Captain Douglas Jensen thought he had gone mad – the stress of working for the Federation finally getting to him. He stammered at the sight of the tiny woman sitting on the edge of his mug of soma. "You're dead! You can't be here!"
"I know, right? Seeing my frozen corpse in the cryotube, freaky isn't it?" the woman said, leaping off the mug and onto the console "You'll find this hard to believe, but I'm literally a ghost."
Douglas scratched his head "I really must be hallucinating. Ghosts don't exist! You're not my wife coming back to haunt me! You're not Kassandra! She's dead, the DNA analysis is wrong!"
The woman sighed "There are iron-based anaerobic lifeforms that eat metal, energy beings with magical powers and organic nanomachines that require air."
She put her hands on her hips "And now you're questioning the existence of ghosts?"
"I've held your dead body in my arms. You were deceased, bereft of life. Shuffled off your mortal coil and gone to pine the fjords!" Douglas said "Since there is no noted ghost demographic… you must be my subconscious playing tricks on me for what I've done. That's just some other person I've got in the freezer!"
"Really? That's your most logical conclusion?" she replied "You used to have such an open mind when we first met."
"Dead people just don't come back as ghosts!" Douglas shouted "If you don't vanish from my delusional mind, I'll have to force you out at the medbay!"
Kassandra looked at herself and shrugged. "The Autodoc can do therapy sessions but it's not a good as having an actual person" she explained "But then again you already know that."
"Then tell me something I wouldn't know" Douglas demanded "Or do something ghostly!"
"Like what? Possess someone?" Kassandra asked "You've got any living bodies you're willing to spare? I can't go back into the dead one."
Douglas began to stand up, so Kassandra said "Fine then, you've parked your big fat cruiser on my farm and your Rocky friend destroyed the Terraformer."
She watched as Douglas went through many different expressions and emotions as his mind tried to process what was really going on. Anger, then confusion, a bit of a smile, then sadness, followed by more confusion. "Your farm? Why would a hallucination claim to own a farm on this rock?"
"Exactly. I set up a ranch here after the war and had to flee from it after slavers shot up the place" Kassandra said cheerfully. "They couldn't hit the broadside of the barn."
"What war? The war with the Mantis?" Douglas asked, deciding that perhaps he should now listen to the hallucination. "Because you never mentioned a farm when we met."
"It was the war between the Zoltan Empire and a tiny tropical planet called Abadoth" Kassandra started "The planet you've landed on with a ship hardly-designed for planetary landings."
"The Zoltan Empire?" Douglas asked "Was there an issue over weapons licensing or something here before we met? Are you now a vengeful spirit who'll find some way of messing up their paperwork?"
Kassandra chuckled "No, this was way before they became bureaucratic. Way back before they were even energy beings. Back when the Zoltan Empire was the biggest empire in the whole galaxy. It was not a pretty conflict. A lot of innocent lives were lost…"
The tropical planet of Abadoth was one of the Empire's vassals, having no need to resist their authority and rule. The inhabitants were a peaceful sort with only a light military to deter pirates from ruining their paradise. Tourism was their primary industry and the Empire left them alone for a long time as long as the token tributes were made.
Then several of the Crystal Empires had banded together on a crusade to acquire more land. The Zoltan Emperor needed more planets producing weapons for war and Abadoth with plenty of free space and pristine resources was slated for domination.
The people had prepared to surrender their paradise when Crystal scientist came along with a way of destroying Zoltan ships as they travelled between stars through a dimension they called "Hyperspace."
The device required a living body to be hooked up to the machine to act as a conduit. Their "self" or "soul" would be thrown into Hyperspace and granted supernatural powers to destroy the defenceless vessels. As long as their living body remained safe, they would be immortal.
One of Abadoth's best and brightest had to be sacrificed to become what was later dubbed a "Hyperspace Ghost."
"And you were the one who stepped up to the task?" Douglas asked "Becoming immortal and ghostly to save your planet?"
"No. It was my grandfather who did it" Kassandra said. "You probably translated that message I sent to him. Despite never seeing him and what he did after the war, you've got to love him for what he did before. Self-sacrifice should take a great cause and saving Abadoth was the greatest of them all."
Douglas commented "I can imagine my father doing the same thing to protect what he believed in."
"And he would have been a better choice if he was around that time" Kassandra remarked.
"Such a shame the Mantis Swarms got him" Douglas sighed "So what happened to the Zoltan Empire after your grandfather became a ghost?"
"Well they sent out a small fleet, a destroyer and some escorts. You know, to facilitate Abadoth's surrender. Something discrete so the people don't get too riled up at destroying paradise" Kassandra explained "My grandfather's ghostly powers shattered them like glass."
"Like all those ships we saw around the asteroid base and around the system?" Douglas asked.
"That was my grandfather's doing" Kassandra nodded "He kept doing this as the Empire sent larger, more overkill fleets until the Emperor abdicated after the people got sick of all the ships getting destroyed."
"Impressive. One person in Hyperspace ending an entire war that fleets couldn't win" Douglas said "Can you do the same thing?"
"Unfortunately, no. My ascension was less than perfect and came much, much later" Kassandra sighed "So you still think you're hallucinating?"
Douglas frowned "No but now I'm wondering what the hell happened to you Kassandra? What kind of a ghost are you anyway?"
Kassandra scratched her head nervously "Not a very good one." She looked down at herself and then compared her height to the soma cup. "Let's just say what you're looking at is my… spirit. Soul or whatever word feels appropriate."
"I always thought ghosts and souls would be more transparent" Douglas asked, placing a finger on Kassandra's shoulder. "You're solid."
"I don't understand it entirely myself" Kassandra said "This is the second time I've died after all."
"Wouldn't you have a comprehensive database considering you had the creator of the tech on your homeworld writing notes?" Douglas asked.
Kassandra sighed, staring at the ground glumly "We lost a lot of data when the scientist responsible for the ghost tech took back his equipment and vanished."
"Guess his job was done then and wanted to try it elsewhere" Douglas asked "Did he have a name?"
Kassandra briefly looked up "He purged the databases, so the names of those involved have been forgotten by my time. We told my grandfather but he couldn't communicate back to us."
"Right. So because your grandfather couldn't come back home just yet, he knew like any good soldier would to stick it out a while longer until Command got their act together?"
"Pretty much. Then war broke out again."
"The Zoltan wanted round two after such a defeat?" Douglas asked, leaning forward on his chair. He was caught up in a literal ghost story by a literal ghost "I guess this time being discrete was not an option?"
"Yeah, but this time the Zoltan had their own Hyperspace Ghost to counteract my grandfather… or so they thought" Kassandra said "He called himself the Great Eye."
"The Great Eye?" Douglas asked "I thought it was just some mystical vortex the Zoltan believed in. It's actually a ghost as well?"
"The Great Eye was what became of the ghost tech creator" Kassandra said "He could do a lot more like communicate with his followers and grant them special powers… his attack on the Zoltan Empire might draw some parallels."
With the guidance of the Great Eye, the Zoltan underwent "ascension" from their flesh and blood forms and into beings of energy. Through this they could achieve greater power and they believed they could overcome any obstacle; provided they maintained their faith in the Great Eye.
The Order of the Great Eye's fleets began moving through the Empire, destroying loyalists and converting the populace to their cause. Anyone who did not follow the Order's path was destroyed or suppressed. Non-Zoltan were persecuted harshly or bombed from orbit.
Douglas smirked back "You are right. This does draw parallels."
Kassandra nodded "I wouldn't be surprised if the Great Eye was behind it again, but instead of picking on the orderly and meditative Zoltan, he decided to try it with someone more war-like."
"I'd say the Mantis would be a better choice but it was us Federation Humans who uplifted the insects" Douglas remarked "So he probably made a good call. We're kinda wired to shoot each other over slights."
He looked back at what ANODYNE was up to with the translations of the glyphs. Kassandra glanced at the screen. "Ah you saw what was on the tree?"
"Yeah, and before you tell me I'm guessing they're your people's equivalent of carving initials" Douglas said. Kassandra looked at the most prominent carving and nodded "You're right except that one. That's a message for my grandfather."
She smiled "I carved it in thanks for what he did in stopping the Gutei from wiping us all out."
Douglas asked "Gueti? I think I heard this story from the ZRPC. The Gutei was the Empire's largest ship and it went missing in the Gamma Cluster. I suppose Abadoth handed them its ass on a platinum platter?"
"That would be understatement. Saying it went missing is easier" Kassandra said "Although that part comes later, because my grandfather's attention had been diverted away from its passage through Hyperspace."
"When he found out he tried to stop it but its shields were too strong and by the time he got them down, it was too late; the ship had left Hyperspace."
"And outside of Hyperspace, ships cannot be harmed by the Ghost?" Douglas asked.
"Yes. Once the Gutei was in orbit, it powered up its Antimatter Siege Cannon. They opened fire, killing billions of people below and turned entire cities into craters" Kassandra sighed, leaning on the soma cup "They then scorched the atmosphere so that it require extensive terraforming equipment to return the planet back to habitable levels."
"I know how you feel" Douglas said, leaning back on the chair "The Rebellion has done the same thing to many worlds. I've seen assault ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… ADW's erupting at Tannhäuser Gate…"
"I'd add tears in the rain, but I was there too" Kassandra sighed "That was our home they scorched."
Douglas recomposed himself "So what happened after Abadoth burned? It looks like your people came back so I know they're not all dead."
"Well let's fast forward a few hundred years" Kassandra said, continuing her story "Because that's when the next bit of important stuff happens."
Centuries had passed; Abadoth was but a distant memory to many as the Zoltan Empire was now fully under the control of the Order of the Great Eye. Trouble was brewing at the borders between the various Rockman tribes and Crystal Empire settlements. Ships went missing on all sides.
While his planet was dead, the legend of the Great Ghost still lived on.
Meanwhile the Great Ghost was in despair – he lost everything dear to him and yet somehow was still alive despite not having a body. Did his duty as protector of Abadoth still apply without an Abadoth to protect? He sought to find answers as he wandered the galaxy as a dull star in the skies of many planets, occasionally lashing out and destroying a fleet.
The Zoltan had no idea on how to deal with such a threat as it never stayed anywhere for too long. One year he'd attack a fleet near the borders, the next year a few battleships went missing on the other side of the galaxy.
Then he was contacted by Abadothian survivors living in an asteroid they converted into a starship. They had been pursued by Zoltan ships for years, never been able to stop for very long in a single sector before the fleets caught up and gathering what materials they could.
His granddaughter gave him the details needed to break the Ghost out of his sorrow and end the relentless pursuit.
"Our family has been keeping your body alive for years on our ship in the hopes you'll be able to return and return to the world of the living" she explained to him during one transmission "Thanks to the Nano-Whatsit, we have extended our lives so we can be with you, protecting each other. That is why you still exist."
"The Whatsit?" Douglas asked incredulously, interrupting the story.
Kassandra put a palm to her face as if she couldn't believe she had just said it herself.
"I might have been on the research team for a lot of things but I didn't name it; the people did when we told them about it. The Nano-Whatsit repairs the body as it gets older or damaged but it's not true immortality. Can I get back to the story?"
"My mother died saying how proud she was for her father to have done such an important duty. Which is why we need you to do it again for us. For what's left of Abadoth. The Empire has found out where we are and has been chasing us from sector to sector. They'll soon stop at nothing to wipe us out completely" Kassandra said to the Ghost "You have to protect us grandfather!"
With renewed purpose and a face to put on his homeworld, the Ghost went to Abadoth's aid. He destroyed fleet after fleet of Zoltan pursuers and inspired new hope in the people. No longer were the Abadothians running from battle. They could now hold position and defend themselves.
More years passed and eventually the Great Eye sent their largest fleet in the known galaxy to deal with the threat. Hyperspace was filled with battleships, carriers and other large warships with weapons and defences specifically designed to counteract the Great Ghost. He was very determined to put an end to the legend once and for all and remove the blight from history.
But the Great Ghost had been destroying ships for a very long time and knew how to bypass those defences. Zoltan Energy Shields fell quickly, Field Resonators burned out and many weapons refused to fire upon the spectral entity inside of hyperspace.
"I told him to leave one ship alive though. We needed to send a message and what better way to do that then to take prisoners?" Kassandra asked "When a frigate appeared in our space, we snagged it for processing."
"They must have been pretty shaken up to have arrived without any reinforcements" Douglas remarked.
"It wasn't the prisoners that sent the Great Eye on us personally though" Kassandra laughed "We threw several books worth of childish insults at him and said we were planning an offensive on his monastery now that he lost his fleets."
"But you had no such plans?" Douglas asked.
"Some of us did, but Abadothian leadership wasn't willing to be the aggressors" Kassandra said "Especially with the Gutei on its way."
"Those threats must have put the Eye on edge" Douglas remarked.
"This time however the Gutei was a fortress of death and destruction that even bringing up the name could put the hardest pirates into a coma. The Grand Basilisks of the Rock Tribes would turn around and send their fleets home if they heard rumours of it being in a neighbouring sector."
"And your grandfather blew it up?" he asked.
"Spectacularly. The whole thing shattered like the fleets before him" Kassandra said "We could see the conflict across all the sensors. Two bright stars smashing into each other like Rockmen duelling to the death. Eventually one would crumble… or shatter."
Douglas thought he heard unusual shuffling in the Engine Room, followed by the impact of tools on the deck plates. Robert or Two-Zar is performing maintenance work, he thought to himself.
"Anyway, peace returned to the galaxy… relative peace after the deaths of Emperor and the avatar of the Great Eye. The Crystals and Rocks were still out and about, taking advantage of the Empire's weakness" Kassandra said.
"Duty had been served and my grandfather was at peace, his vengeance quenched" she continued sadly "We were safe and secure. No more need for an immortal protector. Abadoth was effectively back to being paradise, except it was inside a big rock."
Douglas nodded "Sounds like you would have been content to stay. Why did you leave?"
"Because the galaxy was at peace. No need to live on the asteroid when there's plenty to see."
"I see" Douglas remarked "So did your grandfather come back to you?"
"No. I wanted to return him back to his body and have him walk amongst us as our hero, his duty served and finally he could see his granddaughter with his own eyes…" Her eyes started to water. "But instead he stopped listening."
She slumped on the floor. "We don't know what went inside his head as he could only communicate to us through the destruction of ships in hyperspace. But my best theory is that perhaps he went insane from the main falling point behind immortality – having no friends to share it with. He was all alone up in Hyperspace."
She imagined a man in an old spacesuit – he was watching the world and the stars unfold around him. He would reach for his communicator only to find the microphone was broken. Below him on the planet, Ground Control would send a message. But it was a different operator each time.
"And there's this strange lady on the line calling you grandfather, despite the fact you've never met them or even seen their face" she added, pretending to strum an invisible guitar.
The destruction of the Gutei shook up both ghosts. The Eye thought he needed a physical body to remain in power but as he saw his shattered crystalline form, he realised it was all a lie.
The Great Eye had built an entire faith and an empire in order to absolutely make sure his physical body could not be destroyed by his enemies and cause him to cease to exist. Now he realised that he had wasted his time as an immortal being.
He vanished from the public eye and was last seen a rogue planet wandering the nebulae around Zoltan territories, bestowing upon passers-by with gifts or with harsh punishments.
The Great Ghost on the other hand realised he was dead all along and the people of Abadoth had been guarding a corpse for centuries. He was stuck as an immortal ghost. An immortal ghost with nothing else left to exist for, having served his duty and dealing out revenge for what was lost when duty failed him. He felt empty...
Then he remembered that duty to protect the planet and the people. That was when his immortal life meant something. He wanted to keep going along that path, fulfilling this duty to defend Abadoth from all threats and give purpose to his continued existence.
Peace was not his desire. Peace was not for a soldier with a whole dimension he had control over.
He needed something to threaten Abadoth, to make him feel useful. But what threats were out there?
The answer came from within his shattered mind. He imagined his granddaughter Kassandra asking for help. The planet Abadoth was being attacked by the Zoltan Empire and only he could save them. The Gutei had returned and there were hundreds of them everywhere! The Empire was merely holding them in reserve! With renewed purpose, the Ghost went into the fray, flying back to the ruined planet and defending it.
Hyperspace travel became even more dangerous for starship Captains to travel. The Ghost began attacking cargo vessels, science fleets and colony ships, thinking of them as threats. Then he would go off and fire his powers into Hyperspace, trying to destroy his imaginary ships.
Rifts opened up in Hyperspace which opened up holes in reality around the galaxy. White voids appeared, spewing out all manner of horrific sights from alternative dimensions and universes.
The Crystal Empires began withdrawing from the galaxy, fearing the destruction of reality itself while a mysterious race of iron-based lifeforms appeared in their wake with a deep hunger for metal.
"You ever wondered how iron-based life could even have existed?" Kassandra asked "The Lanius were not of this dimension after all."
"I never thought about it too much" Douglas said "Go on. What happened after reality started being turned upside-down?"
"The Zoltan first tried locking down Abadoth, calling the area around it a forbidden zone, but attacks kept happening outside this area as everyone relied on the Hyperspace Drive to achieve faster-than-light travel" Kassandra said "All except one. And they were rather new to the scene and eager to share their knowledge."
"The Engies?" Douglas asked.
"The Engi Hive Mind had used a slower and less efficient form of FTL travel but it also avoided Hyperspace entirely… everyone pretty much adopted that strategy."
Ensign Robert Smith then shouted from the engine room "I knew it! My brother thought it was just a conspiracy by fuel companies but I knew it was ghosts! Holy crap did I know!"
Douglas turned around suddenly to see a Mantis waiting at the door. Along with the Rock(wo)man Princess Debbie Vrachos and Two-Zar the Engi was seemed to be in the process of scooping up small pieces of gravel at Debbie's feet.
"Where did you guys come from?" Douglas asked "Were you listening the whole time?"
"We first heard you talking to yourself" Debbie said, putting a hand on Robert's head "The squishy one suggested dragging you to the medbay for therapy. The metal one agreed."
Douglas froze in shock. He glanced back at Kassandra then at his crew. Did he imagine entire story to justify his delusions? "Talking to myself? You mean…"
"Oh we can see her now" Robert said shaking his head "And it freaks me out considering that I just passed by her frozen body on the way here. Whoever put her in there didn't remove all that disgusting beef jerky either."
Debbie crossed her arms smugly while Kassandra asked "Can I get back to what happened to Abadoth?"
Robert pouted "All I've heard is more history about your people."
"Ensign, you'd want answers if it turned out your partner was secretly from an ancient civilisation" Douglas said "And that she's a ghost."
Robert looked to the ground "Sorry. Continue. What happened to your people?"
"We moved back to Abadoth of course. Tried to terraform it and start a new colony" Kassandra explained "I even planted that great big tree you saw."
She gave a wistful sigh "Went out there without an enviro-suit and carved my name and my grandfather's into the hundred-year-old trunk. Bad idea I know but I couldn't help myself."
"Then after the colony was founded, we had a few years of peace until the Slugs started celaforming the Gamma Cluster and enslaving the inhabitants with overwhelming force."
"The whole colony got enslaved?" Douglas asked, offering a sympathetic finger for Kassandra's shoulder.
"It was worse than that" Kassandra said, stepping back from the finger "They irradiated the whole asteroid so that our people would be a rarer market. Our fleets didn't stand a chance."
Douglas sighed "So after all that surviving, you still end up as slaves. No wonder you never told me about how far your past went…"
Kassandra looked to the ground, hands behind her back "I wanted to start anew, leave the past in the past. That's why I never brought up the subject of my family or kept it vague. Thousands of years of history were not needed."
Douglas said "I'm glad you're being honest now Kassandra."
"Well that's what a stable marriage is about isn't it? Communication?" Kassandra asked.
"I'm not sure if I want to get back into that sort of commitment though" Douglas replied. "It would have been nice to know that you were still alive after I had seen your body cast out into space."
Kassandra sighed "I didn't realise dying brought me back as a ghost. When I saw myself…"
This time Debbie was the one complaining "I was briefly excited when you brought up the Crystals but now you're just boring me with all this gravel."
Douglas glared at the two. Then Two-Zar chirped "Agreement."
"E tu Two-Zar?" Douglas asked dramatically.
"Affirmative."
Kassandra sighed "I woke up next to my own frozen corpse, and then a mad Engi scientist named Doctor Nabaal abducted it looking for new organic bodies to experiment on. I beat him up, stole his ship and found myself in the Gamma Cluster."
"That wasn't too hard, was it?" Debbie asked snidely.
"It would have been more exciting to explain what I had to go through to beat up that Engi. He wasn't a pushover after all" Kassandra grumbled.
"Engies can be very unexpected in power" Douglas commented, looking at Two-Zar "But still… what do you think made you a ghost?"
Kassandra said "I underwent a process much like my grandfather's ascension in the hopes I could finally have two-way communication with him. It didn't work but I guess it had other unexpected surprises."
She flexed her arms behind herself and gave out a yawn "You know, I never asked what were you guys doing out in the Gamma Cluster. Obviously finding your late wife is not your mission, nor is violating the Forbidden Zone so I assume it's something important. Only pirates and smugglers tend to be around here."
Before Douglas could answer in a way that wouldn't compromise the secrecy of the mission, Kassandra said "Wait, I remember hearing something on the ansible about this… you're that ship aren't you? The one with the vital intel the Rebels are all looking for?"
"Word spreads fast. But none of us are allowed to know what the intel is. The Rebels might capture us and torture it out from us" Douglas said before looking at the crew.
Then the sensors picked up three incoming contacts from the beacon. "Rebel ships" Douglas scowled as he watched one of the contacts move towards him. Suddenly he received an incoming transmission.
A Human in a Rebellion Yellow jumpsuit appeared on the screen. "Looks like we're not the only ones checking out the Forbidden Zone" he said in a very snooty accent "Destroying you will put me back into Command's good graces! Charge weapons!"