She is silent, but something makes her eyes flood, makes her raise the mezcal bottle and drink deep again. ‘Nothing,’ she mutters.

I nod as I take the bottle. I told her about Moloney, but not about the corpses beneath our feet.

‘I’m sorry.’ I stagger to avoid a leg protruding from the sand. ‘I’m sorry about this. If it had not been for me, you would be—’

‘Dead,’ the General finishes, making a grab for the mezcal. ‘Augur was right, I have been dead since you found me, just delaying the inevitable.’

She takes a few weaving steps around something I can’t see. ‘Should have let the Commander do it,’ she says. ‘Would’ve got a funeral at least, a cremation. Never thought I’d go like this.’ She tips up the bottle, spilling most of it over her chin. ‘Eight commendations. Two of the highest order. Thought that would be my legacy. But now, I’ll be lost forever out here, with a convicted traitor, no family to remember me, no friends even…’

‘Still.’ I sway. ‘Better than drowning in a cesspit.’

She lets out a loud laugh and holds the bottle towards me, only to overbalance and land heavily on her side.

Fingers emerge from the sand like worms and crawl towards her. I grab the bottle first and her arm second, hauling her away from the reaching dead.

‘No,’ she groans.

‘Got to keep moving.’

‘… take orders from a Lifer,’ she babbles, her eyes rolling.

A corpse comes yawning out of the sand, and I stumble away from it. If we can just escape the dead, if only they would only stay dead, then maybe we can make progress.

‘Just a little longer,’ I mumble.

‘And then what?’ Moloney is ahead of us now, bending to examine an arm that crawls from the sand. He slaps it as it grips weakly at his leg. ‘I told you, there’s no way out. You have to wait for them.’

‘They’re here?’

‘Of course.’ The bandit slides a glance at the sky. ‘They made this place.’

I stop. Something has appeared on the horizon ahead of us; a black, crooked shape, like a ruined building or…

‘General.’ I shake her and her head lolls. ‘There’s a craft up ahead.’

When I look again, it seems to move further away.

‘No,’ I mutter. My body is disintegrating; with every step another cell blinks out of existence, and I can no longer carry the General. I let her crumple to the sand. But the craft is coming into view, just a bit further…

I stumble to a halt, letting out a cry. The craft is a wreck. Worse, it’s our wreck. It sprawls across the sand just as we left it, Moloney’s corpse slumped at the front. As I watch, the whole thing shifts, sliding across the sand with horrible slowness.

‘Told you,’ Moloney says, watching his own corpse inch away.