Onboard Sky Station Epsilon-065

Secret Research Base for Division 7

THE BUILDING LAY ACROSS the ground in ruins. Charred and broken, it tumbled in an uneven pile of jagged blocks and smoldering wood, like a makeshift tomb from some long-lost era.

Hands clasped behind his back, the Doctor stood at the viewport in his office and watched as the full extent of the destruction unfolded before his eyes. Though a thousand light-years away, he might as well have been there in person, the feed from the officer on site’s combat lenses spooling across his own so that he could see everything the other saw, go everywhere the other went.

Together they walked, through mounds of shattered stone and twisted metal, across severed I-beams and crunching glass that glittered under the noonday sun. Odds and ends were strewn around the rubble—a broken chair leg, a scrap of fabric. A hank of hair spilling coppery and bright across the dark stone.

At the far end of the lot, a portion of wall still stood, a broken gravestone for the multitude of bodies that lay buried underneath. The sign nearby was scorched but still readable:

The Nguyen Home for Wards of State.

They’d hit a school. A world with a population of over a billion, outfitted with military outposts and key technological facilities, and they’d blown up a boarding school for orphaned children.

“And this was the bomber’s only target?” the Doctor said at last.

“Yes. From the information we were able to gather, this was his sole purpose for coming on-planet.”

“Did he say why?”

The officer shrugged a shoulder. “He’s a squatter, an ex-military demolitions expert. He thinks he was protecting planetary security by taking down a major terrorist cell. He has no idea he killed three hundred innocent children.”

The Doctor nodded. It was how the enemy worked. They settled into your head and warped your perception of reality. Deceived you into committing unthinkable acts by making you believe the most outlandish delusions. Over the course of this war, he’d interviewed hundreds of squatters. The specifics differed, but the basic story was always the same. Ultimately, it was never about the human without, but the Spectre within.

They walked in silence for a minute, the officer pacing the disaster site while the Doctor paced his office.

“Any survivors?”

“Just one. A fifteen-year-old Tellurian refugee. He was out in the garden when the bomb went off. The blast threw him clear, with only minor injuries.”

“Is it possible he had something to do with the explosion?”

The officer shook his head. “The psychics already checked him, and he’s clear. The boy just got lucky.”

“Or unlucky,” the Doctor murmured with a shake of his head. It didn’t make sense. Ghouls were organized, coordinated. They would wait for their moment and strike en masse, taking whole stations and even colonies in a single attack. Not squatters. Most of them seemed content to simply settle down within their hosts and breed. Though individual squatters could get aggressive when cornered, most of them weren’t particularly violent.

Though why would they be? Killing off potential hosts would only hurt their goals, not help. Spying, sabotage, misdirection—those were the squatters’ true stock-in-trade. The few that did commit acts of violence did so for a reason, hitting military or manufacturing targets.

Not schools full of homeless children.

“Is there any possible reason why they would have seen that school as a threat?”

“No,” the officer answered without hesitation, immediately understanding what the Doctor was really asking. “That school was exactly what it appeared to be. Not a front, not a cover. No key figures hiding there under another guise. It was simply a school.”

Uneasiness settled over the Doctor as he contemplated the senseless act of carnage before him. This was the fourth in a series of inexplicable, seemingly one-off attacks over the past three months. Was it a threat? A message? Another test? Some key piece of strategy he couldn’t yet discern with his human perception? He didn’t know. All he knew was that Nguyen was fast becoming part of a chain of events he couldn’t explain. Seo Pak City, the Sniffer’s testimony, the bombing of a completely irrelevant target. He’d thought he understood this war inside and out. Knew the enemy’s abilities and desires, tactics and strategies. Not anymore. The game was changing, and if they didn’t figure out the new rules, and soon, it could be the end of them all.

The Doctor steepled his hands together, thinking. Three hundred dead, and none of them could be saved, but the one . . .

“Has the Admiral seen this?”

“Not yet. You’re the first to respond to my link.”

“So, where’s the boy now? The survivor, what was his name?”

“The boy known as Storm—a nickname, I believe—was treated for his injuries and is now at the local station pending further instruction.” The officer consulted his tip-pad. “I’m sure I have his real name here somewhere . . .”

The Doctor waved him away. “Never mind that. I want him shipped off-planet by the end of the day. Find another school, somewhere small and unimportant, off the radar. Delete his name from the files, and tell no one of his survival.”

“Of course. I’ll link the Admiral and—”

“Tell no one of his survival.”

“Sir?” The officer’s voice wavered, unable to refuse but equally unable to obey. “The Admiral is my commanding officer. Not directly, but—”

“In your opinion, do you believe this boy deserves to spend the rest of his life in Interrogation?”

“No.”

“Then delete him from the files, send him off-planet, and tell no one of his survival.”

Silence. Then—“It shall be done.”