Slate sat down in a chair, breathing a sigh of relief as Orion stopped struggling. He couldn’t fight it anymore, he was completely spent. The returning memories and the still bleeding wounds had taken a toll on his mind and body. He stared up at the florescent lights on the ceiling, awaiting the bad news.

  Slate’s voice was steady, “My friend, we need to have a little talk.”

  Orion closed his eyes and sighed, “You’re kicking me out of the colony.”

  “Worse,” Slate said ominously. “This is an intervention.”

  “Oh, God.” Orion tried to turn over and dragged himself toward the gate to escape, but his strength failed him, and he lay back down in the sticky blue puddle of congealing blood.

  Dr. Birchett stepped up and fiddled with a monitor next to the Quarantine Chamber’s door. The Professor pulled out his MUT, which he’d somehow modified, and scanned Orion. Queebeax studied several pop-up windows that appeared. Neesya sat cross-legged on the floor as Orion’s pain dipped low enough for her to stop sapping it away. Her smooth skin was slick with viscous sweat, which Random helped mop with a towel.

  “Everyone here cares for you very much,” Slate began.

  “Oh Lord…” moaned Orion.

  He continued, “And we all think you’re taking on too much responsibility.”

  Orion groaned. This was sounding eerily similar to a conversation he’d had with LeVar far too many times. As well as Enrique, and basically anyone he’d ever worked with.

  “I’ve been here the longest, and since then, I haven’t seen you take an actual day off. You’ll slow down on Sandays, but you’re always fixing something or building something or helping someone.” Slate leaned forward, “You’re a workaholic.”

  Orion lifted his head and looked askance at the Commander. “Have you been talking to my therapist?”

  “We’ve all seen it, my boy.” The Professor added, “It’s not healthy. Your body may regenerate, but the trauma is still there. You need a break.”

  Slate nodded, “You’ve done so much for us, but you aren’t responsible for everything. You need downtime too, time to do things you want to. I want you to depend on us more.”

  Orion sat up with a huff, “Like what? This planet isn’t exactly a hotbed of activity. It’s not like there’s a cinema a few miles down the road.”

  Slate leaned back and shrugged, “How do we know there isn’t?”

  Orion stared at him, “What do you mean?”

  Slate spread his hands, “None of us have explored this planet. Manifest Industries dropped us here and we had to immediately started working just to survive. The first day we fired up the drill, we were driven back to our stasis pods. We were given no reports about signs of intelligent life inhabiting this planet, but that didn’t stop you from finding a subterranean civilization below us. We don’t know if this is the only city here.”

  Orion considered that. There’s a whole undiscovered planet here. Other cities might be less destroyed, so there might be some way to send a distress call. Plus, there are animals out there. There could be other species to catalog. Some could be helpful to Phoenix, and others might be a threat. It would be good to know what to expect. If this world, Org?a Slate had called it, was set up like a survival game, there could be dungeons. Or Vaults, Reggie had called them.

  Memories suddenly shuffled into place. The Seal Woman from his memories was Silky, who was played by his friend Regina! How had he forgotten that? The gaps in his memory had been steadily returning with each death. He still wasn’t sure how he had ended up here. Still, Reggie wouldn't just dump him on a toxic planet intentionally.

  Orion considered the toxic air. He was uniquely equipped to do far-reaching exploration. He didn’t have to worry about a suit breach. Sending anyone else out would be a possible death sentence. Hell, he could even take his warden partners. They could survive out in the wild with him. And if his cybernetics went haywire on him again, he’d be well away from the city.

  But if he left, there wouldn’t be anyone left in charge of the city. Slate said he wanted Orion to depend on him more. That wasn’t a bad idea, Slate was a good dude, if a bit crotchety when they first met. But since then, Orion had come to depend on his guidance and advice. Slate had become his first friend in Cosmic Horizons, was genuinely concerned for him.

  Orion opened his Colony HUD and went to the Leadership tab. He selected Commander Slate’s profile and then clicked on the ‘Promote’ button. A list of titles with descriptions of each one dropped down, and he viewed a list of duties assigned to each one. He smiled when he found what he was looking for and confirmed his selection. A colony announcement appeared for everyone.

  [Commander Slate has been promoted to Mayor of Phoenix]

  Mayor Slate stared at Orion, “What?”

  Orion stood, “You said I was taking on too much. You ran this colony before I did. I’ll still be Director, but you’re officially my second in command. Being Mayor gives you new abilities like assigning more quests and access to the Building Menu to help create infrastructure.”

  Mayor Slate held up his hands, “Now hang on, that’s not what I meant.“

  The Grey stopped as he was suddenly bombarded with a flurry of pop-up windows. A baker’s dozen of Missions crammed his field of vision, and Pewter appeared on his shoulder.

  “You have six building requests to approve, three gathering missions, one escort

  mission, and two requisition requests.” Pewter listed off the screens. A new one popped up, “And Orion Starbeard is requesting supplies to start an exploratory expedition.”

  Mayor Slate glared at Orion, who simply smiled and waved with a flourish of finger waggles.

  “I figured it was time for a vacation.” Orion explained, “I’m thinking of a wildlife

  safari to hunt big game.”

  “You’ve been taking on all this responsibility,” exclaimed Slate. “On top of literally killing yourself fighting hordes of minions in the underground city?”

  “That part was easy.” Orion explained, “I was able to cut my workload in half when Neesya started handling the farming duties.”

  Slate spluttered, “Half?”

  Orion grinned manically, “Yup! Plus, Apus helped manage my time. Oh, speaking of which, I guess I can’t use him anymore. If I fix my implants, they’ll start

  taking over my body again.”

  “Not necessarily,” Dr. Birchett interjected. “I’ve been looking over your physiology, and I think I know why the machines have taken so long to infect you.”

  Everyone turned to the Doctor, and ze pulled Orion’s stats up. He had gotten considerably more robust since the last time he checked. His Power was almost halfway up the bar, his Finesse and Charm falling close behind. Even his Knowledge was working its way up. However, his Endurance was maxed out. Not only that, but there was also a smaller chunk of green that extended past the bar.

  Orion tilted his head, “That can’t be normal.”

  “It’s not,” Dr. Birchett agreed. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I do have a theory. Since your body has been fighting against the toxic environment and whatever is causing your implants to grow out of control since you arrived here, it has supercharged your Endurance so much it’s extended past any known physical limits.”

  “It’s a Virus.”

  Heads turned to Professor Queebeax as he pulled up his own data spreadsheets,

  “The thing that’s causing the abnormal implant growth, I mean.” Prof Queebeax clarified, “Specifically a computer virus, don’tcha know? Something is wirelessly projecting a malignant program that is overloading the implants and causing them to grow exponentially.”

  Mayor Slate asked, “Why has it taken so long to get this bad?”

  “It’s because Orion’s implant is broken!” the Professor exclaimed excitedly. “Or possibly a combination of the damaged implants, the supercharged regeneration, or even simply respawning could all be affecting it!”

  “So what could be projecting the virus?” Slate asked.

  “The meteor,” said Orion thoughtfully. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. My mutations got worse when we got closer to the impact site. It might also explain what happened to the Org citizens.”

  The Mayor stood and brushed his hands, “There we go. All the more reason to get away from the colony for a while. Do some exploring, make some maps, and when your implants start to overgrow again, you return for maintenance. I’ll make it official.”

  [Mission Available: Trailblazer

  Mayor Slate has requested for you to explore and map the area surrounding Phoenix. Discover new locations, bring back resources, and unlock the secrets of Org?a.

  Reward: 500-2500 XP

  This Mission is repeatable. Accept Mission? Y/N?]

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Orion accepted the mission and closed the window. “Done. Well, I think that’s pretty much settled. Time to get cartographical!”

  Mayor Slate stood up, “And I suppose I’ll keep this place running in your absence. We’ll continue to see if we can do anything to halt the virus’s progression while you’re gone.”

  The Professor and Doctor both nodded in agreement.

  “We’ll keep the sarcophagus in here as well, just in case,” Dr. Birchett said, “We’ll put down some mattresses or something.”

  The rest of the concerned onlookers started to stand up now that the crisis had been inverted. Dr. Birchett opened the quarantine door, and Orion stepped out.

  “Hey, listen, everyone.” Orion said before the assorted aliens filed out, “Thank you. For everything. You’ve done so much to help me, and I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful, even if I just had a bit of a panic attack back there.”

  The group paused to wish him well, asking him to swing by shops for supplies or

  upgrades before returning to the door. Neesya even stepped up to give him a shockingly strong hug, and Random Noun did the same to his knee.

  “Welp!” Orion dusted his hands for dramatic effect, “I better get going before the

  next emergency happens.”

  Ssteev ran into the Medical bay, the Jrassk barely avoided tripping over Uncle Pyro. A medical drone that had been converted into a stretcher followed him, carrying a badly injured Max Thrustar. His breathing was labored, and his blood stained suit watch patched in four places. Nitro (Possibly Zephyr) followed behind, looking panicked.

  “We have an emergency!” Ssteev squeaked, “The Captain’s dying!”

  Dr. Birchett sighed, “And there’s ‘Heroic Idiot Number Two’, right on time.”

  Orion spent the next few hours preparing. One of Random’s construction crew had even installed a small standing shower in Orion’s temporary apartment. He had a good long soak, allocating new skill points, researching new trade abilities, and mostly just enjoying a hot shower in private. The most exciting update to his skills was that he could have up to two active partners during combat. At least he wouldn’t be alone on his trip.

  Gemini was lying on the bed, playing some soothing Classic eighties Power Ballads to help Orion get his head straight. It had taken Orion some time to work up the courage to repair his implant. After the usual pain, Apus appeared without issue. There were some parts of his projection were glitching out, just a few chunks of pixels here and there. His AI was otherwise operating fine and glad to be functioning again.

  After drying off, Orion examined his implants. They were noticeably bigger

  now, the circuit striations spreading down his neck and starting to move up his shoulder blades. If it got any worse, well…

  His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “Coming!” Orion called out. He stepped into the bedroom and finished getting dressed. When he opened the door, Uncle Pyro was standing outside.

  “Are we feeling any better?” the blacksmith asked, a voice filled with genuine

  concern. “Really feeling better, and not just putting on a brave face?”

  Orion thought about that, glancing at Apus, who preened himself. “Yes, I think so. No sense worrying about something I can’t control. And the experts are working on the problem, so I just gotta keep moving forward.”

  Pyro nodded, “Good. Good. And you’re right, Keeroy is a good man to have to

  work on your case. Dr. Birchett, too, I’d trust both of them with my life, and I don’t

  trust easily.”

  “That’s a relief, then.” Orion remembered his manners, “Would you like to come in?”

  Pyro shook his head, “No, thank you, but this isn’t a social call. Okay, I was genuinely concerned about you, but I’m mostly here on business. Some of the other crafters and I have supplies for your trip.”

  “Oh! Okay. Lemme just fetch Gemini, and we can head out.”

  Orion closed the door. After a moment he popped back out again, wearing another one of his colorful windbreakers. Gem and Ini sat on Orion’s shoulders and peered shyly at Pyro, their tail wrapped around his head like a gold chain.

  “Cute little buggers, aren’t they?” said Pyro, appraising the rodents.

  Orion beamed, “They’re quite affectionate when they aren’t actively trying to kill you.”

  They chatted as they walked, Pyro filling him in on some of the Phoenix’s latest gossip. Between the four days spent exploring the underground city and the nearly three days it took for Orion to respawn, a lot had changed. The final touches on the Municipal Center were nearly complete. The greenhouse and the stables had been expanded. They were even working on a kind of elevator system for the stables to replace the open ramp to the surface.

  As he talked, Orion noticed there were a lot of people staring at him. People he didn’t recognize. A beefy male Astropod even bigger than Neesya walked past, carrying bolts of cloth under each arm. A small group of Hivers all dressed like prohibition era gangsters strolled past, bowing to Orion as he approached. An older Terran in a trench coat was having drinks with a monochrome Jo’Qin dressed like a pirate.

  “Is it just me,” asked Orion. “Or are there more people here?”

  “Right, you were, ah-” Pyro searched for a diplomatic word, “-indisposed when Phoenix became level two. It unlocked fifty more colonists, and ten more guards. This lot is harmless, mostly white-collar criminals. Embezzlement, fraud, and at least one corrupt politician. A few slackers among them, but they’ve mostly taken to life on Org?a pretty smoothly.

  “As long as they don’t cause trouble, they’re welcome to stay.” Orion looked around nervously, trying to spot the politician.

  “A handful of bad seeds chose to strike out on their own, so we gave them whatever supplies we could spare.” Pyro explained, “Most stayed. Two of them were plumbers, which is why the rest of the base has running water. And a few others have been fixing up the Rig, which is completely free of ratillacs thanks to you. You really did a number on the inside, though.”

  Orion apologized, “my bad.”

  Pyro stopped at his forge. “That reminds me, we need some more MUTs when you get a chance. Some of the new colonists need it for construction projects.”

  Orion opened his HUD and saw a pop-up for a crafting mission for ten new Multipurpose Universal Tools. He gladly accepted it. He was not about to turn down free experience. “I’ll make some before I leave tomorrow,” he promised.

  “Good. In the meantime, we’ve made you some gear. Armor, weapons, tool kits and the like. Repair and medical packs, explorer’s gear, rope, even a bedroll and

  tent.” Pyro moved aside a curtain blocking a workbench.

  The outfits looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. The outfits were leather, but very practical. There were goggles and a face mask included, as well as a broad-brimmed desert camo bucket hat. There was a tall camping backpack and a modified saddle bag for Major Canis. A hunting rifle with a long barrel and scope was sitting to one side, with a skinning knife and well-balanced hunting knife next to it.

  “Obviously there’s food and water supplies set aside for you in the Cafeteria for when you set out.” Pyro added, “so be sure to swing by before you leave. The new chef is quite skilled too, so make sure to grab breakfast before you go.”

  “Pyro, this is too much, man.” Orion protested, “I can’t accept this.”

  Pyro folded his arms stubbornly, “This isn’t a gift, Mr. Director. You’re a civil servant who’s about to explore the planet for the benefit of your community. This is a tax write off.”

  Orion laughed, “well then, remind me to start collecting taxes.”

  Pyro scowled. “Not on your life.”

  The following day, Orion was prepared to set out. He dropped off the new MUTs at Random’s construction site first, scoring some cheap XP. Next he stopped by the cafeteria to meet the new chef. She was an older Rokaos woman named Magrath, and she was indeed an excellent cook! He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a meat and cheese omelet and hash browns. Orion had tried to replicate the meal with the food dispensers, but they turned out almost flavorless. The woman was a culinary wizard!

  “The replicators never got the flavors right,” Magrath explained. “The secret is to replicate the ingredients and cook them like normal.”

  Orion almost cried as each cheesy, savory bite touched his tongue. Once he was done, she gave him a list of ingredients as a Mission, making sure Phoenix would be stocked up between greenhouse harvests. Orion cheerfully accepted, especially considering one of the rewards was a five course meal.

  Backpack and inventory full of supplies, Orion headed over to the stables, where he was greeted by the cutest fucking thing! Aludra had given birth. She was panting happily as the cyworg puppies bumbled around, playfighting, sleeping and generally being puppies. There were a few Terrans playing with the babies under the relaxed but watchful eye of their mother. One of the puppies had gotten very attached to Gemini. The pup was dozing in between the two ratillacs, who nestled around them protectively.

  “Hate to break up the love fest, but it’s time to go, boys!” Orion looked around, “Where’s your brother?”

  Here he is, thought Neesya.

  Orion turned to the approaching rancher and noticed what had been bothering him. Something about the cyworgs had felt off, but seeing the now fluffier canine standing next to the yellow space mollusk, he figured out what it was. The cyworgs weren’t actually black. Their fur was dark purple, dappled with blue and indigo patches.

  Major Canis’s coloration was the same, but the pattern almost appeared to flow slowly across his body. There were blue pinpricks of light in his fur, like the tips of Orion’s own hair. The whole effect made his partner look like a starry night sky. He could swear there was a pattern of stars on his flank that looked like the constellation Orion.

  Neesya smiled, I was surprised, too. It’s incredible what a difference a bath makes.

  Orion was delighted, “Thank you for taking such good care of them! Look at my handsome boy! Are you ready to go on an adventure with me?”

  Major wurfed and clicked over to his mate to nuzzle her. Major licked each one of his puppies before laying down to be loaded up. Orion strapped the backpack to his saddle, and Gemini reluctantly climbed up with something in their mouth.

  “Oh no, you don’t. Nice try, buster,” chuckled Orion. He gently lifted the puppy that Gem had carried up by the scruff. “They’re too young. We’ll be back to play

  with them soon.”

  Gem and Ini wubbed forlornly, playing sad violin music on their cheek speakers. Orion gave them a hug and kissed their screens. The Ratillac King seemed to relax and curled up at the front of the saddle.

  Orion waved to the cyworgs and Neesya before headed out. Walking toward the entrance, Orion and his entourage were the subject of great interest. One of the new guards and a clearly nervous cadet saluted as he passed. A few people shyly offered him snacks or things they thought he would need on the trip. He overheard whispering as he passed. There were questions and embellished tales of his heroics from awed onlookers. It was all very embarrassing but he waved and smiled and accepted whatever trinkets were offered.

  “It’s like walking around a convention I’ve got a panel at,” Orion muttered to Major as he finally reached the decontamination chamber. “Only worse because

  everyone knows who I am.”

  The cyworg gave an unhelpful huff as the Decontamination Chamber doors opened. Orion mounted up and trotted out to the courtyard. There was a little bit more activity that stopped as he passed, but Orion was able to make good time up the hill. He stopped at the bridge, which was still under repair but mostly traversable.

  “Okay, boys! Let’s follow that trail!” Orion quoted.

  Gemini looked up from his lap with question marks on their masks, and Major gave him the side-eye.

  “It’s from a movie. I’ll see if we can stream it later.” Orion thought about that, “Hey, Gemini? Do you have the soundtrack to El Dorado in there?”

  Gem and Ini looked at each other, and their masks scrolled through several playlists. After a moment, Elton John’s voice started pumping through their speakers.

  “Oh, Fuck yeah!” Orion whipped his bucket hat around like a cowboy, “Let’s ride!”