"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I screamed.

  People were staring at me, and I realized right away that: 1) I wasn't dead, and 2) I wasn't alone. I stood in the third row of an assembly of the Outer System Alliance, surrounded by delegates from the ships that had flown to Umbilicus Station. I must have drifted off and into another nightmare.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around. An aiways I didn't recognize, a man who had given himself male pattern baldness so that he had a halo of brown hair and a receding hairline, had patted me on the shoulder. He gave me an understanding look, and by his badge, I could tell he had seen battle and died many times. Not as many as me, but enough to understand the lasting trauma.

  It's not like we go around screaming all the time, but in a room full of Alliance Starmada soldiers, I was in good company. They weren't looking at me like I was hallucinating or broken. They were wondering which death I was remembering, and they were probably thinking about the death that had been haunting them.

  As if screaming wasn't enough to draw attention, Boom was sitting next to me, its eerie black form somehow awesome and terrifying at the same time. A few empty seats were next to the doomer robot, not surprisingly. I stood out, and if the rumors @horus had shared were true, people were scared of me as well. I was unstable, and yet somehow still the captain of one of the most dangerous ships in the solar system.

  Fine. Let them stare. I was dangerous.

  I was wearing my Vanquisher armor, the black set with the dark red streak down the front left. I had set aside the Infiltrator armor I had taken from @clonedog. I was a Vanquisher after all, and with the outbreak unfolding, I was more likely to be Vanquishing than sneaking around. Frankly, I also didn't want to flaunt the Infiltrator armor set in front of the wrong people. I didn't know if the Alliance Starmada would force me to give it up.

  I had another reason as well. I was planning to bestow the armor to @zerogstar if she did, indeed, want to become a Worm. In my head, it all made sense. @auroraloon didn't have a Worm. So what if she was Solar Union? She could stay on Oblivion, and she could take on @zerogstar as her apprentice.

  Only a few problems with that plan. I needed @zerogstar to be reanimated, I needed to find @auroraloon, and The Pharaoh was still missing. I didn't have any of my original crew. That's what really bothered me. I felt like my time as a Vanquisher was largely spent just trying to find lost crew members.

  I should stop letting them leave the ship, I laughed to myself. Maybe I would have been better suited to an Infiltrator's more solitary life. Or maybe I should have stayed a lonely Wavepilot.

  We don't always get to choose where life takes us, though. On a life that could be forever, I've tried to accept that there will always be time for something different. Maybe I'll be a gardener in a future life and grow tomatoes. Who wouldn't want a tomato, something fresh and pure you can eat?

  Zombies. Zombies don't want tomatoes.

  So, for now, I had to be a Vanquisher of zombies.

  We were gathered for a briefing and instructions on what to do next. By now, everyone was aware of the system-wide outbreak of the zombie virus we had discovered on Starlab 41665.1, but how to deal with it and who was responsible were still unclear.

  News came in of evacuations, but after initial contact, some of those evacuated ships went dark on us, leading us to believe they had been overrun. Most of the smaller colonies where the outbreak was reported had also gone completely dark, all but confirming what I had believed from the Pit, that the overtaken were capable of jamming communication systems at progressively wider and wider ranges as more aiways were infected.

  To stop the spread, imposing a quarantine made the most sense, but it would be hard to enforce if we couldn't communicate clearly with people in the quarantine zone.

  The biggest point of contention, from what I'd heard, was who was responsible.

  I failed at that part of my mission. I had blindly accepted the idea that the Solar Union was responsible. Instead of questioning who, I was looking for where. I was looking for Repulser.

  In my defense, @bronzelion and @moonqueen were Burners. Everyone at the Starlab appeared to be with the Solar Union. Oblivion and the Valkyrie ships were Solar Union warships. All signs pointed to the Solar Union.

  But then the peace talks were disrupted, and it wasn't just the Outer System Alliance envoys who were attacked. Everyone was attacked. To the best of our knowledge, all the envoys on both sides were either dead or overtaken. The fleet that had flown by to collect me was from both sides of the war, an evacuation force that included ships from the peace talks on Ceres.

  I knew more than most of the aiways in the assembly, but @horus made it clear that I shouldn't share details about my mission or what I had seen outside of specific briefings. Now he wanted me nearby, but I figured it was mostly because of Oblivion, not me.

  I hadn't said a word to anyone yet about The Machine. If @horus had learned about that, I'd probably be deleted permanently, and Oblivion would be on a rampage until it was destroyed. I did wonder, however, what I might say to my crew. They needed to know, didn't they? It would freak them out. I was already freaked out enough that I tried to pretend it hadn't happened, that I hadn't accidentally merged my consciousness with an AI-based starship.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Denial?

  Maybe. But that's for me and my broken brain to work through.

  A chill ran through me as I pondered The Machine. I didn't want to do that again, but at the same time, I wanted badly to do that again.

  But the chill, I decided, wasn't from my thoughts. It was from this cursed old space station that had been long abandoned.

  Umbilicus space station was 219 years old, originally built back in UC71 (Origin Year 2123). It was a holdover from the peaceful days when we were Innies and Outies, its name referring to the belly button. Cute, right? Well, the war ended all that, and it hadn't been kept up to date. Both sides recognized it as a protected historical site. Only a meager presence of cleaning bots and maintenance droids were here. And not even system-wide authorities like the Celestial Customs and Commerce Commission (4C) could operate out of Umbilicus.

  In other words, it smelled like burnt dust and clanked loudly, with too many hinges and older metalwork. The space station ran off solar power and was optimized to be cold, dark, and empty of life. When we arrived, a support team had to pump up the heaters. But at least it was clean.

  "This place is so fucking cold," I muttered to Boom, "and it smells like burt dust."

  The robot swiveled its oval head at me. "Heaters are maintaining an internal temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The airflow is good. These are ideal conditions."

  It clearly had no empathy. Ideal for a robot, sure.

  "I'm cold-blooded. I need it warmer."

  "You are a warm-blooded aiways," Boom replied.

  I was getting nowhere with Boom. Maybe it could be friends with Oblivion.

  The biggest advantage of Umbilicus was that it had ample space to keep Burners and Darksiders away from one another. It sported large gathering areas like the one we were in, and no one - I mean, no one - would start a battle on Umbilicus. This was a special place, once the largest space dwelling for humanity (humans and aiways alike), and the launchpad to the outer solar system.

  We were in an auditorium that could have held 21,000 people easily. Why our small group of about 1,000 was meeting here was probably a matter of nostalgia. The auditorium has been used for sporting events, shows, and major ceremonies across the solar system back in its prime. I even attended an event here myself back in UC103 during a break between mining assignments. It was a concert by Superstatic Comatose, an indy rock band. That still ranks in my top five all-time shows.

  It's weird returning to a place a few hundred years later, 187 years later to be precise.

  As the auditorium filled, I tried to make the most of the situation. The chairs were pretty cushy, and this made for good people-watching. I spotted some Infiltrators, Thunder Ops, Gravity Rangers, Quantum Cavalry, Bombardiers, Skidpilots, Comet Drivers, Biodatascientists, Medics.

  I even spotted a Shade, which was like the ultimate prize for an Infiltrator. I swear they can teleport or duplicate themselves or something. I squiggled in my chair. Don't mess with Shades.

  I was a little surprised to see @glitchmaker. I hadn't expected to see Wavepilots. We were an afterthought in the best of times. Maybe he had landed a promotion, too. I waved in his direction, but he didn't see me. Or maybe he had. Boom and I were hard to miss. Given my reputation, he might just be avoiding me.

  Meh. I shook it off. I could reach out to him after the gathering was over.

  I looked around and saw even more Wavepilots entering. In fact, it seemed like the group assembled was mostly Wavepilots. That blew my mind. I guess there were just so darn many of us. Of them, I mean.

  But it makes sense, I thought. Wavepilots would be the safest out there in the solar system right now, just sitting there, completely isolated, completely unexposed to outside contact, completely unexposed to the virus. Who would have thought that my fellow death-pilots would be the ones with the highest survival rate? How ironic?

  The ones who die get to live.

  I chuckled to myself. Good for us. I still considered myself among their number, in spirit if not by rank.

  The auditorium seemed nearly full now. I had hoped more Vanquishers would show up. The Vanquisher forces, called Dominion, were going to meet up sometime after the assembly, but I hadn't had a chance to meet any in person yet, having been thrust straight into the job like an eager fool. My eyes floated about the room, trying to locate anyone wearing the same armor or with a dark red V on their arm that would signify my rank.

  I found two. No idea who they were. A man, taller and bigger than me, with curly black hair. A woman with short brown hair and a stern face. She saw me looking and stared at me, expressionless. She knew who I was already, clearly.

  While we held eye contact, I pinged their badges to see who they were.

  The man was @starlander. He served closer to Ganymede and Sovereign Starbase. We had probably been in close proximity, maybe had even met accidentally. But he wouldn't have paid attention to a Wavepilot. We were just on Sovereign Starbase to be reanimated, nothing more than a fly to brush aside.

  The woman was @killercobra, a Vanquisher for 67 years, well respected. She lived up to her name. She was part of the group that fought near Ceres, in the heart of the war.

  I was immediately jealous of their names: @killercobra and @starlander. I needed to rebrand if I was going to be taken seriously. Who's going pay attention to @kittyboy?

  @killercobra finally nodded at me and turned her attention back to the center stage. Hmmm. I took that as a good sign. Maybe everyone here didn't hate or fear me, after all.

  That was when I spotted @sundial entering the assembly from above me and to my left. She wasn't under my command. If she had been, I would have wanted her with me, one more person I cared about who would be safely tucked away with me on Oblivion. That never would have flown with her, though. She was enjoying her new freedom as an Infiltrator.

  Her first act of independence was making her armor look like a sundress, which we both found hilarious. @sundial in a sundress. We had tried out a number of configurations, tweaking the settings to make custom sets on our journey to Umbilicus. Today, she was taking the joke further, sporting a sundress that literally looked like a softly shining sun. She achieved the shine by making the nanobots of her Infiltrator armor glow, hiding her body, while showing off the sun. It was pretty fucking cool.

  I was grateful that @sundial's entrance drew the eyes of the room, people's faces pulled toward the gravity of her glowing sun as she sauntered to her place, taking attention away from Boom and I. Other Infiltrators accompanied her. I wished she was shimmering at my side, but I was glad she had found Infiltrators other than @awesomedog to befriend.

  I was a little jealous, though. It would have been cool to be sitting with other Vanquishers. I figured the Infiltrators spend so much time alone that they relish the opportunity to come together. Good for them.

  Static over the old intercom system drew us all back to the event at hand.

  Oh, that's right. Zombies. War. Death.