—. I remind you that damaging the ship's infrastructure is punishable under the General Penal Code of the Chronos, particurly by articles 257 and 258, with the aggravating factor of doing so under an isotion protocol... — the voice of EREBUS recited protocols insistently, while Max struggled to at least heat the surface of the hatch —... you risk the penalties listed in article 422 and following, leaving it to the captain's discretion to enforce... — but Max ignored him. Without a crew, that tirade was empty words. EREBUS did not have the authority to throw him out of the airlock. —. Come on, damn it. — he shouted over the screech of the beam, trying to make his way through the firm alloy. He had barely managed to redden the metal, but not even sparks were flying. The hypersteel was damn strong. No wonder they built the structure of the Starscrapers with it. Not even a cut was visible on the surface, just a burning mark that was slowly cooling down. Finally, Max gave up —. Damn it. — he ceased the effort and stepped back a few meters, hoping to at least see a mark. Besides the temperature, nothing, not even a bend. —. Max. — Padman tried to get his attention, but with the Psma Saw still on, the reluctant captain of the Chronos wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked at the marks of his futile work and prepared to charge once more —. Max, please, it's useless. — but the navigator's pleas fell on deaf ears as he ventured into a fourth attempt. —. I have to get us out of here, Padman. By any means necessary. — Max shouted over the incessant buzzing of the psma jet, struggling to cut. Five minutes ter, he had given up and realized it was pointless to try again. —. Your actions are endangering the crew. — EREBUS reiterated, and they had already lost count of how many times it had done so —. If you insist, I will notify the captain to take more drastic measures. — —. I am the acting captain. — Max barked, his face flushed with frustration and fatigue. —. I have not been notified of such a change. — EREBUS interrupted him —. I will consult with the captain. — —. The captain is dead! — he bellowed. —. That information is incorrect. — the AI retorted, with a passive-aggressive tone typical of machines —. Consulting the captain's RED; Matkovich, Sebastián. Current location: Operations Deck, Chronos Security Barracks, Sublevel four, Section D. — —. Damn piece of shit machine. — Max spat silently. —. Don't take it out on EREBUS, Max. It's not his fault. — Angelina defended her creation. —. It's not helping me, Doc. — but Zhang was right. EREBUS wasn't acting on its own. Someone had altered it, and Lucas Acosta had slipped away. Max thought that if he had the culprit in front of him, he would beat him to a pulp and throw him out of the airlock. They had taken away his home, his friends, his life, and his ship, all because of the madness of the fireflies. —. I must remind you that insisting on such actions means putting the entire crew at risk of death. Desist immediately. If you continue, a C-Sec team will be notified to take more severe measures. — —. C-Sec no longer exists! — Max interrupted —. The crew is dead because you allowed it. — —. That information is incorrect. — EREBUS insisted. —. I already know, damn it! — Max bellowed. Padman dropped his shoulders, and Angelina just shook her head. Satoshi was lying down, looking defeated —. The Phasmonates assimited it. That doesn't change the situation. — —. But to cim they are dead is incorrect. — few things were more frustrating than arguing with an AI. Because after all, EREBUS was right, to a certain extent. The crew was not dead —. I must fulfill the objective I have been programmed for. Protect the crew at any cost. — —. In case you didn't know, we are also part of the crew. — Max finally told him. The response? Absolute silence. Unintentionally, a smile appeared on the First Officer's face, which turned into a loud and triumphant ugh —. Don't you have anything to say? — and indeed, EREBUS said nothing. He had it in check —. I knew it. It is your actions that put us at risk. For the st time, EREBUS, activate protocol XJ—12—9 for omitting part of your programming... — —. I'm sorry. For the third time, I cannot do that. — Max felt like banging his own head against the wall —. Executing such a directive would put the crew of the Chronos in imminent danger. — they were running out of options, so Max did what he thought was right. —. Naomi, can you hear me? — he called her over the communicator —. Where are you? — —. The Hydroponics Cargo Zone, just behind the bulkhead. — —. Good. Go to the Medical Deck, take Jay Krishna's malware and bring it to the bridge, then to engineering, as we agreed. Finish the mission. — —. No. — she interrupted him —. I'm not leaving you behind. You are our captain, we need you. — —. You will have to do it, Naomi. De facto, you are the second in command, and therefore the captain. We have no way out of here. EREBUS will recite security protocols to the point of exhaustion. — she shook her head, frowning in the hologram —. Please, I order you. — —. Stop talking nonsense. I will find a way to get you out of there. — she insisted, but then Fundiswa intervened. —. The Air Filtration Towers connect to the Hydroponics. — —. That's true. — Echmann added —. Through the Maintenance Ducts of the Radiators. — —. As I can see, it is within the Isotion Zone. — Angelina indicated while consulting the schematics from her HoloPad —. The Composting Chamber separates us. There are no Pressure Bulkheads in that part, but it is at absolute zero. — —. And where would that route take us? — Max asked. —. Organic waste disposal. Oxygen Garden, then aeroponics. — she replied —. Finally, to the Main Sprout Chamber. — —. We will see you there. — Naomi assured. —. But what about the Temperature? — Sawatari asked. —. Our suits will hold up. — Max replied with a sense of resignation. He looked at the faces of his team, a mix of fatigue and weariness. He noticed the absence of warnings and threats from EREBUS. Whoever was controlling it was running out of options —. Can we walk there, Doc.? — Angelina nodded —. Well then, let's move. — As he put on his helmet, Max had a certainty. There was a traitor in their ranks, but who? They didn't know, but they were walking right where he or she wanted. As they returned through the Air Filtration Towers, Max ordered to activate the infrared on the helmets. His vision was tinted with a ghostly green as they advanced. To say they had spttered flesh on the walls was not doing justice to such a grotesque scene. They were inside a beast, where each organ, in reality, also ended up being a monster in itself.White, slimy worms like eels slithered between holes like beehives, forcing Padman to look away in the face of such trypophobic animosity. Creatures shaped like spiders, whitish and translucent, wandered back and forth. A tentacle, thick as a trunk, entered through a hole, coiling throughout the vastness of the conduit and ending up hanging like a puppet. It looked like a cross between a slug and a colossal liver. At first gnce, it seemed that one of the creatures had been martyred, as it hung agonizingly with its mouth open. But it only took a few minutes of observation to understand that the scene was not as it appeared. Those suffering creatures knew little of pain. The hanging slug had smaller mouths all over its body. Fairies, goblins, and creatures that didn’t even have names approached, carrying bundles, and from within emerged toothy stomachs that devoured the nutrients they brought with them. Sometimes they swallowed them whole, monster and all, but it didn’t matter, as they all were part of the forest. –Don’t just stand there, keep moving,– Max indicated through the communicator. A tremor forced them to stop when a wail, like that of a dying whale, echoed through the walls of the chamber. A tentacle slithered with a viscous, heavy sound, retracting towards the hanging slug. A procession of creatures carrying sacks of flesh followed, communicating with squeaks and grunts that sounded like a sick human. With his heart in his hand, Max stepped in front of his group, with the Psma Saw in hand, anticipating a confrontation. But the fireflies had little interest in them. A feast of 200 trillion souls awaited them in a decade and a half. And it would only be the appetizer for their insatiable hunger. They could wait. The RED of Chief Agricultural Engineer Xiuying Yueh awaited them a few meters ahead. They crawled down a trench of flesh that had once been a walkway, filled with lumps, vines, and pulsating brown and yellow tissue. The signal came from a stalk that blocked their path and could hardly be said to have a human shape. It was simply a tumor, with lumps swelling like balloons, slowly, amidst horrifying crunches and a sickly, wheezing hiss. –Isn’t there a detour?– Max asked quietly. –It’s the only way,– Angelina warned. –The other corridors are inaccessible.– –Well, we’ll have to go through here,– Max returned his gaze to his beleaguered crew, hoping to go first to set an example, but Satoshi stepped ahead. –I’ll tell you what’s on the other side.– One by one they passed, with the stalk brushing against the visors of their helmets. Max was the st, watching the rear. When it was his turn, he noticed that something resembling a face could be seen in the midst of the tumorous flesh. He could recognize a jaw, what remained of a nasal septum, and an empty eye socket. As he crawled and mented for that poor bastard, an eyelid opened, revealing a reddened, swollen eye with fully dited pupils. Startled, Max stopped, and he was sure Yueh was staring at him, with a vacant expression and his humanity completely diluted. The poor man was no longer conscious, but his body was still alive. It was enough push to move forward. Thus, Yueh would find rest, like all the victims of the fireflies, and humanity, a future. A freezing hell awaited them on the other side. The maintenance hatch of the Composting Chamber was white with frost. A warning could be read in red across the holographic sign. –Alert, catastrophic life support failure. Temperatures at Absolute Zero. Contact a maintenance team immediately.– As they entered the compartment, a pressure equalization cycle began. The ambient temperature rapidly dropped to 273 degrees below zero. When the airlock opened, a white mist entered along with a tsunami of oily, brown liquid that soaked them up to their knees. The suits barely registered it. –Liquid methane,– Max warned. –Be careful. The suit will protect us, though I don’t know for how long.– –There should be a dder to a walkway in the next twenty meters,– Angelina indicated. All the organic waste from the farms and the ship ended up there, in a virtuous circle that allowed the Chronos to be self-sufficient. They were stored in rge ponds, where they fermented and produced organic chemicals, such as alcohol, benzene, ammonia, and methane. But with the sabotage of Life Support, the ponds broke. The water turned to ice as hard as rock, and the gases from decomposition, in liquid form, whose surface was covered by solids that disappeared upon contact. The walls were so cold they could peel the skin off. As they advanced, the cold gradually made its way through. Then Max heard a ragged breath in his communicator. It was Padman, dragging his feet as the st of the group. As they climbed the dder that would take them out of that pit, Max stayed back to wait for him. At first, he thought there might be some failure with the suit, catastrophic in the short/medium term. But when he faced him, he realized he was sobbing. –Are you okay, Padman?– The navigator nodded reluctantly, as if he wanted to avoid the topic. Max invited him to go up first, and didn’t press the issue. When it was the First Officer’s turn, Padman extended his hand to help him up. As they moved along the walkways, the navigator finally spoke. –Do you remember when we snuck into engineering?– Padman asked with a hint of nostalgia in his voice. Max wrinkled his nose. –Why do you remember that?– –Just answer, please.– –Yes.– He had been aboard the Chronos for less than a year. Max and Lay were under Harding’s care. They were on their first journey to Lacaille 8760, which without hypersleep would take a lifetime. There were few kids their age on the ship. Padman, Sawatari, Daimonji, and Murat. The first two were born and raised on the Chronos, while Daimonji joined with his family. Lastly, Murat, like Max, was adopted. –There wasn’t much to do on the ship,– Max confessed. –At least in the habitat, yes,– he replied. –It’s forbidden to leave the drum unless it’s with me,– Harding warned them. And as teenagers, it was like an invitation to do so. The Chronos was full of secrets. The third where they were allowed to roam was like a small, compact city, with all the comforts to keep them from leaving. Virtual Reality games. An internal garden, education areas, and exercise machines. But the rest of the ship was like a haunted house and alien ruins governed by arcane technology, waiting to be discovered. –My mom says there are machines near the hydroponics, where they put poop and food comes out,– Daimonji would say amidst ughter. Max and Lay knew that quite well. When they lived with that bastard Milosz in the atomic crab, the Penami bars were their only sustenance. But they didn’t understand the process, how the molecules were dismantled like bricks to then be assembled into something edible. Protein cakes, brownies with strange but delicious fvors, or nutrients for the protein farms, which did know how real meat tasted. At least that’s what Harding said. That’s why they sneaked around like stray cats, through the maintenance conduits, to explore the unknown areas of the ship, which according to the adults were forbidden.—. Do you remember the beating we got when Sawatari got inside a replicator? — Max managed to let out a ugh at the memory of the navigator. —. Thank God it was an anecdote and not a tragedy. — Max replied. Luckily, he ran to accuse them, and Angelina was there on duty, supervising the software of the Replicators. Who knows what metaphysical horror would have happened to her if the machinery had activated, and what would have come out on the other side. There they told the legend of Chamber 12. A crew member was performing routine maintenance when that thing turned on. They managed to recover something from the other side, but it could hardly be said that thing was a human being. They never activated it again, for to this day teratomas with teeth, eyes, and hair emerged, miserably alive. They believed it as adults even, until Max found out, being an Engineer, that Chamber 12 was simply outdated and no longer functioned. It was an effective method to scare curious kids. —. I’m sure Sawatari thought of going down to Engineering. — Padman added. —. Wasn’t it Lay? — when he mentioned her name, the navigator grimaced, as if he didn’t know what Max was talking about —. She told us they had a time machine near the reactor. She was referring to the miniature Bck Hole. — —. Yeah, whatever. — Padman concluded —. The point is, I don’t know how we got this far. — Murat had learned the rotation of C-Sec shifts and then they got on the elevator during a three-minute downtime. They didn’t count on EREBUS following them. They managed to get into the control room when Akang Obambè, the then head of engineering, paralyzed them with an Reverse Field before knowing what the hell was going on —. We weren’t even close to the engine. — he mented. They ended up in C-Sec, where Harding and Angelina scolded them equally, while EREBUS recited the safety protocols. At that moment, they hated the AI because it treated them like children instead of almost adults, as Max and the others felt. There, it made an attempt at a horror story, expining what would happen if they fell into a bck hole the size of a proton. They had never felt so horrified at the idea that a simple prank could literally end humanity, by causing the bck hole to grow disproportionately, with nothing in the universe able to stop it. —. We never snuck out again. — Padman finished. They were exiting through the airlock when Satoshi wanted to join the conversation. —. My dad used to tell me to go to bed early, because the Nightflyers would kidnap me at night. — Padman managed to ugh at the idea —. Until I was 16, I was afraid of the Starscrapers. — —. Although he wasn’t entirely wrong. — Angelina added —. Other Nightflyers did kidnap people. — as a kind of warning. The conversation died from that point. They didn’t take long to return to reality upon exiting the Composting. The decay of the hallway quickly greeted them, completely consumed by the Pgue of the Fireflies. Stems had broken the pipes, and clumps and stems of sick flesh emerged from the ground, the ceiling, and the walls, coiling around the flickering lights and ducts. —. Why was it that you remembered that, Padman? — Max asked him quietly, before becoming the captain again. —. Because the Chronos will never be the same again. — he decred with a slight tremor in his voice, unable to take his gaze off the nightmare that spread across the ship —. If we succeed, the ship’s atmosphere will burn, and we might burn with it. It’s very likely we’ll also be blown to bits. All those memories we had on board, the deaths of our comrades won’t mean anything. — —. It’s up to us to make them mean something, Padman. We must finish this, for them. — he tried to motivate him. —. Yes, you’re right. — —. There’s something ahead. — Angelina noted, as she stopped at the crossroads, slowly. She turned to look at them. A look of surprise and suspicion was drawn on her face —. The REDs of Soren Petrescu and Tomi Hanazawa. They’re alive. Weak vital signs, but they’re alive. — —. There are others too. — Padman indicated —. Singh, Bromstein, and Janhonen. They might need help. — and before he could prevent it, Padman was already running towards the Cultivation Chamber. A dark thought crossed Max’s mind. Just because they were alive didn’t mean they were whole, or recognizable. The fireflies had taught him such a thing. They found a nightmarish scene. It was like walking in the middle of a colonoscopy. There were no longer any signs that there had been a hydroponic farm. Instead, stems of flesh sprouted from every corner, and in the middle of the room, a sinister organic sculpture. As they advanced, a disgusting miasma saturated their nostrils, vioting their souls with an indescribable stench. They were once people, but it seemed that an unknown force took the bodies, disfigured them, and molded them to shape that vilely living aberration. There were not even faces, arms, or trunks. They were a mass of swollen, mutited, scattered, and fused bodies, as if the hosts were nothing more than cy and clung hanging to the walls, taking the form of a grotesque living wall. However, two tormented souls could be recognized, fused in a final embrace, or what remained of them. Engineer Petrescu, and Nurse Hanazawa, barely recognizable, fused to the fireflies like simple agonizing bricks. Unable to die, unable to scream. It was then that Padman Sarraf fell to the ground and broke into tears.