Staring at the myriad pinpoints outside the Pilot's Bridge he drifted into quiet retrospection. His ship destroyed, the Defense Corps crushed, and Midan dead, Jonathan Riley contemplated his lackluster past and his grim future. Having gone AWOL and in knowing what suicidal futility it would be to attempt a counterattack, drifting into the depths of distant space was all that he could hope to accomplish. He could never return to the society and world he knew because he recognized that the Coronian ship that attacked him was not at all what it had seemed. The IUDC would not be able to overcome this new enemy. Everything he believed in would be destroyed.

He convinced himself that a vast difference resided within the tactical strategy that had been used on the Dytherium. Previously after defeat of an enemy the Coronians would normally make contact with the enemy and gloat about how powerful warriors they are. They would explain how the crew would be taken prisoner and enslaved. This would be followed by immediate boarding and seizure of any goods or cargo. With knives and electrospears the crew would be absconded to their battleship where they would be forced to enter servitude in the mines of a Coronain Baron. These recent attacks did not fit their character. Riley should have been taken prisoner, and then the Dytherium should have been ransacked and towed to Coronis. Any sensor scan could have found that it was an almost irresistible target. This new force was masquerading as a Coronian offensive.

Jonathan Riley was not known to give in to failure. He could not allow any emotional attachments to his choices dictate his logic. Perhaps out amongst the stars Riley would find a solution to this situation and a rectification for Earth's plight. In the vast openness of space there lay so many unanswered questions, so many possibilities, yet he was now alone. Just a man and his mind symbiotically joined by a biological covenant.

The unsettling mystery that haunted him surrounded the encounter with that unusual priest, Midan, from Tarisia. An individual he had never seen or heard about prior to their encounter outside the cathedral demanded to join him, but left the people he cared for behind. What drove him to sacrifice his devotion to the congregation? He spoke of important destines and how Riley would become more important the he could imagine. Then when the Dytherium was attacked he sacrificed himself to save Riley, and he wanted it that way. Why? What made him so important? Midan was a pressing enigma that would probably never be solved. Still, there was something about a feeling he had been getting in the last few months that tied into what the priest said. It was a sense of detachment from a place that seemed to be pulling him. He could only liken it to - home. It was almost like a sickness, a feeling that bothered him so much he took a vacation on Tarisia. But…he had no home.

Concealed memories of his departed wife seeped into his thoughts though he tried to push it away. Midan spoke her name. Candace… That name harbored emotions that he had been keeping confined behind a fortress of duty and orderliness since her gruesome death seven years ago. She was always smiling and full of energy, trying so desperately to crack his professionalism, yet he never gave in. (Riley! You weak fool, look at me and listen!) He couldn't allow anyone to see him weak. It was not allowed! (Riley! Straighten up!) Yet, he could not save her. After the eulogy he knelt at her grave, stood up, and walked away, promising never to make the mistake of allowing another to enter his life again. (The pain is part of the lesson! You cry like a child! You are no soldier son; you are a pathetic excuse for a human being! I should have had your organs recycled!) No weakness. No pain.

The Secondary Military Observer was not as spacious or as sophisticated as the Dytherium, but it could sustain his life for an extended duration of time. Riley knew that he would have to find a life-sustaining world to live and keep his sanity. He knew about cases of space fever that is caused from prolonged isolation in space, and hibernation sickness caused by rejection of the brain to extended sleep. In both cases the individual became insane and had to be terminated. The only cure was to find normal gravity, a breathable atmosphere, and natural sunlight. He may never be able to return to the Interstellar Union but he would have many worlds located randomly amongst the cosmos to sustain his life. Perhaps, with some luck he would even find a civilization.

After pondering many things Riley set the Observer's computer to use the interferometric telescopic sensors to scan for star systems that might have life. . He was now somewhere past the borderlands drifting deeper into uncharted space where there were no exploratory vessel mappings to go on. The Dytherium had created a shockwave that propelled the Observer deep into the bowels of the galaxy. The computer would only be able to make an educated guess as to what worlds harbored life or not.

After the computer began the arduous task Riley left the pilot's bridge and proceeded down the corridor. The first entrance to his right and left were rooms for troops. There were lockers filled with battle gear and crates of automatic weapons and burst rifles. The second entrance was the medical bay, which had several hibernation tubes and hundreds of medkits. The medical bay was adjacent to the mess hall. Riley checked the large refrigerator and walk in freezer, but they were empty. After exiting the kitchen he walked across the corridor to a storage room which was stacked to the ceiling with crates of N-Rations. These might sustain him physically but his stomach would not rejoice.

Further down the corridor were the exits for the Amphibious Reconnaissance Vehicle and the Short-Range Underwater Surveillance Submarine. Riley had no need to spy on anybody, but one of these might come in use to him someday.

The end of the corridor branched off to a cargo room filled with guns, clips, and bullets on one side, and a mass sleeping quarters and grunt rec room on the other.

Riley had been awake for more than twenty-four hours and he was fatigued. The beds looked inviting, and the computer wouldn't be done with those calculations for little over six hours so he laid down on one of the bottom bunks. After a minute or so he fell easily asleep.

When he awoke several hours later he went directly to the bridge and saw that the computer had finished. A listing of probable life sustaining star systems was shown on the display. For the rest of that day, Riley's eyes scanned the listings, analyzing each word and numerical value. Many of the star systems didn't have sufficient percentages of tolerances for him to act, but a few did seem to look promising. After carefully pondering each location he chose a system nearly fifty-seven light years away. It wasn't the closest but his gut feeling indicated that he should go there. That was his decision and it would have to keep.

According to the navigational computer it would take nearly two years to get there. He did not want to wait the entire duration of the spaceflight, slowly watching himself lose his mind, so he felt that use of a hibernation chamber would be a more equitable alternative. He had used the chambers before, when he was a Private, and was used to the sensation of deep sleep. In the past some of his comrades were always afraid that the ship would somehow get damaged and that they would die in their sleep, but Riley expressed his youthful fearlessness by telling them it wouldn't happen.

After setting the computer on its new course and putting the light-speed drive to the highest setting possible he went to the medic bay. There he keyed the computer to immediately bring him out of hibernation if the Observer encountered anything out of the ordinary. When it decelerated out of light-speed upon entering the system it would wake him anyway.

After removing and brushing off his IUDC uniform, he looked at the tube that was about waist high and opened the clear hatch. It slid open and stopped with a thud. Inside there was a thick plush mattress with an elevated cushion at the end. It felt jell-like to his hand as he pushed against it.

He climbed in and laid down finding the most comfortable position. Next to his head was a set of controls. He pushed the button that closed the hatch. The sounds of the ship became dulled when it was closed with only a low thrumming vibration of the drive core remaining. Riley pushed the activator button that started the hibernation process. He was not tired but he knew after a minute or so the chamber would make him.

Slowly the internal lights dimmed and the temperature cooled. The hibernation gas hissed into the chamber. Riley's heartbeat began to slowly diminish. He closed his eyes and felt his sense of awareness dissipate. After a moment he was unconscious and absolute silence pervaded the medic bay.