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After a claustrophobic elevator ride down five stories beneath the rugged surface of Idaho, former teacher Lena Lehrer followed the small group of job candidates into the doomsday bunker.

As Elton Lye walked home from work, the purple lights in the sky were momentary flashes of white-edged lavender high in the hills, bright enough to leave ghost trails on your vision. A ripple of flashes would shimmer across the hills and thunder would follow. Less a chorus of grand booms than a chattering of ugly thumps, an argument of hollow claps. It was the nightly light drizzle of Solar Coalition Expeditionary Force artillery... The SCEF was slowly reducing the dense woodland ten kilometers west of the city to mulch and steam... Elton didn't know how many resistance fighters were still holed up in those forests. He imagined the Coalition didn’t either...

Morning’s sounds reached Serai, the shush of the scythes, the hum of the looms, and the chanting of the brothers up the hill, but beyond it, growing steadily louder, came the rush of the approaching whirligig. Her heartbeat quickened. A Princess was coming. “Quickly, Serai!” Father Speaker called. “Only children daydream.”

Two days after he died, the photo of my neighbor vanished. It had hung on my wall for years, right above the bowl where I kept my keys.

My wife and daughter fade away as the screen goes black. I toss my phone into the bin along with my ring, wallet, and keys. The receptionist pulls it away without looking up... As he turns back and begins to type, I think about work, about the traffic getting here, about Kaily getting her treatment today. Only six and having to spend so many days of her life in that specialty center. I need to thank Talia for taking her to all her appointments. She always thanks me for coming here, for getting us the extra money to pay for the treatments, but I never thank her for having to watch our daughter suffer discomfort.

It’s tempting to close off from this group of my starship mates and focus on the euphoria, but bootleg ego-entanglement is best done with eyes open. It takes about ten seconds to feel the first tingles, another ninety for full effect. The world vibrates around the six of us like we’re caught inside an enormous, scintillating dragonfly wing—instead of lounging in my battlecruiser quarters. Soon we are the wing itself.