Miles retched into a nearby trash can as his head buzzed from the alcohol. It wasn’t that he had drank too much; the planetary booze was nothing compared to the distilled alcohol back on Braith. However, the gravity of Ghenus was much stronger than what he had been used to. Everything was moving, and his body felt like lead.

He slowly put his hands on the rim of the large can and pushed himself upwards. Stumbling out of the bar, he made it a few steps before falling back onto the side of the building. His limbs ached in pain, as it felt like an invisible force was crushing his bones. Miles groaned as he reached his hand into his pocket. Pulling out a plastic wrapper, he pushed out another dose of medication in his mouth.

The stimulant worked fast. The ache slowly receded as his body gained strength again. It would only last for another hour before he would reach maximum dosage for the day. He had been popping them left and right since he’d made planetfall.

Mile’s vision cleared, and he took a deep, relieved breath. The walkway surrounding him was filled with people coming and going. None paid attention to the man doggedly gasping off to the side. Flying vehicles went every which way, following lanes set between the skyscrapers. The entire city was a maze of platforms and walkways intersecting and connecting the chunks of building stretching up from the earth.

He tapped a badge on his chest and a smartly dressed holographic woman appeared next to him. They had given him the AI guide upon his exiting his landing craft. It was a requirement for all extra-planetary crew members of the Hyperion.

“I am Lena. What is the nature of your inquiry?”

“Where’s the hotel?” Miles rubbed his sweat slicked hair and flung the droplets onto the clean metal.

“The Concordia is sixty-three miles away—“

“Just get me a damn taxi.” He waved the hologram away.

The woman cheerfully nodded and a fixed indication marker appeared in his sight. A timer slowly began to count down as the nearest available taxi was making its way toward him.

Miles pushed himself up to a more dignified position as he waited. The trip to Ghenus had been absolutely luxurious compared to what was on Braith. At one point, he had spent a week on a cruise liner traveling up the Faraday Nebulae. That was easily the best week he had in a long while. After arriving, he spent the remainder of his time visiting every single bar he could find.

“You shouldn’t do this to yourself.”

At first, Miles thought the hologram had come back. He had probably set off the medical alarm a dozen times over by now. But no, his blurry vision saw a lone woman standing just a few feet away. He couldn’t see the face; the blond hair was too bright for his eyes.

Miles snorted a little. “Maybe.”

“You need to get help.”

He breathed again. “Maybe.”

“You need to go home.”

Home. That word resounded in his skull like a drum. That word connected with something in his mind. The thing that drove him to numb it again and again. An ache that rested apart from the crushing weight gnawing at his bones.

“There is no going home,” Miles whispered in his haze, “not for me.”

He lifted his reddened eyes toward the lone woman. Her face a blur of pale skin against her sunflower hair. What was it he was searching for? He could barely remember anything anymore. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to know. The longing hurt too much.

Miles awoke in his zero-g bed. The mattress floated gently in the air, with him strapped to it. At some point during the night, he had tossed off his blankets, which were sitting in the corner outside the field. Moving his head, he saw that a detoxer had been set up next to him. Two tubes extended out from the blocky machine and into his wrist.

“Good morning, Mr. Kieth.” The annoying voice of Glen Tannis squeaked over the comm as the room’s lights automatically came on. “An ambulance had to be called for you. Your blood alcohol content was zero point eight. If you were a normal human, you would be dead. Please don’t inconvenience the Exchange like this again, otherwise we would have to rethink your contract.”

There was a click as the prerecorded message ended.

Miles sneezed as he undid the straps tying him to the bed. “You guys did a good job.” He muttered, snapping the tubes out of his flesh. “Can’t even feel the headache.”

He gave the command for the zero gravity field to be turned off. The mattress slowly lowered itself to the ground. Miles’ body tensed as the field slowly lessened until he was back under the normal gravity of Ghenus.

Miles felt a moment of panic as he realized his hat was not resting on his head. The black cowboy hat was his only real possession. He scrambled looking around until he saw it had been neatly placed on a nearby dresser. Thank you, emergency services. Miles calmed down. He took a moment to run his hands against the felt before putting it back.

His hotel room was relatively small, as per his decision. It would almost be like Braith except there weren’t rats in the walls and dirty air chugging out of a clogged vent. The bedroom, kitchen, and living room were all combined into a single space. Two doors off to his left contained a closet and bathroom. The right held a holographic wall which could shift to a one-way window if he so desired.

Miles rolled out of his bed and got into his uniform. “How much time left until the mission brief?”

“Thirty-three minutes,” an AI chipped back.

Screw it. He could eat breakfast after the meeting. He hurried out the door and into a long hallway containing other rooms. A quick trip down the elevator took him into lobby twenty-seven of the Concordia.

The doors opened into the large foyer. He was standing on a walkway above the gilded hall. Around him were walls decorated with various portraits of art replicated perfectly, both in image and texture by the holographic displays. Two staircases swung down to the ground floor where a large fountain had been placed in the center of the room. Bubbles of various colored liquid suspended and mixed with each other above the pool of shimmering light. The rim was a thin metal divider which had engraved carvings of elaborate shapes and patterns.

Surrounding the fountain were reception desks, couches of varying sizes, and other furnishings one would expect in a such a hotel. The other side of the room had a glass wall where one could see a landing platform for flying vehicles to come and go. Beyond that was just blue sky, a welcome sight from the maze of city underneath the spire that was the Concordia.

The hall was filled to the brim with people, most dressed in the grey and black uniform of the Free Exchange. There were occasional spots of red indicating hotel personnel among the sea of the crew for the Hyperion. Miles allowed himself a moment to take in the sight before descending the stairs into the crowd.

He wasn’t much of a talker, so he dodged the mass of people in the center and skirted off to the side. Stopping by a food dispenser inlaid into the wall, he ordered a ration cube from the monitor. A brown cube quickly appeared in the slot below the device. Miles bit a chunk off the ration. The dull taste was a delight after wasting himself on so much rich food.

“You’re one of the pilots, aren’t you?”

Miles turned and saw a dark-skinned man approach him. A long face sat under curly brown hair. On the man’s uniform sat three notches, just like on his.

“Chief Helmsman Miles Kieth, at your service.” Miles stuck out his hand.

The man accepted the hand. “Amos, Chief Engineer. I always make a point to meet the people flying my ship.”

“Wouldn’t it technically be the captain’s ship?” Miles asked.

“The captain isn’t the one scrubbing the hull plating. He isn’t crawling through radioactive dust in the coolant pipes. He certainly isn’t the one to fix the gravity drives when something breaks. Captain commands the crew. Engineers command the ship.”

Miles popped the rest of the ration cube in his mouth. The brown material went down mushy in his throat. “Well, I promise to try not to break anything.”

Amos snorted and crossed his arms. “We’ll be lucky to get out of the system without the gravity drives stalling.”

“That doesn’t sound too comforting.”

Amos shoved his hands in his pockets and walked over to the food dispenser. Checking through the options, he finally settled on a coffee. “Construction is a rush job. They’re trying to get this ship in the air before a quarter of the inspections are done. I don’t even have a full inventory list of the equipment being used.”

“That bad?”

Amos looked at him with a sarcastic expression as he sipped the coffee. “Only if you want your chief engineer to know how the ship works. The startup procedure for a Farnsworth Reactor would cause a violent explosion in a Tillerman. And let’s not even talk about the life support systems.”

“You’re inspiring a lot of confidence.”

Amos bitterly chuckled. “Just trying to keep my chief helmsman informed. Don’t try anything too spectacular when we launch.”

There was a wave murmuring that spread throughout the lobby, followed by a quiet hush in the general conversation. Miles followed people’s eyes toward the walkway where he had just come from. An older man with a long black beard had just stepped out of the elevator. His stout face was wrinkled and his hair filled with grey streaks.

It was odd seeing someone so aged in the heart of civilization. The man was pushing from venerable to almost elderly. He sat somewhat uncomfortable in the uniform, although the black and grey rested nicely against his lean form.

“And then there’s the Captain,” Amos muttered.

Miles looked at him in disbelief. “That’s Captain Singh? The Butcher of Three Systems? I thought he would be… taller I guess.”

The man that stood on the walkway seemed remarkably normal. An ordinary person plucked out of some pioneer world. Miles had always imagined a cold, calculating strategic genius. A man who sat upon a black leather chair and gave orders to destroy worlds. Someone who truly earned the moniker of Butcher.

Miles had heard the story behind the title. It was what General Hadrian had called Singh just before the supernova overtook the latter’s ship. A final echoing cry across the stars as the flames consumed the general alive. The title forever stuck, even though Samir was a hero to the rest of the galaxy.

To think it belonged to such a forgettable man boggled Miles’ mind.

“Pulling the old war horse out of retirement,” Amos spoke under his breath so that only Miles could hear, “another fantastic choice from our superiors.”

“I don’t know,” Miles whispered back. “I don’t think serving under the Butcher is too bad of a gig.”

“Singh is out of date. He hasn’t served on a spaceship in over a hundred years. You see that man over there?”

Miles followed Amos’ gaze to another man on the left end of the walkway. He was a tall, bulky man who had trimmed brown hair. In comparison to the Captain, this man looked the stereotypical military officer. Someone ready to charge into battle with the vigor of a leader.

“That’s Lt. Commander John Klyker. He was the second choice if Samir hadn’t accepted the position. He’s done nine tours over the past forty years. He led the defense of Aria against Harkon Coalition forces. If there’s anyone who should be captain, it’s him. Instead, we have the used mothball.”

There was a loud beeping in the room as the speakers chirped twice. “Mission briefing beginning in five minutes.”

The crowd started to move towards a series of doors off to the right side of the room. Miles lightly slapped Amos on the shoulder. “You need to stop being so dour. How about I take you to the Midnight Luna sometime tonight? Get a drink, relax a little.”

Amos gave him an annoyed look, but didn’t refuse. The two slowly followed the flow of people through the doors and into the black conference room.