The politics were settled, for once my leadership extended a peace over the tired and war-torn multiverse. The parts of it I had access to and influence over, at any rate. I still had my detractors, the little talking heads who sniveled and sneered over everything that I did, from the color of my suit to the tenets of my pasta-based religion and even, for one solid month, the fact that I had put mustard on a yarsp-made hotdog without tasting it first. Apparently it showed that I was reckless, and a bad leader or something.

Didn't matter. If all they have to complain about is your interaction with condiments, you’ve won the political argument. I weathered it all with grace, focused on keeping what supporters called Pax Windowpuncher, while simultaneously pursuing relics and tracking the history of BuyMort and its origins.

It was in this last field that things took a turn and my relic hunt escalated dramatically. We'd had some breakthroughs, including the discovery of an old map kit on sale in the rustic ill-seen catalogue of BuyMort's bottom list items. It was dated to a timestamp whose format wasn't even recognizable in our day and age, including gate charts to dimensions not known by the Knowles, and was missing a plethora of the ones that I had known during my first life through the Shopocalypse. We purchased the three remaining kits in stock, and something about that purchase set off an even bigger breakthrough of a more psychic orientation.

It all started the day that MortMobile possessed one of my staff. I wasn't there when it happened, but came quickly once I got the emergency call to action. A powerful psychic force had seized the hapless Knowle and was using her to break into our records, specifically our purchase of the kits, and our subsequent unboxing videos and scientific analysis therein.

I responded to the situation myself, once it was clear what was happening. A powerful psychic force interested in archaeological finds about the past? A small bit of suspicion raced through my mind, and I checked Mortmobile services. Sure enough, they had all gone to hell, everything associated with the psionic entity's services suddenly blacked out and out of service.

Rocketing off into the nether, heading for the Knowle Institute of Record on Terna's World, I arrived within minutes. There I was informed that the possessed Knowle had moved on to data we had uncovered about pre-Church BuyMort society. My team had been researching a major population crash that the data indicated happened immediately before the Church became an affiliate.

Entering the room, I felt the Knowle shift from the terminal to meet my gaze. Gray, fog-covered eyes shined from the Knowle’s eyes, and a tired, sad expression sat on her face that reminded me of my first phone subscription so many years ago.

“Tyson,” the Knowle groaned in MortMobile’s voice, grey fog pouring from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. “Help me,” she moaned as she collapsed. In the two seconds it took me to get to her side, the Knowle had changed. She was free of the gray fog and blinking in confusion.

I looked at the desktop record-storage device. On its screen was a gate ring activation request. It had been out of use for just over seven thousand years. MortMobile had filled in the gaps in our knowledge, and given us a gate address to his home universe. It fit within the framework my Knowles had already provided, but more than that, I could feel the significance the destination held.

Medics swarmed into the room, followed closely by the archeology team. While their coworker was being lifted onto a stretcher, the other Knowles were asking her questions about the encounter, and documenting everything.

“Someone get me an activation cost on that gate,” I said, before turning and walking out. Terna was outside, entering the building’s lobby. I moved to intercept her.

“What happened?” the hobb woman asked me.

“MortMobile just gave us a gate address. It dates from before the Church, but just before. Like a few years, tops,” I explained. She turned and started walking with me. “He also asked for my help.”

“Is it from before BuyMort? The time you’re looking for?” she whispered, knowing I could hear her with my enhanced senses.

I shook my head. “Nowhere near it. But MortMobile asked for our help. I haven’t seen him like that since the early days.”

“What are you going to do?” Terna asked.

“Form an expedition,” I told her. “You want to come?”

“Absolutely,” she replied.

Two days later, I stood at the helm of the Crown of Thorns, with Terna at my side and a full complement of BlueCleave hobbs manning the craft. The ship carried families, as deployments were often long, but I wasn’t anticipating any danger. Our expedition was heading into pre-Church BuyMort territory, a long forgotten universe several thousand years up the multiversal flow.

According to my archeologists, it was likely to be uninhabited due to the lack of any sales records. While they had found the universe, and the BuyMort gate address, there was no indication of normal BuyMort activity.

I knew from my conversations with Terna that it was possible to forget BuyMort and leave it behind. Plus, I remembered the original conversations with MortMobile. He had told me he entered BuyMort’s service to spare his world from its presence. If everything I had seen to date added up correctly, we were heading to that world, that universe. Someplace BuyMort had left behind, in order to acquire something of great value; MortMobile’s service.

My expedition had leaked to the press, but the only result was more camera drones in the air above us before takeoff. Paparazzi had become a constant, and the public was always speculating about my activities. I ignored them, for the most part.

The press created several different theories about my relic hunt, but Terna stood at my side sharing the truth of our adventure. We were going to go somewhere BuyMort had failed to seize. For the first time in years, I felt excitement.

The ship lifted smoothly out of Nu-Earth’s gravity well before hauling to the Jupiter gate. With the gravity haul method of FTL travel, it was almost instantaneous. Just the gut wrenching sensation of falling, and then Jupiter hovered off our side while we floated gently toward the gate.

I was given preferential treatment by BuyMort itself, moving my larger ship ahead of those waiting in line and allowing me to portal out. It was a perk of my gigantic gate recommissioning fee. The trip took longer than I have ever experienced using a BuyMort portal. The vague sensation of hurtling past frozen and crumbling rivers wound together lasted for nearly a full minute before the gate spit us out.

Glancing at the various screens surrounding me on the bridge, it was clear we were in orbit of an ice giant. A massive blue-green planet stretched out on screen, covering most of the visible horizon. The system’s star was a tiny, bright dot in the distance.

“Debris field!” one of the hobbs shouted. Their screen flicked onto the main viewer and I saw what they meant. The debris field spread out in front of the ship, and behind it. Frozen chunks of green ice the size of buildings, asteroids, and small moons moved away from the ship as our gravity drive took control of the area.

We had been spit out directly into the gas giant’s ring, which appeared to be made up of significant pieces of the planet itself. There was scarring visible from even our orbit, as though it had been hit and portions of the ice had shattered and eventually formed the planet’s ring. BuyMort’s gate, inactive and forgotten, had fallen into a stable orbit as part of the debris.

“Take us out of the rings,” I ordered gently, staring at the screens. The Crown of Thorns lifted, and the debris field spread out below us. Not all of it was ice. “Are those . . . ships?” I asked quietly.

Terna nodded. “A great battle was fought here.”

“We’re picking up massive organic signatures, mixed in with the ice and debris,” my navigation officer said.

“Get me a scan of the ships,” I replied.

A few moments of silence passed while my hobbs worked, then an image took up the main screen. It showed an opera house in space, so decadently engraved and filigreed that I struggled to recognize it as a warship until its monstrous guns came into view. It looked like the kind of ships the Church had flown against me, only much older.

Like the difference between ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, the similarities were undeniable.

The civilization that had influenced the Church’s leadership had also been what created the ruined hulk in front of me. A humanoid statue of tarnished gold adorned the warship’s nose, confirming what I had suspected.

“How many ships?” I asked quietly.

One of my hobbs glanced down and turned to answer. “Four-thousand, three-hundred and seventy-two on this side of the planet, in various states of disrepair. None that can fly or target us. Life signs are still present, but too much to be sapient. This reading, while large, indicates simple organic structures.”

“Thank you,” I said, my eyes still glued to the screens.

The Crown of Thorns was big, big enough to house an entire city’s worth of people in it if needed. My expedition crew and families only numbered a thousand. It was enough to field the entire fleet if needed, but we travelled far more comfortably in the carrier, thanks in no small part to its sheer size. The gravity drive held together a ship of dimensions that should have collapsed under its own weight.

Even my flagship was roughly half the size of the ruined ships floating among huge chunks of ice. Our arrival had disturbed the perfect orbit of the rings, and collisions were starting to spread in a circle out from the gate ring. The cathedral in front of us crumbled as a planetoid body of ice crushed into it.

“Long range scans?” I asked. The quiet had spread from the bridge to the entire ship. Everyone was transfixed by the view.

“Four more planets, all down-sun from here. Substantive planetoid bodies outside of the solar system. We have readings that signify life, but none of it appears to be complex,” a hobb announced, staring at their station’s screens.

I frowned. “What kind of life?” I asked.

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“Unclear,” came the immediate reply. “But it's on every planetary body in the system and deep space that we can read.”

“Even the ice giant?” I asked, looking at the main display again. A blue-green shine glared back from the planet, with striations and variations in color that had appeared to be ice.

“It appears to be moss, or mold of some kind, sir,” came the eventual response. “No brain function, I don’t think there’s any people here. Just the mold.” My hobb sounded confused.

On every screen in the Crown of Thorns, gray fog suddenly encroached. MortMobile’s head appeared, his expression strained. As if holding agony at bay.

“Help me,” he whispered deafeningly into our minds.

The crew reeled from the psychic incursion. I shook it off sooner than the rest of them and could see the screens as the gravity drive activated. My helmsman poured gray smoke, nearly collapsing over his console as his hands worked its controls.

We lurched and were in the orbit of another planet in the blink of an eye.

The psychic deity let go and my helmsman nearly fell out of her chair as she bent to vomit. Another hobb staggered in to take her place, barely better off. The ship slid easily into a high orbit as I looked down at the planet MortMobile had taken us to. The star hung larger in the black behind it, cresting the planet and shedding bright light across its surface.

The planet was the same shade of green as the ice giant, with similar striations. I looked at Terna. She shrugged and turned back to the screens, holding one hand to her temple in pain.

My hobbs were still recovering from the violent psychic episode, so I sat back and waited instead of barking orders. After a few minutes had passed the effects eased and my bridge crew recovered and started producing data via the scanners.

The planet was roughly Earth-sized and had the same readings as the ice giant. Flooded with vaguely defined life.

“You’re certain it’s the same kind of life? How can something thrive on such massively different planets?” I asked.

“I don’t know Sir,” came the immediate response. “But it's definitely the same stuff, whatever it is.”

“The ship is reporting an infection,” another hobb suddenly added. “It’s isolating the substance, we picked it up when we first encountered the debris field. Some of it made contact with the hull.”

“Show me,” I said.

A screen flicked to the main viewer, showing a small ball of green fuzz, held a few inches off one of the ship's many thorns.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Some kind of advanced plant life Sir,” a hobb said. I glanced over. He was a planetary sciences specialist, part of the crew used for exploratory missions. “An algae, perhaps? Possibly a fungoid mold. It's unlike anything I’ve seen before, the ship had to use its gravity drive to ensure no particulates were left. It’s incredibly virulent.”

Deep scans started to come through from the planet’s surface. There were ruins of massive, sprawling cities that covered entire continents. Shipyards, planetary defense batteries, even what had once been palatial estates. My ship’s scanners showed me great stone works, all covered in a thin layer of soft green fuzz.

Nothing moved, but I got the vague sensation of the mold creeping across the planet. Like a memory, I imagined how it spread, eventually covering the homes and factories. A blanket, laid across ground and bodies alike.

MortMobile came into my mind again, this time far gentler. He felt so close, so unlike I had ever felt him. There was a strong undercurrent of fear, and a tremendous wall of pain held at bay by sheer will. He whispered in my mind, and my attention was drawn to one of the planet’s three moons.

It was the biggest of the three and covered in green mold like every other planetoid body in the solar system. Information filtered into my head, each small burst woven with gray fog. I saw a structure on the moon, steps, and a row of towering figures.

“Can we land?” I asked.

“I don’t recommend it, sir,” replied the planetary sciences specialist. “That mold will definitely infest anything it makes physical contact with. The Crown of Thorns is having to police each individual particle in the mass, it keeps trying to spread back to the ship.”

I swiped up the screen showing us the small ball of fuzz. It was reaching out a tendril, slowly seeming to grow on itself in an attempt to reach the ship’s hull.

“Eject that once our scans are complete,” I said. “And ready my ship. I’m going down there.” I pointed at a screen that superimposed itself on the main viewer. It showed the moon.

My ship was a standard Brisingida class demolitions cruiser. I had flown a similar craft in the Church war, but a Beholder had destroyed it. I didn’t hold a grudge, since I had been using the ship to kill it at the time.

“I’m coming,” said Terna. When I looked at her, she nodded and frowned. “He’s in my head too. Begging,” she muttered. “Why is he begging us to find him?”

“I don’t know, but something is wrong,” I answered. My expedition was not going the way I had hoped. I had more questions than answers.

Within ten minutes, I was in the Brisingida cruiser. I carefully pressed the raise and lower intentions pedals as I picked up Terna. She had brought her own vehicle, an Aeremo tank that she insisted was up to the task of transporting us once on the planet’s surface.

I offered to just use my ship, but she insisted her tank was the answer. It could hover and was capable of identifying foreign contaminants and eliminating them. To this effort, it housed an expensive shield system. The Crown of Thorns also helped in the effort, pushing down on the moon’s gravity as we approached, flattening the mold out and making it less likely that a tendril would grow up and infect us in the first place.

It was still a risk, my science officer had told me. But my starfish suit would handle any infection I got, and Terna insisted she was protected as well. She boarded her tank in normal clothing, so I shook my head and gently lifted the vehicle in my ship’s arms.

When piloting a Brisingida, mental control was important, as were good reflexes. A single intrusive thought, for example, wondering about how well the Aeramo’s armor would stand up to the atomic breakers in the ships arms, and you could inflict terrible harm. Fortunately, my mind had become a steel trap thanks to years of exposure to the Aimed Shot perk patch.

It also allowed me to eyeball my flight paths. There was no requirement for advanced computation, orbital mechanics came to me as naturally as breathing.

I concentrated on holding the Aeramo, and simply followed the psychic pull MortMobile was putting out. It felt like a longing, a desire to go in one direction. There were no words for me anymore, just the implanted emotions.

He was a mess. The compulsion to travel toward him came laced with elements of his own experience. His anger, his terrible well of fear, and his overwhelming grief felt like a river sweeping me along. Wishing to help someone I had once considered a friend, I just went along with his desire.

I hovered above the ground roughly two-hundred feet after I passed through the moon’s thin atmosphere. It had sparked wisps of bright pink plasma against our hulls, but they quickly faded. The pull directed me to a massive city on the moon’s surface. Most of it was intact, the huge carved stone buildings and mechanical defense fortifications all covered in blue-green fuzz.

Slowly, I became aware that we were travelling through the capital of this solar system. The city was extravagant at every turn. Even the ancient streetlights still showed a hint of gold through their mossy covering. I flew around a giant structure with two gaping smoke stacks aimed at the sky. In place of a dome, they had terraformed the moon to provide it a breathable atmosphere. What little of it remained had once been puffed from the structure, before it stilled forever and became home to the same creeping green death that covered everything else.

Before I had left the Crown of Thorns, I had ordered several thorns fired at high normative velocities. The ship stayed in touch with each thorn as it hurtled through the solar system, feeding the mothership data as they went. My science officer reported that the probes were reporting the same substance on each and every planetoid body they could read.

The entire solar system, and beyond, was covered in still, silent moss. It grew on ice, land, and covered any bodies of water in a slick. I expected the solar system’s Oort cloud, once my thorns reached it in a few hours, would also host the strange lifeform in abundance.

MortMobile’s psychic pull suddenly intensified as the crown jewel of the lavish city came into view. A palace, towering on the moon's surface and nestled in the center of its sprawling capital city. Carved pillars clustered inside the palace’s militarized border, each standing as tall as a skyscraper back home. Atop the pillars hulked gun batteries and fighter bays tucked cleverly into alcoves. The still warships dripped green.

I floated us over the main defensive walls, with their silent gun towers. My cruiser lowered into the courtyard and I gently set the Aeramo down. Terna’s vehicle stopped a few feet short of the ground, and produced a wave of wrinkling heat from its underside that wilted the green moss away.

With care, I flew out of my own ship and into the Aeramo’s open top hatch. The energy barrier flickered at the top as I passed through, allowing me inside before immediately putting its defenses back up. Inside the Aeramo tank, I was pleasantly surprised to find a comfortable environment.

The cabin was spacious, sleek alloy panels lined the walls featuring high-tech, touch-activated controls, each of which emitted a comfortably soft glow. The seats were well-designed but old, comfortable high-density foam cushions covered in durable fabric that had obviously been patched by hand many times over the life of the vehicle. A long sofa dominated the rear of the turret, allowing for wonderful rest and relaxation wherever the tank ended up sitting in wait.

It wasn't all fun and games though. Despite it's capacity as an apartment, it was also obviously a command station and center for strategic planning. Various screens ran on without sapient interference, rolling lists of data across the screen providing continuous data: environmental scans, system diagnostics, encrypted communications, and detailed topographical maps.

As I checked out our surroundings, Terna moved to the command chair, placing a large helmet over her head that extended over her eyes. She was wearing armor I had never seen her in, something pure white and quite formidable-looking. I allowed BuyMort's ad prompt to flow over me, informing me of her gear.

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Before her was a bank of monitors, but she was staring at something in her own HUD that wasn’t showing on screen. With a flick of her fingers, the image appeared on a monitor near me. It was a scan of the structure’s interior.

The main doors were thrown open, one hanging from an oversized hinge, supported from below by thick wads of the mossy material. Terna pointed. “There’s power in there. A single room, it looks sealed from here. Completely self-sufficient, and closed off from the rest of the structure.”

“Take us in,” I muttered, staring at the screens.

The overgrown palace around us had once been a towering beacon of its civilization, a place they poured their resources and effort into, and where craftsmen had shown their best. The figures carved into the pillars and walls appeared humanoid, but with the life form covering everything, each scene was perverted. Lumped upon, given shapes of sheer madness coated in hanging moss.

The tank moved so smoothly I barely noticed, and its heat shield kept the lifeform at bay. Globs and entire sections of it that covered walls and ceilings fell on us but were burnt and pushed away from the tanks plating. Always the patch it had fallen from kept its covering, just thinned by the mass it had tried to infect us with.

I became more convinced it was intentional the further into the palace we went. Fortunately, the Aeramo was up to the task, burning any plant matter that came too close with its incendiary shield system. We hovered silently through the palace, following a straight line through open doors to reach our destination.

Atop a set of stairs two stories high, a large gold box sat where a throne should be. Hulking statues of armored figures stood guard, moss-covered hands resting on the hilts of towering swords. We hovered silently past, the Aeramo’s lights shining against gold showing beneath the moss.

Whatever it was, it didn’t like gold as much as everything else. It was still there, but thin, barely covering the surface. The great cube of it hulked over us, strips of the lifeform hanging from its corners. It featured an obvious door but had no other visible features. The pull from MortMobile was stronger than ever, and its source was right behind the door.

As the hover-tank slid into place the psychic pull shattered into agony. The mind behind the door begged us to open it. To blast it apart if need-be, he just wanted it open. Needed it open.

Terna scowled and rubbed her temples for a moment before turning and manipulating her tank’s controls. “There’s a digital signal. Aeramo can read it, give me a few minutes to translate and we should be able to control the door.”

The psychic pressure increased and my hobb companion moaned in pain. She shook her head to clear it and pressed a few buttons on her console. Then, mere seconds after we had arrived, the great golden door hissed as it unsealed, releasing a hermetic seal. It opened outward, wide enough to allow the Aeramo easy access.

A wave of relief hit me from MortMobile as I saw him for the first, and last time. Inside our minds, he sighed and whispered his thanks.