Faster than our own evolution, technology advanced by leaps and bounds. Human minds retained prehistoric instincts, such as expecting a fertile valley rather than oppressive metal corridors. So the Starscrapper's living module was designed as such. One—block—long linked modules have been transformed into intricate residential towers with carefully arranged internal gardens. The design was configured to give the impression of a rger space rather than the oppressive warehouse it could have been. The light tried to resemble the sun as much as possible, changing with sunrise, sunset and dusk. Even at night it tried to resemble the moon. Watering cycles were designed to mimic rain. Most of the crew somehow expected water to fall from the sky, even though they had never experienced it.

  Slowly, the hum of the irrigation system stopped. The living module was suddenly silent again. The orange light of Lacaille 8760 slowly faded behind Lohengrin, and the shadows inside the module lengthened. The glow of the artificial sun from the walls indicated that it was morning.

  At this hour, the bustle of the crew going to their respective decks should have been the norm. But there was no one. The sounds of the ship, the glow of the systems, the occasional conversation and the HoloPads had been repced by murmurs, amorphous screams and the yellowish glow of the fireflies.

  Chronos had ceased to be home to the crew. The creatures had taken up residence on the ship like unwelcome guests, gradually changing the environment. The remnants of the sughter remained, amid stains of blood and brown slime. Straggling infected wandered about, their bodies swollen and deformed by the Lohengrin pgue. Their stumps had been repced by yellowish growths that clumped together, dissolving what little humanity they had left. They babbled and mumbled repeated phrases. Secrets whispered to them by the fireflies. Revetions. A certainty.

  —. The light is coming. — They repeated those who still had something resembling a mouth, and in a low voice they echoed those words, some clearly, others in a shapeless babble, but whose meaning was clear —. They are coming back. We will all shine. We will be fireflies. —

  And the fallen clung to their miserable existence. Yellowish tendrils began to grow from the fairy's shattered corpse in all directions, like roots searching for water. Within hours, the monster had been transformed into a sinister piece of organic art. Bulges of vascur tissue appeared through the stumps of its head, limbs and the hole in its belly. The fireflies would find a new purpose for their fallen servant. No one dies in the forest, for in the forest everyone shines.

  With a terrible crack, jets of yellowish slime oozed violently from the structure. The wandering goblins writhed and groaned in agony, all in hideous harmony. One of them colpsed. Its limbs shattered and fell, while its flesh melted into a yellowish mass that pulsed and took root.

  And just a few meters away from this nightmare, fifteen levels above, a small remnant of the crew was hiding. One of the ship's galleys had become their refuge. The good times, the shared ughter, the barbecues, the clinking gsses and the smell of cigarettes were left behind. Desperation and a fleeting hope were in every corner, like a tangible presence.

  When Max entered, the rec hall he knew was barely recognisable. The view of the garden was blocked by barricades and nailed and welded sheet metal. Sleeping bags were piled around an ultraviolet mp, as if it were a bonfire they approached in search of light and warmth.

  A mixture of odours soon hit his nostrils. Humidity. Sweat. Fear. Faces were gssy-eyed, cklustre, with dark circles that betrayed a ck of sleep. Max shuddered at the sight of the crew's st bastion and wondered, "Is this all that's left?

  Twelve figures huddled inside the shelter, waiting for safety. Among them, Max recognised Yakiv.

  –. That should be enough. – His voice sounded much younger than I remembered. But his wiry neck and strands of grey hair peeking through his brown hair told me he was approaching mid—life.

  High cheekbones and a broad nose betrayed some forgotten Svic ancestry, and his eye sockets were like two craters where his cold blue eyes watched with a certain distance and suspicion. His short but sturdy frame, his broad shoulders, showed that he had been sculpted by the high gravity of Lohengrin.

  The man was busy organising their meagre arsenal. A shotgun and two psma pistols were their pitiful firepower. The rest were tools converted into weapons. A few wrenches, crowbars, short—range tissue sers, a cannibalised hydrazine torch used as a fmethrower, and of course the psma saw Max had brought with him.

  A heavy hand stacked one of the pistols in its pce. He was assisting Yakiv with his task, and Max quickly recognised him. His unmistakable sheriff's posture. A prominent belly that he made no attempt to hide. Brown hair, hawk—like eyes and a prominent beard. Chief of Security Daniel Harding.

  –. XO. — Harding held out his massive hand and they greeted each other as their eyes met —. How are you? –

  —. A bit patched up, as you can see. As much as possible. — A weak ugh found its way into his smile.

  The handshake soon turned into a hug without them noticing. And for Max, Harding was more than just the head of security for Chronos. He was the closest thing to a father he had in the crew.

  If anyone had made Max the man he was today, it was Harding. From memorising and understanding the ship's regutions, the unwritten codes and norms, the body nguage to command respect, even the mastery of mixed martial arts, he owed it all to him.

  Daniel Harding might appear to be stubborn. But Max knew better than to take him lightly. He had seen his punches first hand. He was always amazed at the way he lifted his legs to deliver spinning kicks, as light as a dancer. In the ship's dojo, of course, and not as the usual unruly crew member. He couldn't forget how the old man had knocked out troublemakers much bigger than him without so much as a ruffle in his hair. You don't want to have him as an enemy.

  —. I'm gd you're back, Max. We thought the worst. — he confessed in a warm and sincere voice. Max gave him a few pats on the shoulder in return.

  —. Same here. When I woke up in medical, I thought everyone was, you know... — the lump in his throat prevented him from finishing the sentence. The mere thought of his companions, his dear Naomi, covered in that yellowish slobber oozing from their pores, sent shivers down his spine.

  —. Yeah. — Harding stepped forward —. There aren't many of us left. Come on, I'll introduce you to the rest. —

  —. I already know you. — Yakiv said quickly as he held out his hand. There was a certain suspicion in his tone —. We spoke in the brig. —

  —. Of course, how could I forget. — he replied. Max felt almost disarmed by the mere handshake. Yakiv had been trying to warn him about something. The creatures he would encounter when he woke up. A phantom pain appeared under his knees. The screeching of the ser against the metal walls. The acrid smell of charred flesh in his nostrils. The blood. The screams. His own screams imprinted on every nerve ending in his nervous system. He shuddered and tried to push the unpleasant memory away for a few minutes.

  There were only a few crew members left, besides Harding and Naomi. Among them was Murat Ayatev, second in charge of security. With him was Glenn Lexner, the youngest of C—Sec. Finally, there was Gavin Mendoza, who greeted Max with a firm, if shaky, handshake.

  OPS and Logistics Chieff Officer. The most vital processes of the ship passed before his watchful eyes. Oxygen recycling, air quality, saturation and filtration, resource management and the technical control of the ship's pulse. If there was an outbreak of flu on the ship, Gavin would be the first to know, before anyone else, even medical. So it must have been a nightmare for him to be reduced to a mere bystander as the ship fell apart.

  —. We're in over our heads, Max. — It was the closest thing to a greeting. —. That smell, like rotten eggs, can you feel it? —. he insisted, shaking and dragging his words out. —. Something must be blocking the air filtration towers. Life support is going to hell. We won't be able to breathe in a few days or hours. It's over, there's nothing we can do! —

  —. We'll find a way. — Max replied and patted him on the shoulder. He had to hold his position. First officer. Second in command. The right hand of Captain Matkovich, whom he couldn't see anywhere. The position was his: acting captain. But he felt it didn't quite fit him, like a shoe that was too big. And at that moment, Harding seemed to be the boss.

  And that was all. It was a bit disappointing. The rest were colonists and passengers, all caught up in the same nightmare. Yakiv was a mechanical engineer in the nickel mines of Lohengrin. His wife was Ayna Kumar, a computer technician. They had a son, Artyom. Since they lost control down there, they had never seen him again. He had fallen prey to the fireflies.

  With them came a young police officer. Christopher Satoshi. He followed Harding, Ayatev and Lexner like a puppy dog. They had formed a de facto remnant of C—Sec aboard the ship.

  The other was Biagio Anatoly, Pnetary Engineer. He was in charge of the pnet's terraforming projects, which, with any luck, would begin to take effect in 300 years. But that future was cut short by the appearance of the creatures and their insidious glow. Finally, there was Limona Wu. The st soldier of the Lohengrin Colony Guard. He witnessed how even the Special Forces couldn't stop the violent emergence of this unknown threat.

  The st two were passengers. Oscar Novak, a middle—aged AI psychologist. A profession with a misleading name. More than just listening to robots talk, he tried to predict their behaviour. Delih Corrick was an entomologist who wanted to recreate the Martian experience in Lohengrin. She couldn't. Both were woken from hypersleep to find themselves in a nightmare.

  There were once more than 12 survivors. There were several attempts at resistance throughout the ship, in short and violent skirmishes. The numbers gradually dwindled until the gunfire was repced by screams, then silence. The barricaded crew were consumed by the pgue.

  Harding's party took refuge in the medical deck. But morale was falling fast, and the creatures lurked constantly. Without meaning to, they lost ground and retreated, eventually taking refuge in the Intensive Care Unit. Desperation was so great that they pced stretchers of dying wounded at the doors. Nothing could be done, for without the replicators there were no medical supplies for proper treatment. The die was cast.

  To call it a sughter would be an utter understatement. The monsters erupted from the air ducts, the ceiling, the floor and the walls themselves, like a sinister yellow tide that swept away everything in its path. They couldn't get Max out in time, so Harding pced a stretcher outside his recovery room and prayed those things wouldn't find him. Three days ter he woke up and the rest is history.

  Of the stragglers who made it to the second shelter, not all could withstand the madness that ensued. A colonist named Yargan Ahmed, wielding the Magnetic Hammer, had a brilliant, or stupid, idea. He thought of nothing better than to use the monsters swarming around the garden as moving targets.

  Alben Harris of Hydroponics tried to reason with him. The answer he got was a shot to the face. This plea for silence seemed to be enough provocation. Before he could think what he was doing, Harding had three bullets in his body. The two bodies were unceremoniously thrown down the rubbish chutes.

  Jean and Yui were a married couple. They committed suicide the next morning after locking themselves in. Harding, Wu and Lexner had left the shelter to get a cache of tools. They saw them fall at their feet. They jumped from the shelter to certain death, too fast to avoid it. There were no signs. There was no conversation. In an instant, they threw themselves into the void.

  Yui died instantly. Her face hit a pnter. Jean did not suffer the same fate. His feet were twisted like a pretzel, and the bones of his hips protruded amid the gushing blood. As Lexner vomited like a water tap, Harding ended his misery with a shot to the head. A few goblins took the bodies away minutes ter, but the bloodstains remained. That was the reason they blocked the windows.

  William Barnett was next. With his head fried by the fireflies, he let a fairy walk by. He was convinced it was Stelle Dubois from Engineering, and it was, although she was not the same as before. Within seconds, the monster took the lives of Jacob Brendal, Mariana Kim and Barnett himself, before Naomi and Harding could bring it down. The mutited bodies were stuffed into a bag and thrown down the chute.

  The st to fall was Ibrahim Parker, a passenger. Just before they found Max, they left the shelter for a spacewalk around the module. Waste was piling up and something was blocking them from the outside. An excursion was necessary if they didn't want to drown in their own shit. The cause was a tumour the size of an escape pod, growing who knows how on the ship's hull. It hit Ibrahim with a tentacle that appeared out of nowhere. A spark formed in his oxygen tank, then ignited like dry straw in his own suit.

  It was impossible to save him. They used a repair drone with a ser to rip off the clinging tumour and jettison it. Its rotational inertia ensured that it was thrown into a slow fall, the same one to which Parker was doomed. There was no time to mourn the loss as they had to seal the breach in the hours that followed. Under the weight of the dead, Max was not so hungry.

  Breakfast consisted of (fake) scrambled eggs, served on an insuting foam tray, and a cup of instant coffee. There was also a chocote—fvoured protein brownie with a dense texture. However, in that brief moment of calm, this bnd food seemed to be the most delicious thing his tired body had ever tasted.

  An inexplicable feeling of peace settled over him like a warm embrace. For a few seconds, the nightmare that surrounded him disappeared and he convinced himself that he was in an Orphans of the Void space station in orbit around Mars. They shared stories or anecdotes, their own reasons for ending up there and what the future might hold for them. It was the gateway to the life he and Naomi had imagined together, and yet now it seemed out of reach.

  Far from this fantasy, reality closed its jaws and crushed their fragile hopes. The Chronos was the only ticket out, and the fireflies had seized it. With their unsettling glow, they brought with them the false fabric that now grew through the corridors of the ship, absorbing everything in its path. They were the st of the crew. The others had been twisted and transformed by the fireflies for their own purposes.

  Could there be a more miserable fate? Their humanity diluted to nothing. And then he understood. The nightmares that had pgued them since Perceval were a dark omen. Then Max understood that the ship no longer belonged to them. Chronos was being swallowed up by the fireflies. Yellow—brown roots grew everywhere. They were the roots of the forest, and the monsters that wandered there were fireflies. The darkness that followed was only temporary, Max understood, for in the forest everyone is a glow—worm, and in the forest everyone glows.

  —. Are you ok? — Naomi's calm and gentle voice broke his delirium.

  —. Yes, everything is fine. — he replied without thinking, stumbling over his words and struggling to steady his voice. The trembling in his hands as he picked up the small cup betrayed his fear. His body had grown cold and his heart was pounding like a war drum in his chest. Cold beads of sweat surrounded his face and soaked his back as his breathing became bored and terror cwed at the edges of his consciousness.

  —. Actually, nothing is fine. — he confessed, breaking the fragile silence with a trembling, hesitant voice. What the hell is going on? Those things out there, have they been quarantined? Have they got something to do with these bloody fireflies? And what the hell are they? Aliens? Were they on the pnet? — The answer was silence. Slowly Max lowered his eyes and rubbed his hands nervously —. I just want answers. Something that makes sense, damn it. —

  Naomi's hands met his. Her soft touch was comforting against the heavy silence that filled the room. One by one they stopped eating. Yakiv was the first to break the silence.

  —. You saw the fireflies too, right? — he asked.

  —. Yes, we did. Since Percival, more or less. Shortly after the quarantine was announced. — Harding answered for Max.

  —. Well, that's how it all started. With these darn fireflies. It happened when some Volker miners went missing. The st transmissions were strange. They said they had found a 'forest' beneath the surface, along with some kind of indecipherable machinery. Strangely, shortly after that, we all started dreaming about a forest and those damn fireflies. —

  —. We couldn't escape them. — Ayna added —. Again and again. Night would come, you would close your eyes, and the same images. The same fireflies. The same forest. And then you would wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. —

  —. That's what happened to us. — Naomi pointed out.

  —. Then they began to appear. — Satoshi said, his voice heavy with the weight of his memories.

  —. Who? — Max asked him, although he already knew the answer.

  —. The ghosts. — Limona replied —. The miners. People we knew. They asked us to bring them back. Listen to the 'tree'. Follow the steps. Then we would all shine. We would all be fireflies. And when I tried to reach them, I would wake up. —

  —. I saw my father. — Satoshi added —. He was so close and yet so far away. I ran after him. I wanted to see him, but he slipped through my fingers, and then I stumbled. Only these fireflies were left fluttering around me, and then... —

  —. You had the feeling that something was watching you. — Max interrupted him —. Millions of eyes. It was like something was hiding in the forest. —

  —. Or the forest itself was alive. — Naomi added. The silence was telling. With his eyes closed, Max saw Lay in her orange space suit. She was stepping into the darkness of the forest. And no matter how hard he ran after her, he could never catch up. But there was something that didn't add up.

  —. And these monsters? — he asked — What do they have to do with it? —

  —. Everything. — Ayna replied, her voice tinged with sadness. —. The miners from our nightmares were infected by this thing. No one knows if they found it or if it just appeared out of nowhere. Some leaked reports spoke of "a being of pure light", "God", or "the one who dwells in the space between stars". Contact with Volker had been lost. The security team did not respond, so they sent the police. You may be wondering what happened to them? Well, they didn't come back, so they sent a detachment of Special Forces to sweep the pce. They didn't come back either. In the end, the Colonial Guard went after them, armed to the teeth. —

  —. And they didn't come back either. — Max concluded.

  —. No, they did, but only a few. — Yakiv corrected —. They were sick, apparently. They were oozing a yellowish slime everywhere, and they were babbling about the light. That only they could see it. Some were violent, so security killed them. The others were quarantined, but it didn't work. Suddenly there were translucent worms everywhere. They crawled into your mouth, and then everyone had the thing on them. The carriers became vicious. They killed those who were not infected. Those who lived to tell the tale suddenly had glowing worms inside their bodies and became like them, screaming the same nonsense. We called them 'the blind ones' because they saw nothing but light. —

  The image of the corpses being assimited by this mass of festering tumours haunted Max's mind. Those lying in the common room had taken root and did not appear to be dead. They were still breathing, and the sound spread through all the corridors of the ship, as if one were walking inside a huge beast.

  —. By the time they decred quarantine, it was too te. — Satoshi added, "Control was lost and the blind began to change. Within three days, they no longer even looked human. They were something else, but not people any more. They crawled and hunted the normal ones. We tried to kill them with fire, but the corpses kept growing. They took root. Eventually they swallowed the whole colony until it was unrecognisable. By the time we escaped, the growth (organic, of course) had turned into something else, but we didn't stay to see it. We had to get out as soon as possible or they would eat us too. —

  —. Sure. That's why you had to bring them on board, right? — Gavin shot back, not addressing anyone in particur.

  —. And what would you have done? — Yakiv replied — Wait for them to eat us? — Max had stopped paying attention, his thoughts consumed by the nightmare he had been living. The voices had called him by name, beckoned him. At first he did not recognise them, perhaps because he did not want to. A shiver ran down his spine as one voice became unmistakable: Lay.

  More than a decade across the void separated them, but her voice haunted him in his nightmares. As the group argued fiercely, colonists and crew alike, Max remained silent, struggling with the meaning, refusing to believe that his sister could have died so long ago.