When Nyck Seekall finally found Quinn, he was surprised to see the Hake Commander still staring intently at the visual screen instead of leading the battle.

  “Ahem, Quinn Sir.” Nyck tried to keep his voice neutral, masking the terror welling up inside him as the battle raged outside their war-flyr. “The weapons check is underway. But the squadron of flyrs closest to the 12-B come up clean–none fired before the order was given.”

  Quinn switched off the visual and faced Nyck. “I guess that’s that, then. The battle is lost, Nyck. I am going to bail out before our surrender. And don’t worry about the weapons check. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Bail out? Into The Zone? Are you sure that is wise? And can we not yet win this? Surely it is not so bad... this morning, you were certain of victory!”

  Quinn put up his hand, quieting Nyck's outburst. “And now, I am certain we shall lose. This battle is not worth the loss of lives, and already we have lost too many. I have given Than orders to begin the surrender. As for myself, I know too much. I cannot stay or the Sheeks will question me. The battle may be lost, but if I am caught we shall lose the war as well.”

  “Perhaps, but The Zone... it is a wild, desolate place. The water is toxic and the land a terrible maze of garbage and waste. Could you not escape in a flyr?”

  “The Sheeks would not allow a flyr to escape their net. Even if I escaped immediate pursuit, their satellites could track it until they hunted me down. Only on foot in The Zone can I evade them.”

  Nyck considered this. “But then where will you go? The Sheeks will hunt the entire planet for you. And we need you as well!”

  “It is not far to the Hake's Area. I will stay low until the time is right.”

  Though Quinn and Nyck were very close, suddenly Nyck felt as if he barely knew Quinn. A blast rocked the flyr, but Nyck forgot his terror… his only emotion now was a sense of regret that he did not spend more time getting to know Quinn. There were so many unanswered questions… and Quinn was already gathering his belongings from around the control room and stuffing them into a black briefcase.

  “When you said our victory was certain–was it true? Did that early shot really sway the battle so dramatically?”

  Quinn slammed his briefcase shut and scooped it up, clenching it with a fist of scaly fingers. “We should have won. I do not understand what happened. Say goodbye to the others for me; I’m sorry that I have to leave like this.”

  “How will we survive without you?” Nyck grabbed at Quinn's vest as the hero turned to leave. “The Sheeks will ruin us! They’ll take over the entire planet. Every last Hake will be killed, one by one. How can you resign this battle, flee for refuge, giving over this fleet to the Sheeks? Have you not considered what will become of us, who are left behind? We will perish without you!”

  Quinn gazed out of a small window, staring at the desolate ground of The Zone below. With a sigh, he turned to Nyck and looked him right in the eye. “I have considered these, and you may be right. Yet, such times are not unknown to the Hakes... you have been without a leader before, and survived. I tell you, this is no longer my battle.”

  “You abandon us, then! For, even if you make it to the Hakes' Area, it will be but a blackened ruin if our fleet, which was commissioned to defend it, is lost!”

  Quinn shook his head with a sigh, and looked eye to eye at his friend. “So it may be. But, Nyck–through it all, you must remember one thing.” The battle seemed to freeze as Quinn’s calm, deep voice filled the cramped control room. “For every catastrophe, a desert lies unspoiled.”

  Nyck furrowed his brow as Quinn explained: “Say a fire swept the planet and every last tree was burnt to the roots. Yet, for all this catastrophe, somewhere there is a desert the fire didn’t even scar. The Sheeple there have been burned all their life–what is a fire to them? Or say a drought struck the world–yet those living in the desert, though they spent their life in misery, would sit back and proclaim, 'Ha! What is a drought to us? Your catastrophe is nothing, for we had no water to begin with.' In such a manner, their life would continue in relative prosperity though others suffer.”

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  Nyck thought for a moment. “You say 'for every catastrophe', but what of floods? What if there was such a deluge that the whole of Shamonj was covered. Then, it would not be a desert, but an ocean that would remain unspoiled. And the Sheeks are not so vain as to continue their mistakes of the past when victory is so near.”

  The revered Quinn shook his head. “Nyck. There are no oceans on Shamonj. But I have said too much already... I must go!”

  Without another word, Quinn yanked a weathered parachute bag off the wall and hurried down a hallway even as Than's voice came over the intercom announcing a formal surrender. Nyck stared blankly in hopelessness at the empty space where Quinn had been standing. He was surprised that Quinn felt he could make it to the Hakes' Area with only a single suitcase and a parachute, but then again, was there anything Quinn did that didn't surprise Nyck? The ship jolted as it maneuvered to another position, dropping lower and behind a cluster of smaller ships so as to prevent the Sheeks from noticing a golden parachute falling away from the battle, straight down through a windless sky towards the charred land below.

  * * * * * * * *

  No one in their right mind would live in as desolate a wasteland as The Zone except for one compelling reason: Land is cheap.

  Mordei Keim, Hake Laborer

  Mordei had not expected the battle today. Tomorrow perhaps, the next day likely, this week certainly, but today? As soon as the news reports started coming in, he'd called the taxi-flyr. Now the craft hovered outside the entrance to the shoe factory where he worked, its driver arguing with him.

  “Look, Hake, I ain't going within twenty miles of The Zone, and especially not for yer kind. Haven’t you seen the news? That there's a war going on?”

  The fact that the driver was still arguing gave Mordei hope. “I can't help where I live. I have to get back to my wife! We're only on the edge of The Zone… you can just zip in and zip out.”

  The driver puffed on a cigar, its end flaring up in a nano-explosion in the propane and oxygen rich atmosphere. “It's an awfully big risk. Who says yer Hake fleet isn't gonna fire on any craft they see?”

  “Come on, Paul. I've gotten a ride from you every day for six years. Surely you can do one more trip. The battle’s probably over by now, anyway.”

  “A hundred yar, then. One way. If you want out it'll be double.”

  Mordei jumped into the flyr, slamming the door shut even as it pulled away from the factory. “One way is fine. We have a truck in case things get bad, but I doubt it will come to that.”

  The taxi-flyr raced away from the city of Gabez, approaching The Zone. After crossing the River Yellow, the green valley gave way to a dry, rocky plain. “I don't like this,” muttered Paul. In the distance they could see the opposing war fleets. “A risk to come here, it was.” Ahead, the Sheek flyrs were surrounding the Hake flyrs, as if corralling them.

  “Look, the battle is already over… the Hakes gave up,” grumbled Mordei. The ground was littered with the fresh ruins of smoking crafts, sent careening from the battle during the early fighting. “The Sheeks are rounding up the survivors, and then they'll be off.”

  “Does look that way. Huh, that's odd.” The driver craned his neck out the window.

  “What?”

  “Sorry for the trouble I gave you. I hope your wife's all right. Too bad for your animals, though.”

  “What do you mean?” Mordei looked out the window–and then he saw it. A large war-flyr engine had crashed into his backyard, leaving a trail of mangled sheds and barns ending at a massive cylinder of shredded metal. As for the rest of the flyr, Mordei was sure it was one of the wrecks they'd just flown over. He hoped the Hakes inside had survived and made it to safety.

  The taxi-flyr set down in Mordei's driveway next to his old, red truck. Mordei handed a stack of yar to Paul and hopped out. “Thanks for taking me home… I’ll call for my normal ride tomorrow, assuming everything has settled down.”

  “Hmmph. We’ll see about that,” said Paul as the taxi-flyr raced away.

  Mordei looked at the damaged pens, and then to his house. A wooden door hung upon. A whistle from the truck caught his attention. He turned, startled to see his wife, Marthah Keim sitting in the passenger seat, white as Selfarian Marble. Every gun he could recall owning rested on her lap, and a boxed cheesecake sat on the dash. This was rather unusual behavior for Marthah, who was usually out feeding the animals on their hobby farm.

  “What is going on?” he asked, climbing into the driver's seat. Marthah reached over him and yanked the door shut, pointing at the ruined backyard. Turning, Mordei realized just what exactly the flyr had crashed into. His eyes widened in horror as he comprehended.

  “I g-grabbed everything tha- that I–I dared to g-get,” she stammered. “I daren't go back for any- anything else. Can we g-go now?”

  “Yes. At once.”

  Mordei revved the old engine and the small red truck tore out of the driveway, leaving their hobby farm behind. “We can always come back and get the rest later,” he said solemnly, his eyes glued to the road ahead.

  “Much, much later,” agreed his wife, clutching the cheesecake box in fear.