Bonus Scene
Hunter MarshereGabriel Maunhouser
Maunhouser security captured me only a subchron after I’d sent my last plea to Civilization, begging them to save the ring I had doomed. I’d intended to deny Maunhouser the pleasure, but they came for me before I was ready, stunning me faster than I could respond.
I awoke in a narrow cell, dark and sterile, where they held me as the virus I’d unleashed on the gate ring spread throughout my body. I spent the next few rotas barely conscious, fading in and out of awareness. But I remember the cell’s isolated autonomous arms filling my veins with fluids. And I remember the pain, so intense I was sure the virus would kill me.
It didn’t.
As my health returned, I began to suspect I was no longer on a planet, but on a Maunhouser starship. And with
