My morties gathered from the wreckage in Axle’s office and the rubble I had sold paid for a portal to the world ship, if only just. I had to float up to one of the arrival platforms and use a departure kiosk, which was just a BuyMort pod on a stand, but that act lowered my fee enough to afford it. After the pod warped me away in a blast of rainbow light, I was left with a mere three-thousand morties in my personal account.

I arrived on the surface of the world ship, on a road between oversized greenhouses. That came as a surprise, I had expected to be dropped off in space behind the world ship. I’d even deployed my armor in preparation.

The alarm that sounded upon my arrival was less of a surprise. I sighed, retracted my armor, and sat down to await whatever police force was going to take me into custody. My cavalier attitude toward being arrested aside, it was the best way for me to get to speak to someone in authority. The world ship had been a haven from BuyMort when I knew it, but the traffic of pods in the air above told me that things had changed for the worse during my absence.

Just like everywhere else, as far as I could tell.

When a small squad of armed hobbs arrived, converging on me from each intersection, I raised my hands and stayed seated. They wore clean linen uniforms and carried oversized pistols.

The first hobb to arrive pointed a gun at me. “This will only stun you, human, but it will hurt when that happens. Do not make us use our weapons on you.”

I nodded. “Understood,” I replied in perfect hobb.

His accent was a little different from what I had remembered, but it was still a clear, understandable language to me. The hobb raised his eyebrows when I spoke in his language, but quickly moved to zip-tie my hands behind my back.

He helped me to my feet and directed me toward a police hover-car, painted in the same white and beige colors of his uniform. As he pushed my head down to sit in the back of the vehicle, he turned stony eyes to my own. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know unannounced arrivals are against the law?”

“I did not know that but thank you for informing me. As to what I’m doing here, would you believe I was hoping to speak with the world-ship’s leader?” I asked him.

The police hobb hung his arm on the open door and stared in at me. He adjusted his hat and shook his head. “Nope.”

Then he turned to speak with the other hobbs. What I could hear of the conversation sounded like they were bored with the arrest, and that my hobb would drive me in while the others returned to their patrols.

My captor sat down in the driver's seat and wrote a few lines on a pad of paper, before turning back to look at me with narrowed eyes. “You look familiar. Have I arrested you before?” he asked.

“No, but you’re going to be surprised when you find out who I am,” I told him.

“Who are you?” the hobb asked.

“Tyson Dawes, Warlord of BuyMort, back from the dead,” I told him, straight-faced.

The hobb officer scowled, then snorted a laugh and put the vehicle in gear. The hover-car jerked into movement and we began flying down the streets between greenhouses. The zip ties were absurdly easy to break; I had to be careful not to accidentally snap them.

We cruised past various structures, most of them farming greenhouses. Interspersed between them were what I considered odd new additions. Convenience stores, for one thing. It indicated that a significant population stayed on the surface for extended periods of time. Perhaps even lived up there.

Part of the reason Terna had made homes for her people beneath the surface of the world ship was its relatively thin atmosphere. It was filled with enough vital gasses to breathe, but the radiation exposure was quite harsh. The world ship’s people would be made sick from so much exposure, over time. Cancers and genetic defects in births would be common.

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I began to chuckle, thinking about how useless such ads and products would be on a planet that didn’t use BuyMort when a familiar, and frightening, image caught my eye.

The planet had those same yarsp vendor carts that I’d encountered on Nu-Earth!

They were being manned by the old or young, humans and hobbs mostly, all looking miserable as the hover-car passed. The same associate markings identified them as part of the chain I had seen on Nu-Earth, and I finally cared enough to look at the name within. McYarspies. I wouldn’t have laughed if it all didn’t spike my heart with fear. This development meant something unfortunate about Terna’s World. It had become part of BuyMort in a much bigger way than she had ever wanted it to.

“How long have the yarsp carts been here?” I asked my captor.

He shrugged in the front seat, visible through a chain link divider. “About a decade now, I think,” he said. “After the war was finished.”

The next building we passed by looked a lot more like a fort than a building. It had reinforced walls and heavy, secured doors. The building also featured weapons scarring and several burnt patches, with emplaced weapons of its own on small towers atop the walls.

“Are you sure that war is finished?” I asked, staring out the window.

“That’s a BlueCleave fortress, always a target for insurgents and terrorists. Of which we have plenty. Thankfully us peacekeepers aren’t asked to deal with that; the military always responds,” he answered. “Although, they do typically only target military structures and forces. BlueCleave says otherwise, of course, but those of us who live on the world ship can see for ourselves.”

“You sound almost sympathetic,” I said, still staring out the window.

The hobb looked up sharply at me, narrowed his eyes, and shook his head. “Not me. I’m loyal to Axle’s Knowle leadership faction. And to the world ship. I’m just not blind.”

“Fair enough, didn’t mean to hit a nerve,” I replied. “This place is just really different from what I remember. Back when it was still called Terna’s World.”

He exhaled through pursed lips, hard. “That’s been a long time now. You’re not old enough to remember those days. Are you stat shot upgraded?”

I nodded, and he immediately pulled the car over.

“While I’m pleased that you’re cooperating, I have orders to follow. Please exit the vehicle, sir. I need to replace your restraints,” he explained.

I did as he asked and he snipped the zip ties, before replacing them with heavy handcuffs. They would still be nowhere near enough to actually stop me from breaking free, but I was realizing more and more that my crystalline colonies were likely still a secret from the governing body of BuyMort.

My instincts to hide their existence from Axle had been well-founded, it turned out. Not just paranoia, but some kind of predictive reasoning in my subconscious mind. Part of me had known I couldn’t fully trust my former partner.

“Hey, who’s in charge on this world ship now?” I asked as I sat back down in the car, manacled hands behind my back.

“Lady Terna, still. She’s had to walk a fine line with the war, but part of the surrender conditions was that she remained the head of the associate. The war would never have ended otherwise,” he answered. “But she’s a different woman now. Has to give Silken Sands what they want, or punishment hits us on the street.”

“What kind of punishments?” I asked idly, feigning boredom.

“Sanctions mostly. Silken Sands refuses to provide us the necessary fuel to run our grow operations. Hurts Nu-Earth when they do it, but I guess the power is more important,” he said. “Occasionally BlueCleave will do a crackdown, go hunting insurgents and kill more civilians than enemy combatants. They say they use the utmost caution during those raids, but the death tolls say otherwise.”

“Again, you seem to have taken a side, friend. I’m not here to judge you or turn you in as a sympathizer or anything, I just appreciate your candor,” I told him.

He narrowed his eyes at me again and was silent for a few moments.

Our route took us past more grow houses, giant swaths of the ship covered in glass, with greenery evident beyond the window panes. I saw workers sitting outside, smoking or eating without much gusto. Most of them were hobbs, but humans were heavily represented as well.

The drive approached a tunnel entrance, and everything went dark as we began descending. The peacekeeper turned on the hover-car’s headlights and the tunnel ahead was illuminated. It sloped gently downward, until it suddenly opened up on a habitation unit. The scars of war were even more evident down below.

Houses were scorched to rubble, and dead-eyed children picked through their remnants. Equally morose adults stood around drinking from paper bags, watching the hover-car with open hostility. At one intersection, BlueCleave hobbs in their black, red, and white uniforms cordoned off the street while part of their unit arrested a group of humans wearing ragged clothing.

I saw weapons on the sidewalk behind them, and each human was lined up on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Our car stopped, and as I watched, one of the hobbs began executing the prisoners one by one.

He pressed a small laser handgun to the back of their heads and burned a tiny hole through each, letting them fall forward as they died. My mouth gaped in shock and horror. The world ship had really changed.

“Yeah, things are much harsher below the surface. Out of sight of the orbital camera drones, BlueCleave cracks down however they like,” the peacekeeper said, noting my expression.

“And you work with these guys,” I asked in a flat tone.

“I work for the world ship, not any particular faction,” he replied. “And my work keeps things like that from happening.”

“Evidence to the contrary,” I quipped.

The hobb sighed. “Yes, that is unfortunate. There’s only so much I can do.”

“Just following orders?” I asked.

My captor glared at me through the rearview mirror. He didn’t speak again.

We passed through what was left of the residential block at a crawl, to avoid the many troops and residents that clogged the streets. BlueCleave was trying to institute a curfew, and it looked like they might face a riot in response to the killings. The further in we went, the more angry crowds we saw.

Against the distant screen-wall, a giant message told residents to return to their homes and obey all orders from BlueCleave soldiers, for their own safety.

The hobb peacekeeper driving our hover-car started turning down back streets to avoid the growing crowds, who held signs decrying their oppressors, as well as chunks of masonry, and Molotov cocktails. Most wore masks. None had weapons beyond the make-shift.

“Well that looks ominous,” I commented.

“Of course it does. More’ll die before the night is through, no doubt about that,” my driver replied.

“And again, I can’t help but notice you’re part of the system they seem to want to fight against. Hence why we can’t drive on the normal streets,” I said.

A brick smashed into the front windshield, and the peacekeeper sped up significantly. The warning on the wall changed and declared that those in violation of the new curfew would be arrested on sight, with those who resisted being killed.

“You’re not the only one to notice that,” the driver replied. He drove me further into the residential block, which looked more and more like a slum the further we went. At roughly mid-way through the habitation pod we passed through a BlueCleave blockade and entered the police precinct parking lot.

A large garage door rolled up to accommodate us, and the hover-car floated in. After a short trip down a ramp, my captor parked the vehicle and got out. He opened my door and helped me out by the elbow, before walking me through a heavy metal door into processing.

I was seated on a thin, plastic bench while my arresting officer went to fill out paperwork. Another hobb approached, wearing a similar uniform. They ordered me to strip, after taking off my manacles and leaving a folded black and red jumpsuit on the bench beside me. I shrugged and obeyed, shrugging out of my new shirt and then pulling down my pants. I didn’t wear underwear, and the hobb scowled at me.

“Provide your name and any aliases you might be known as,” the new officer demanded, holding a clipboard.

“Tyson Dawes,” I said. “Warlord of BuyMort, and the Windowpuncher.”

The hobb scowled at me, then lowered her clipboard. “Name and aliases, prisoner!” she barked.

“I already told you. Write it down. Those are the only names you’re getting out of me. They also happen to be true,” I snapped back, slipping into my new jumpsuit.

“That’s all he told me too,” my arresting officer said over his shoulder. “Just write it down. We’ll figure him out under interrogation.”

“Idiot,” the hobb woman commented at me. “Would be smarter to give me your real name.”

“That is my real name!” I yelled, causing her to back up a step. “And I’m getting more than a little sick of everyone doubting me when I say it!”

Both officers drew their stunners, so I sighed and sat back down.

“Relax. I’m not being violent,” I told them.

The hobb woman stepped up behind me and grabbed an arm. I didn’t resist as she pulled it back, then took the other and manacled me again.

I let them have their comforting fantasy of restraining me, then walked through the rest of their processing cooperatively. Once I was secured in a cell with metal bars and unlocked from my manacles again, I sat down on a bunk and waited.

Within an hour, they were back. My cell door opened and weapons were pointed at me.

“Up,” one of them said. I obeyed, calmly standing and walking toward the door with my hands outstretched and held together.

I was escorted at gunpoint back to the processing area, where my handcuffs were removed once more and I was pushed through the door into the garage. Neither officer followed me. From the recessed shadows behind a hover-car, a silhouette approached.

When she stepped into the overhead lights, I recognized the figure.