Jen immediately jumped from her chair and ran to a wall panel, and removed the cover. Inside was a red-stopper button. With a slap of her palm she hit it, hard, and set off the alarm.

" . . . Warning: the ship has been breached . . . Warning: the . . ."

". . . ship has been breached . . . Warning."

Sheena was inside her chamber when the alarm went off, so she turned on the room's monitoring camera posted outside and above her door, and watched for any movement on the screen.

But the corridor was clear.

She immediately went to her comm mike and pressed the button. "Jen!"

" . . . Warning: the ship has been breached . . . Warning: the ship has been--"

"Jen!"

"-breached."

Jen answered, sounding frantic and almost in tears. "Sheena, Eriq isn't answering the call!"

"What the Hell is going on up there?"

"They're all over the place!"

"Who?"

"Get Eriq!"

"Who's all over the place?"

Through her speaker Sheena could hear the measured pounding against the comm-room door.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

"Jen! What's happening up there?"

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

Just before the speaker went dead, Jen Jacoby screamed.

Sheena ran from her quarters.

The pilot of Air Force Six thought he'd seen something run below the cockpit window, a fleeting shape that ran along the periphery of his vision before disappearing into the shadows.

He shut off the cockpit lights, which gave him a better view of his surroundings beyond the shuttlecraft. The docking area was illuminated by red globes that hardly put out any light at all. Just as he was reaching up to switch the lights to the shuttlecraft on, another shape raced across the docking bay's floor. It was quick and fast-a blur, actually-as it appeared to be closing in on the ship.

The pilot reached up and flipped a toggle, turning on the exterior lights.

When he saw that there was nothing out there, he shut them off and waited.

As the pilot of Air Force Six, his skills were strictly delegated to flying the shuttlecraft. If the president was thought to be in jeopardy, then it was the responsibility of his Detail to get him to safety. And since the mausoleum was drifting, he was confident that the president was quickly making his way to the docking area.

"Warning: the ship has been breached . . . Warning: the ship has been breached."

The pilot sighed, then checked his watch. There was still time. But time, when it mattered, seemed to drag on for an eternity.

Suddenly there was a noise at the top of the shuttlecraft, the bump of something landing on the fuselage.

The pilot froze, and listened.

Nothing but silence.

Then there was the sound of scampering feet running along the top of the ship from bow to stern, the footfalls moving quickly along the craft's length in seconds, the speed impossible.

The pilot remained frozen with the exception of his eyes, which darted from side to side.

Outside the craft's window shadows and shapes moved within the red light, figures that were blacker than black with twisted limbs moving in awkward gaits.

They were encircling the ship.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

The entire ship seemed to shimmer against the blows.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

And then there was the shattering of glass coming from inside the ship.

The pilot raced out of the cockpit and into the lounge area.

The seemingly unbreakable windows along the shuttlecraft's fuselage had been smashed inward, and bodies began to contort themselves through the openings in a vulgar display of being birthed. Moans and cries issued from voice boxes long dead. Hands raked the air, and the bitter scent of rot permeated the space.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

It was an asynchronous chorus coming from the undead as they continued to worm their way through the holes.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

The pilot ran back into the armor-plated cockpit and locked the door.

He could hear their moans through the diamond-studded steel, the hisses. As he sat there, he could feel his stomach knotting into a slick fist and his heart threatening to misfire. The edges of his vision began to close in, showing purple, and his bladder and bowels loosened.

He closed his eyes, swallowed, doing his best to will away a bad dream.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

He whimpered and whined. But as soon as the first blow struck the cockpit door, he cried out.

. . . Bang . . .

The door held.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

For the moment the pilot felt a false sense of security, but something nagged at him like that sixth sense telling him that he was far from safe, even behind an armor-plated door.

The sound started as a mild scraping against the windowpane, and then as tapping.

Schreeeeee. schreeeeee. schreeeeee. . .

tap-tap-tap. tap-tap-tap . . .

He turned.

Clinging to the cockpit window like insects were clusters of the dead with the tips of their bony fingers tapping against the pane in malicious play, and lips from waxy-looking skin peeled back to showcase countless rows of teeth that were badly yellowed and stained.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

"No!" As soon as the pilot instinctively held his hand up, the cockpit window shattered, glass spraying everywhere.

And the dead flooded through like a rush of water, their voices concertedly echoing their needs: "Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

The pilot screamed no more.

When the mausoleum lost its tethering anchors in the geospheres, Jim Schott just happened to be inside the ship's undercarriage double-checking the analysis of the spheres' calibrations. He was standing before a computer monitor situated at the end of a catwalk that was suspended over a glass floor and surrounded by glass walls. From his viewpoint the universe was remarkable as pinprick lights glittered all around him in spangles of silver and gold. It was if he was suspended in space if not for the walkway that stretched from the docking bay door above the glass floor to the computer console.

The coordinates to the six geospheres read accurately with their programmed positioning, but as soon as the cloud mass came into range, the numbers changed, causing the geospheres to run independently from one another rather than in sync, throwing off the ship's balance.

The cloud mass rolled across the viewport glass like a thick and boiling vapor, eventually snuffing out the star-point glitters of the galaxy like the flames of candles. Charges shot off like the synapses of a brain, sparking immense levels of static electricity that caused the hair on his scalp to itch and rise.

And then the numbers on the monitor's screen went crazy, running randomly until there were no readings at all.

The geospheres were dead. Then it dawned on him that the difference between them and the probe was that the spheres weren't shielded.

Then the mausoleum began to list badly, causing Schott to reach for a guardrail a moment before being pitched over the side and to the glass floor below.

The ship continued to tilt as if hit by a tsunami tide, rolling. Slowly the mausoleum tried to right itself, and when it settled, it was not quite balanced on a level plane, but close enough. But the ship was not stable. He could feel it turning, then gliding, the geospheres no longer within their orbits as Mausoleum 2069 began to drift into deep space and away from Earth.

Schott grabbed the rails and used them as a crutch to help him get to his feet.

Within minutes the cloud mass began to thin and glide away.

And when it disappeared altogether, the geospheres had floated off and were no longer within his range of visibility.

Oh no!

He began to type quickly on the Plexiglas keyboard, bringing up external images.

On the screen he could see that the mass was moving towards the Orion Belt, and in time the glitter of stars returned, but the mausoleum continued to rotate in slow revolutions, the ship clearly drifting, the stars no longer stationary but repositioning themselves as 2069 was on the move.

Then at the opposite end of the catwalk where the door leading to the upper level of the ship's docking area was securely locked and sealed, came a measured knocking.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

At first he thought it was the pilot of Air Force Six.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

Then he considered the fact that the pilot didn't know about the lower level, or that he'd be here servicing the geospheres.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

Schott walked along the catwalk to the door, then hit the button to the speaker system. "Eriq?"

He could hear the alarm system going off in the background, though muted, but the message was still clear: Warning: the ship has been breached . . . Warning: the ship has been breached.

Then: . . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

Schott leaped back, stared at the door for a long moment, and then engaged the button by pressing it hard with his thumb. "Who's out there?" he hollered. "This is a Federation ship!"

He took his thumb off the button, waiting for a response.

And he got one.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

He looked questioningly at the intercom system before pressing the button. "Who the Hell is this?"

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

Schott immediately turned and ran down the catwalk to the monitor. Beneath his running feet and about ten feet below the strip of the metal-grated walkway, stars shone through the glass floor. When he reached the monitor he quickly typed in commands, linking up with the spy cam outside the room.

At first the pictures were unclear and pixelated, but after a few adjustments the images came into focus.

"Oh my," he whispered.

Black masses crawled over each other like rats and vermin. They were fast, as limbs appeared as wild tangles of shadows, always moving. And then he switched on the lights outside the chamber and hit the audio button.

At first they reacted like deer caught within the beams of headlights, briefly frozen while their brains tried to register the moment, and then they were on the move as hands clawed at the camera, at the lights, trying to bring back the salvation of darkness.

"Oh my," he repeated.