<Comm. Arctus Talley-I-32:> No one will see this. The soldiers have come, and they’re not letting any survivors leave. They’re running tests on ichor. Something we did during extraction released the illness. So far, it seems to lodge in patient’s respiratory systems. Not contagious, but Octavia worried about possible mutation. She made the mistake of putting that in one of her files. I saw them shoot her. Kicked her into a mass grave like she was so much rubbish.

None of us will make it off this rock. But I have nowhere to go. Not now.

We’re all a fucking experiment. They’re taking most of the ichor off planet—don’t know where—but they’ll come back for the rest. They’ll put me down in the mine before they go. We’ll have some automated meals, me and two of my cohort. We’ve lasted longer than the others. They want to see how much longer it will take. I suppose the Oracle will take notes as we die.

May the God of Death punish everyone who took this off-planet.

Cato stared at the projection in disbelief. “This isn’t possible.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, they wouldn’t do something like this. I’ve seen any number of plagues and illnesses, and quarantine is common even if it doesn’t seem contagious. But the Empire wouldn’t just leave them here.”

Nyx’s laugh was dry. “So, what, we hallucinated those bodies down there? Wake the fuck up, pilot. The Empire doesn’t care about you any more than they cared about the people on this planet. We’re all expendable.”

“Nyx,” Eris chastised. Like Nyx, Cato reminded Eris too much of what she had been like before becoming so close to Xander. Blindly following orders. Believing everything she had ever been told. She didn’t even have the Oracle as an excuse—it was brainwashing, pure and simple. “I’m going to tell you something you won’t want to hear, Cato.” She nodded to the projection, paused on Talley’s gaunt frame. “This is what it looks like when you don’t have programming to tell you what to feel and how to think. When they don’t make you forget. You have nothing to explain away your emotions, or tell you that the Empire’s reasoning is infallible. Every battlefield you ever saw had some atrocity covered up in your mind. Perhaps you’ve seen them in nightmares.”

A flicker of shock showed in his features. “No.” He shook his head once. “No. Those aren’t real.”

Like a child, Eris thought, learning the world for the first time. The Oracle kept everyone naive.

“I wish they weren’t,” Eris said. “But these people are real, and they were left here to die. You’re not dreaming this.”

Cato shut his mouth.