“No,” the Cube said. “I am … me. I do not fully understand what you are asking, but your assumption that I am speaking as a conduit is incorrect. My thoughts are my own and I vocalize them as I feel necessary.” Jackson stood silently for a moment, trying to work through the various scenarios the cryptic answer pointed to. As he eliminated them one by one and the realization of what he was likely dealing with sank in, he gave an involuntary shudder from the cold chill that swept through his body.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered before backing up a few steps to collect his thoughts. He knew the smartest thing would be to march back to the lift, inform Admiral Pitt of his suspicions, and then be on his way back to Earth before anyone had time to drag him in any deeper than he already was. He’d left all this behind, damnit! He’d served and had done his part. It wasn’t his responsibility anymore and there had to be better, smarter people available to handle it.

That’s what he’d do. Just walk back the way he’d come, give a brief, concise statement, and then firmly request he be taken back home. Easy.

“So what do I call you?” Jackson asked with resignation, walking back to the Cube.

Chapter 2

Four years later …

“Steady as she goes,” Senior Captain Celesta Wright said, her voice calm. “Prepare for orbital insertion. We’ll wait for the formation to catch up there.”

“Preparing to make orbit, aye,” the helmsman replied. “Engines answering zero thrust.”

Celesta smiled at the word “thrust,” a term that was no longer always accurate when describing the product of her starship’s engines. The Phage War had exacted a terrible price on humanity, but the silver lining of that black cloud was that they’d been violently shaken out of their centuries-long complacency. Advancements were coming fast and furious now and her ship, the Starwolf-class destroyer, Icarus, was among the first to receive the next generation starship engines: a space-warping reactionless drive similar to what the Phage had employed against them.

The new systems were in their infancy, but already the Icarus was able to demonstrate she had a marked advantage during the trial exercises even in scenarios in which she was pitted against up to three other vessels. Human scientists had known how to modify gravity for hundreds of years; it was one of the base principles their warp drives operated on and every ship had stable artificial gravity for the crews. Until the war there just hadn’t been a push to move away from the reliable and predicable thrust engines.