We were on Dactyl when the outbreak started.

  The Pharaoh had 16 hours of approved landing time on the moon of Dactyl so that we could complete our shipment and depart safely from the egg-shaped moon. Meteor storm forecasts showed that a storm would hit Dactyl during our time there, which allowed us to extend our stay from the standard 4 to 8 hour windows out further to weather the storm.

  I set @zerogstar to the task of trying to find out details surrounding the Royal Starjumper's arrival at Ida and any ships that had made the journey to Dactyl. If our intel was good, and I trusted that it had to be in order for Black Balloon Girl to have demanded such a deal with the Alliance Starmada, then it meant we were at least at the right location to get @foxcutter.

  But the whole point had been to locate the lab where the virus was, and that was a different ship, Repulser. We needed to know if Royal Starjumper had rendezvoused with Repulser, or if Repulser had made the journey itself to Ida or Dactyl. I felt like everything had led us here, to Dactyl, and yet we were still too far away from our ultimate goal, which was to locate Repulser and destroy the virus once and for all.

  Unlike Eros and its tourism, Dactyl required that visitors remain on their ships, except when venturing out in accordance with their approved reason for visitation. They housed no hotels or living quarters for visitors. That was fine with me. I've mostly lived on ships. We had no intention of spending a sleep rotation on Dactyl anyway. I was more bothered by the fact that we couldn't bring weapons with us.

  Obviously, the port authorities couldn't take my ARM, but I wasn't able to load any missiles, and I had been tagged for my enhancement. Not a huge deal. Just means I was a known visitor on a special list for security throughout the colony. By the time I was ready to cause trouble, it wouldn't matter anyway.

  I had set up the paper delivery and three sales calls. Deliveries were all dropped in the landing area with local transport to the destination, so I was grateful that we just had to wheel out carts of paper.

  I took @astrowave with me to venture around the Dactyl colony for our "sales calls." So far, @astrowave and I hadn't found any sign of @foxcutter or @awesomedog. I wished I had the help of an Infiltrator, and that felt doubly stupid because in a parallel universe I would have had two: @auroraloon and @awesomedog. It wasn't that @auroraloon didn't care about what we were doing, but she didn't want to leave @dustcaller out of her sight. And, of course, we were also looking for signs of @awesomedog, the disappeared Outer System Alliance Infiltrator.

  As we walked the paths through Dactyl, I could help but admire the way the colony had incorporated natural regolith into the walkways within and across larger structures. The walkways were smooth to walk on, but they looked like a puzzle of different-sized stones perfectly assembled. It made me dizzy, walking and looking down at the myriad of assorted rock shapes.

  Dactyl's architectural design was even more impressive. The moon featured large square structures with artificial atmosphere within, arranged in connected clusters. Each structure had more units within it, housing residents and local businesses. In this way, Dactyl was like a set of connected pods. It reminded me of a simpler version of Itokawa. Itokawa spread out in all directions. Dactyl's sections were a series of large buildings along a flat surface.

  That wasn't what made it impressive, though. It was the roofs. The roof of each building was made up of rows of large pyramids. I queried the Extronet and learned that this was so that when a meteorite struck, the impact could be absorbed and the rock could be directed along the slopes of the pyramids to collection points. They were reinforced for that purpose. This almost made the roofs look like rows and rows of pointy teeth. On the inside, you got the reverse effect, which was super cool and made the interior feel a lot bigger.

  I don't know where the first overtaken popped up in the colony or how the zombie virus started spreading on Dactyl.

  I do know that @astowave and I were first attacked on Epimedes Trail.

  We were six hours and forty-seven minutes into our journey, en route to Racers General Store under the guise of trying to sell them toilet paper. I had a sample roll with me. It wasn't soft enough for my tastes. I blamed the Alliance Starmada for their choice in toilet paper. We picked stores to visit at the farthest edges of the settlement, to give us an excuse to wander and search the area looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  I was grateful for the toilet paper because I shit myself laughing when a resident of Dactyl, a shirtless man with jogging shorts who was making his way toward us, tripped and fell. I know it shouldn't be funny, but you didn't see him fall. His right leg just sort of failed on him. He took one hop to try to keep his balance, and then he rolled with his limbs flailing into the shrubbery along the path.

  I watched his legs twitch, jutting out from the bushes, containing my laughter and wondering if he was okay.

  "What do you think? Defective clone body?" I asked @astrowave. "Maybe he was just reanimated and he's testing his new body."

  "I'd say that's a fail," replied @astrowave. "Short circuit in the brain, maybe?"

  Then the man's legs disappeared into the bush. "I've never seen a bush eat someone."

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  We heard painful moans coming from the bush. "Hey buddy, you okay?" @astrowave called out.

  I jumped when the man popped to his feet. His head and shirtless, sweaty torso were sticking out of the shrubs. He was still convulsing. It looked like he was being electrocuted, something I was familiar with, and now that I could see it myself, I totally understood why it had made @auroraloon laugh.

  Then the man launched at us with a scream that I remembered distinctly from the starlab, a feral and wild shout of total disregard, complete submission to aggression. I hadn't seen anyone turn into an overtaken before. I had seen people have a bad reaction to a reanimated body. The pattern recognition made me ignore the signs I should have noticed.

  I yelped and threw the roll of toilet paper at him. It bounced off his head and unfurled, paper streaming out as it rolled down the walkway.

  "Zombie!" I screamed, and I took off running.

  @astrowave punched the man square in the face with a powerful fist and dropped him. He should have run with me.

  The man, let's call him Chesty Man, didn't care that he was bleeding from the nose or that he was lying on the ground. He crawled at @astrowave as if the only thing that had changed was that he wasn't standing anymore, and he grabbed onto @astrowave's left leg.

  @astrowave couldn't shake him off.

  Chesty Man pulled out a qwire from the back of his head, while he tried biting @astrowave in the ankle.

  I dove onto Chesty Man like an idiot, grabbing his hand with the extended qwire and shoving it into his chesty chest, rolling with him down the path, away from @astrowave.

  Then I released Chesty Man and kept rolling to get some distance. @astrowave followed us and punted Chesty Man in the face with his boot. I raised myself to my hands and knees as Chesty Man flopped over, grabbing randomly at the air with his arms.

  "Run!" I shouted, and @astrowave and I took off in the direction of Racers.

  Chesty Man wasn't done. He got to his feet and jogged after us.

  I opened a channel to the crew on The Pharaoh.

  kittyboy: "Overtaken! Lock down the ship. The virus is here already."

  zerogstar: "What happened?"

  kittyboy: "Zombies happened. Stay put."

  bitchfrog: "Can you make it back?"

  I looked behind me and panicked. We weren't just being pursued by Chesty Man. He was mauling a passerby, a woman in jeans and a white sweater. She screamed as he chewed at her neck and took her to the ground. Three other overtaken had joined Chesty Man, and by quick judgment, I figured they had turned just like Chesty Man had turned.

  kittyboy: "Undetermined. More are turning. We're over two hours away, even if we sprint. Racers is just a few minutes away."

  zerogstar: "Bringing up scans. I'll see if I can get you a safe route."

  kittyboy: "@bitchfrog, inspect everyone on board. We need to make sure no one has been exposed. I don't think it's possible, but just make sure. @zerogstar, can you tell who's infected over scans?"

  zerogstar: "I will be. I'm calibrating for behavioral analysis. Won't be perfect. Go left at the next intersection!"

  @astrowave and I ran under the canopy of the pyramid roof, along the smooth walkways, passing by a restaurant with tables extended out into the pedestrian streets, where a set of overtaken had decided the food wasn't as good as the patrons. A man was being disemboweled atop one of the tables while his friend screamed and fell backwards out of his chair, trying to get away.

  One by one, the people of Dactyl started to turn. Some on their own, shaking like Chesty Man before turning on the closest person they could find, a shrieking chorus of attackers. Others shook themselves back to life, bloody messes, who joined in the overthrowing of polite society on Dactyl.

  zerogstar: "Right here. Cut through that alley."

  kittyboy: "Cut through the alley!!!"

  That sounded terrifying. I did have a grappling hook, though. I wondered if I could grab the hefty body of @astrowave and tug us both upward and out of danger if I needed to. It had to be strong enough, right?

  zerogstar: "Yes! Trust me."

  We followed the path she laid out. Dozens were now behind us. I have to give @zerogstar credit. Ahead of us, more were turning, but she had given us time to duck into the alley a few paces ahead of them. I just had to hope now that the next 50 steps before we would shoot out the other side of the alley remained clear.

  Nothing like running down an alley pursued by zombies to get your heart rate up.

  "Don't blow yourself up!" I screamed aloud at @astrowave as we chugged ahead.

  That was my first inclination. Better to explode than turn into an overtaken. For someone who spent so much time in Thunder Ops, I knew @astrowave had to be thinking the same, although he would be wondering how to blow himself up in the most efficient and impactful way to make it count. I was just thinking about when to blow myself up to save myself.

  I shot out of the alley, my legs working hard while I tried to read the scans @zerogstar was sending our way, while pinging the area myself to identify threats at the same time.

  We had entered an open square, a plaza of sorts, lined with shops and restaurants along the east and west sides. I cried to myself. The plaza was full of people. I couldn't tell the difference except for the obvious attacker and victim scenarios, bodies leaping, falling, running, and screaming - shrieks from all directions that made me feel like I'd jumped into a pile of snow on the Island of Misfit Toys in just my undersuit.

  Racers General Store was in the middle of the strip of stores across from us. We didn't need to go there. We could have picked any of the buildings to hide away, but I hoped Racers would at least have some supplies we could use. If nothing else, they would have food, and the running was building up an appetite. We just needed to get there through the splattering of zombies.

  A thought occurred to me then.

  I flipped to my Puppy Eyes setting.

  Thank you, @ameliar8! I hollered in my head. The situation in the plaza became clear as I observed the people through my Puppy Eyes. All of the overtaken loved me. They wanted nothing more than to chew me up and ram a wire into my delicious brain.

  zerogstar: "I plotted a path, but … you'll need to fight your way there. It's hard for sensors to track who's who."

  My display was overlaid now with a line showing me the way to go. For not being sure, @zerogstar had done beautifully.

  kittyboy: "We got this."

  With the line of sight from @zerogstar and my Puppy Eyes allowing me to tag the overtaken, I knew we could make it to Racers. I broadcasted the tags so that @astrowave and @zerogstar could leverage my intel.

  I just didn't know what to expect when we got there, but first things first.

  The virus has arrived, I thought to myself as we ran through the crowded plaza, dodging, sprinting, shoving, running around tables and chairs to distance ourselves from the overtaken. Would we have caught it in time, I wondered, if we hadn't gone after @bitchfrog?

  That question would haunt me for eternity, but it didn't matter now. The virus had arrived.