right angle to your current course.
  
  Could there really be another human out there, probing the space between the planets looking for other survivors? If so, the idea of following the drone back to its source suddenly seems appealing, more so than rushing headlong into an alien siege force. But hold on there! You have no idea what you just encountered, or who is controlling it. And you've already embarked on one impulsive mission so far today....
  
  > follow the drone.
  If you're going to follow the drone, you need to act fast. You have no way to track it in this little cargo hauler, and the thing is getting away fast. So you push the control stick hard to port—
  
  The pod responds unexpectedly swiftly. Your body is thrown into the armrest to your right with so much inertial force that you worry your elbow might be crushed. Shouldn't there be safety controls in place to prevent a novice pilot from killing herself with such a maneuver? And what about such basic equipment as inertial compensators?
  
  When the pod completes the turn and you are able to sit straight again — your arm likely to develop a big bruise soon, but with no bones broken — you look around for the drone. There is no sign of it.
  
  "Hey there!" you shout into the vacuum, unconcerned that no one can hear you. "Come back here!"
  
  Did you turn too late? Wasn't it more to port the last time you saw it? Should you start turning more to try and find it, or is it already a thousand kilometers away? Why isn't that little proximity alert chirping again?
  
  "Don't go!" you plead again. "You can't leave me like this."
  
  For a moment you are convinced you have been left behind, left with no alternative but to return to your original plan — that is, until a streak of light catches your eye. It's the drone for sure, burning a bit of fuel to send a visual signal. It accelerates a bit, then brakes as if stopping to wait for you.
  
  "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" you say as you adjust course a bit more to port and about ten degrees up, towards the point where it has parked itself. The drone turns and accelerates once more as you near it, and this time you watch it closely and make the corresponding correction to your own flight path.
  
  The drone makes no attempt to evade you, so you conclude that it really has been trying to get your attention. But where is it leading you? By following in its wake, you are now heading into empty space — toward neither Big or Little Chodry, but somewhere else entirely. You can see nothing but the flare of its main thruster, but obviously there must be a mothership to which the drone is returning. Just who is on that ship remains to be seen.
  
  Half an hour passes, then forty-five minutes. The drone is continuing its straight line, and so are you. An hour passes, then another fifteen minutes. Still you see nothing.
  
  "This is the CNS Pavitr Yoddha to unknown vessel. Identify yourself!"
  
  It's a woman's voice on the radio, young and militarily formal. "CNS" refers to the naval branch of the Sanrakshak, and Pavitr Yoddha means "Holy Warrior" in Hindi. It is a typically pretentious name for a Naya Gyaan ship.
  
  In your eagerness to respond, you momentarily forget where your own radio controls are.
  
  "This is..." you start to respond in kind, but telling the Sanrakshak that this is "Pod A" isn't going to be very helpful to them. "My name is Theryl Ureste, owner of the Crident-Ureste Extraction Corporation. You have no idea how glad I am to see you!"
  
  "Civilian vessel, how many other survivors do you have on board?" The woman's voice does not sound as happy as you do.
  
  "No one, just me," you reply, still unable to see the ship ahead of you. "But my crew—"
  
  "Civilian vessel, please maintain your course. Do not deviate or you will be fired upon."
  
  You have to stifle your response to that one, remembering not to take the threat personally. You remember from Diden's days in the Sanrakshak how obsessed the military is with security. To be cautious, you remove your hands from the control stick, holding them well away from it. You wouldn't want to get yourself blown up by a twitchy crewman just because you sneezed.
  
  Then you see the ship, just ahead of the drone: a hull painted almost as black as the space in which it drifts, and an unusually angled design. There are no running lights and very few portholes. If you were to imagine a Sanrakshak ship lurking unseen in the middle of an overwhelming alien invasion, it might look very much like this.
  
  "Civilian vessel, please follow these instructions closely: cut your main thrusters immediately. Approach on maneuvering thrusters only. Do you copy?"
  
  "Yes! Just give me a— OK, I've shut down my thrusters."
  
  "Now proceed to zero-one-four, mark three-three-nine."
  
  She does realize you're piloting a vessel controlled by a manual flight stick, right? Yes, the pod does have a gauge to measure the angles of turns on both the horizontal and vertical axes, but you're not sure how precise it is.
  
  "Can you repeat that course heading?" you say.
  
  "Repeating: proceed to zero-one-four, mark three-three-nine." The controller states the numbers more slowly this time.
  
  You angle the pod 14° to starboard and 21° downward as instructed, hoping this civilian equipment is accurate enough to not make the crew of the Pavitr Yoddha nervous. With the main thrusters now dead, the pod's maneuvering thrusters make soft hissing sounds as they point you in the required direction. When they are done, you find yourself drifting toward the aft of the black naval ship.
  
  "Now prepare to come to a full stop on my mark," your impersonal contact tells you. "Five... four... three... two... one... mark."
  
  She didn't exactly give you much warning, but you still manage to bring the pod to a dead stop more or less at the right time. You are now underneath the Pavitr Yoddha, waiting for the next set of instructions. The radio remains unusually silent.
  
  "I'm here," you say. "Now what?"
  
  "Please hold your position."
  
  She is starting to become annoying. A few minutes ago you had no idea this ship existed, and then — for a brief second — you were excited to find humans where you least expected. Now, you're starting to wonder if the Iib Ch'iib would have offered you a warmer reception. Maybe you should open up.
  
  "I had no idea there were still people out here!" you try to gush, hoping to elicit a more human response from your counterpart. "We hadn't heard from anyone in—"
  
  "Please keep this channel open for official communication only, ma'am."
  
  "But what do you want me to do?"
  
  "Please hold your position."
  
  Before exasperation can get the better of you, a bay door begins to swing downward from the ventral hull, revealing a lighted interior. A small unmanned pod wastes no time in coming for you.
  
  "Civilian vessel," the woman on the radio says as you watch their pod approach yours, "you are in the custody of the Sanrakshak Naval Forces of the Sovereign World of Chaandria. All resistance will be met with force."
  
  "But you don't understand!" you protest. "I'm not here to resist. I'm here because that drone of yours led me here. I'm here because I want to be with other humans!"
  
  The military pod is fronted by a pair of mechanical claws, which latch roughly onto your thrusters. The action shakes you in your seat.
  
  "We are now bringing you into our landing bay," the woman continues. "When the bay doors close, Sublieutenant Ridney will be in command of the recovery team. You will follow all of his instructions. CNS Pavitr Yoddha out."
  
  Indeed, you and your pod are dragged backwards into the bay of the Chaandrian naval ship like a caught fish. As soon as you are inside, you feel yourself weighed down abruptly by the artificial gravity, which you recognize right away as 0.979 G — the gravitational strength of the Naya Gyaan homeworld, and thus the standard setting on both its military and merchant marine fleet. It is roughly twice as strong as Chhota Chandrama's gravity, and thus you now weigh twice as much as you did when you first woke up this morning — twice as much as you've weighed for the last several months, actually. You have no idea why the Sanrakshak are being so cautious with you, as if you pose a security risk; you'll be lucky if you can walk unassisted here, at least for a day or two.
  
  The bay door closes shut like a silent clamshell, and then the room is filled with a breathable atmosphere. Out of the silence, the sound of a warning klaxon rises with the air pressure.
  
  "Please remain in your vessel."
  
  This is a new voice, male. Sublieutenant Ridney, maybe?
  
  "OK, I'm remaining!" you respond.
  
  "Thank you."
  
  Well, that's sort of an improvement. You watch as a door slides open and four people enter the landing bay, all wearing bulky hazmat suits with large, clear visors. Who exactly do they think you are? Where do they think you've been? They enter the bay, surround your pod. One sees you sitting in the control seat, comes up beside you, and leans in to look through the window.
  
  "Biped, female," he says, but not over the radio. You hear his voice acoustically, albeit muffled by his visor and the pod's canopy. "No signs of lesions."
  
  Lesions?
  
  The naval officer nods to an order you can't hear, and then he proceeds to open the hatch to your pod, which rotates up and out of the way. Nothing separates you from the man in the hazmat suit, and without a ridiculous get-up of your own you feel oddly underdressed.
  
  "Welcome aboard," he says through the visor. "My name is Vejohn Ridney, Chaandrian Navy. You are safe now."
  
  "Thank you!" you say as you start to slide out of your seat. "But I don't understand why everyone—"
  
  As soon your feet touch the deck and you try to stand, you crumple like a house of cards. It's just the gravity, but the recovery team must think you're sick. All four rush to your side, and one person holds your head while another shines a penlight into your right eye.
  
  "Subject is down! Subject is down!" Ridney shouts. "Requesting clearance to transfer subject to quarantine treatment zone."
  
  "Clearance granted." This voice is tinny and distant. It must be coming from an earpiece inside Ridney's helmet.
  
  As it turns out, a gurney has been waiting just outside the door. It is rushed to your side, and Ridney's team helps you onto it. You feel incredibly foolish, but considering the unmitigated disaster of your first steps in their ArtGrav perhaps this is for the best.
  
  Someone fits a mask securely over your face, and you can feel the oxygen rushing through it. You try to protest, but the mask makes it impossible to speak. Therefore you have no choice but to lie still and enjoy the ride. You've never been on a gurney before, nor have you ever been attended to with this level of frantic concern. The recovery team seems intent to get you to this quarantine area as quickly as possible, and they rush you out of the bay and down a corridor. All you can do is watch the ceiling lights as you roll underneath them. There is one left turn where you notice the other corridors are sealed off with plastic sheeting, and then a right turn as you are wheeled into a large room. Again, all you can really see from the gurney is the ceiling.
  
  "Doctor," Ridney says. "This one came in on a small cargo hauler we just recovered."
  
  "Symptomatic?" the unseen doctor says.
  
  "No visible lesions, but she collapsed as soon as we opened the hatch."
  
  "Bring her into the examination room."
  
  You are then wheeled into an adjacent room where Ridney and his people lift you from the gurney and transfer you to a metal table. The surface is cold and hard, but the head end is angled upward at a thirty-degree angle. This allows you to see your surroundings that much better. Their job completed, the recovery team takes the gurney and rushes back out of the room. From what you could tell, all four had been Naya Gyaan; if this really is some kind of quarantine zone, and there is a plague they are trying to protect themselves against, then you imagine their religious requirements for cleanliness must be causing them twice the anxiety.
  
  Their departure leaves you alone with the doctor, who you can see now is a white-haired woman, fair-skinned and most certainly not one of the Naya Gyaan. Instead of a hazmat suit, she wears only a cloth face mask over her nose and mouth, as well as a green smock above her military-issue slacks.
  
  Before anything else can happen here, you grunt to get her attention, and then point to the oxygen mask over your face. The doctor looks surprised, but she reaches over you to remove the mask.
  
  "Oh my heavens, that's so much better," you say.
  
  "You really don't need the mask, do you?" she says, her eyebrows furrowed as she looks you over.
  
  "No, thank you," you say. "I can breathe just fine."
  
  "But Ridney said you collapsed as soon as you tried to step out of your ship."
  
  "That's because I've been on Chhota Chandrama for the last four months."
  
  The doctor goes from surprised to confused. "You've been on Chhota Chandrama? For four months?"
  
  "Yes, I own a mine there. My company produces — produced titanium."
  
  "So you haven't been on Chaandria at all since the attack?"
  
  "No, ma'am." You may not like that word, but you know well enough how to address a military member.
  
  "Well that changes things. Don't leave this room. I'll be right back."
  
  True to her word, the doctor returns after being gone just a few seconds, this time holding a hypo-injector.
  
  "Let me see your left arm," she says, and you comply. "There is no inoculation, of course, but we've been finding quatrizine works well with asymptomatic patients."
  
  "An inoculation for what?"
  
  "The Locusts' biological agent, of course. That's how they were able to kill so many people so quickly. They attacked us through our lungs."
  
  > Next page.
  Hours pass in the sleeping area where the off-duty medical attendants take their rest. You're no medic, of course, but this was where the white-haired doctor wanted you to stay until the end of her shift, away from all of the other patients in quarantine. She introduced herself as Dr. Mary Redskeach, and she seemed curious to speak with you further. But there were over a dozen people in critical care here, with just a minimal staff to attend to them, so instead she withdrew some blood from your arm and promised to run tests while you rested. You weren't really tired, but your body clearly did need time to adapt to the ship's ArtGrav.
  
  It's not until 1930 hours ship's time — about four hours after your arrival — when Dr. Redskeach returns. She looks exhausted.
  
  "Four of them died this afternoon, one of them a six-year-old child," she says. "The rest probably won't make it either."
  
  "Who were they?" you ask.
  
  "A family from Naya Pune, trying to escape the Locust siege in a stolen cruiser. We recovered them two days ago, but they were already indicating lung failure."
  
  "Have there been a lot of survivors?" you say, with two people in particular on your mind.
  
  "Some, but not as many as we had hoped," Dr. Redskeach says, inviting you to sit next to her at a small table. It's just a few steps from your assigned cot, but you can't make the journey without holding onto the back of the chair.
  
  She regards you with tired interest: clearly exhausted, but also curious about the one healthy person to be "recovered" today.
  
  "So, Mrs. Ureste," she says, "you were on Chhota Chandrama all this time?"
  
  "Yes, myself and six other people. My former employees."
  
  "And where are they?"
  
  "Heading for Tyuu, as of mid-morning local time."
  
  "And you didn't go with them?"
  
  "No, ma'am. I have family back home."
  
  "Where?" she asks.
  
  "A jhabbe just outside Ummeed ka Shahar."
  
  "Oh." Her expression is flat, and not encouraging of much hope.
  
  "Was that area hit hard by the Iib Ch'iib?" you ask.
  
  "The who?"
  
  At that moment you remember that "Iib Ch'iib" was Rufus Tello's invented name. These people here, who were so much closer to the attack and who are still dealing with its emotional shock, haven't had the chance (or the inclination) to think of a more clever name.
  
  "The Locusts, I mean."
  
  "Ummeed ka Shahar was gassed as hard as any other city. But we've heard rumors there are pockets of survivors all over the planet. That's why the Commodore decided to stay a while longer, to rescue as many people as possible."
  
  "How is it this ship hasn't been attacked?"
  
  "This is a Chupake-class vessel, armed with all sorts of classified sensor-defeating technology. So far the Locusts haven't even realized we're here. Do you like coffee?"
  
  "Sure," you say. It's kind of late in the day, but whatever.
  
  Dr. Redskeach gets up from the table, walks down to the far end of the long, narrow room, and returns a moment later with two cups of coffee.
  
  "It's all synth, of course. If you want cream or sugar, it's right there."
  
  "Thank you."
  
  "So I'm just trying to understand your story, Mrs. Ureste," she says. "You were on Chhota Chandrama at the time of the attack... with how many people did you say?"
  
  "I had six employees with me."
  
  "And you said you sent them off to Tyuu today. So if you don't mind my asking, where were you going?"
  
  You're not quite sure how to answer in a way that won't make you sound out of touch with reality. Here she has been, holed up in a quarantined section of this stealth ship, hoping to recover and treat as many refugees from Chaandria as possible... with limited success, apparently. And here you are, picked up on your way to Chaandria.
  
  But the doctor is a smart woman, and when you hesitate to answer she pieces together the clues. "You were going to try and find your family, weren't you?"
  
  "My husband and my son, yes."
  
  "How old is your son?"
  
  "Five. He'll turn six in the month of Bhadra."
  
  "I see. Have you had any contact with them since the attack?"
  
  "We haven't had any contact with anybody since the first month. Once the wireless transmissions went silent, we had no idea what was going on anymore."
  
  "I'm afraid no one here is going to be able to tell you much, either. All we know is that the government fell on the second week, and we lost all contact with the last remaining Sanrakshak units on the third. So far as we know, we're all that remains of the military."
  
  "So how foolish was I for trying to go back?" you say.
  
  "Do you believe they are still alive?"
  
  "I have to. Or I thought I did. Maybe it was just some kind of closure I was seeking. I don't know anymore."
  
  Dr. Redskeach stares blankly at her coffee. For a moment you worry she is about to fall asleep sitting up. Then she looks up at you.
  
  "If I was in your place, I don't know what I'd do," she says. "Me, I know what happened to my family. I was on a video call with my husband, Narayan, the morning of the attack. He was home, and so were our two sons, both on holiday from university. Johan had even brought his girlfriend with him. They were all excited about the cricket match they were going to see that afternoon. A cricket match — how ironic, right?
  
  "But the first wave of the attack from these other crickets, the Locusts, snuck past all of our defenses. We didn't even realize that their ships were actually ships; they look like rocks, even up close, so Command thought that a handful of stray asteroids had drifted into the system. No big deal. Their first target was Bhagavaan ka Kila, the capital. Narayan never even saw it, because he had his back to the window talking to me. But I saw it: a flash of white light in the background, and the transmission went immediately dead. No one survived that one; we can see the burn mark where the city once stood every day as the planet spins around on its axis."
  
  "Heavens, that's horrible!" you say.
  
  She shrugs her shoulders weakly. "What can you do? Sometimes I think it was easier for them. The rest have had it worse. Much worse."
  
  "So what have they been gassing the planet with? You mentioned something about a biological agent before."
  
  "Mmm-hmm. It's a nasty little bug they've concocted for us, like they knew exactly how best to kill us. In small doses it might not be so bad, but they just unloaded it in mass quantities over each of the remaining major cities. Most people were dead within two weeks. The rest seem to be taking a little longer."
  
  "No one is going to survive?"
  
  "Maybe a small number will. There are a few of us who seem resistant to this strain. Myself, for instance, and all the other medics working in this quarantine area. Maybe 2.8% of the population, if our models are correct."
  
  "And what will happen to those people? The ones who survive?"
  
  "We have no idea," Dr. Redskeach says. "Right now