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The glowing fireball of the central star stood high in the sky. An oppressive heat weighed down on the planet. Only the red cloths stretched over my head offered a little shade. They hung limply between the pipes that had been provisionally installed as a support frame. There was not a single breath of wind.

I stood thoughtfully at the parapet on the roof of the community building and looked out into the wasteland. Reddish-brown sand and bare white trees dominated the landscape. As I leaned my elbow on the parapet, porous concrete crumbled and trickled to the ground. My thoughts wandered into the past like the receding sand of an hourglass.

Two years had passed since I had been caught and locked up in the Klescher maximum security prison on the moon of Aberdeen on flimsy charges. With no prospect of ever getting out again. Hurston Dynamics wanted to make me disappear forever without being framed for murder. The daily struggle for survival in the caves of Klescher was merciless and it was only with luck that I managed to reach the surface through a murderous tunnel. But the joy of my escape was short-lived. Hurston Security grabbed me and left me to die in the desert of the Daymar moon.

However, they hadn’t taken into account that I was a son of the desert. I managed to make my way to a shelter. It was the start of a new beginning. I was dead in the eyes of Hurston Dynamics, I could live freely again without fear of being hunted down by Hurston’s henchmen. Eventually I was rescued by Brubacker, who was traveling with his crew in the Carrack borrowed from Anvil.

I pulled myself off the parapet, reached behind me on the table and took a big gulp of water from an earthenware jug. The cool drink flowed refreshingly down my throat. Shaking my head, I thought back to my time on the Carrack.

The crew had been a quarrelsome bunch. The supposed janitor, Aruhso, in particular, had been quite a handful. We’d had some crazy adventures together, following the trail of a supposed Hadesian artifact, until it turned out we’d been taken for a ride. At first we thought we had fallen victim to a reality show, but then it turned out that Aruhso had set it all up. In the end, he blackmailed Brubacker and wanted some things from him.

A strong gust of wind swept over the roof. The red cloths fluttered and the poles creaked. With my eyes closed, I let the warm wind, interspersed with grains of sand, brush over my face. It felt good to feel the breath of the desert.

The sand reminded me of when I first started collecting and recycling scrap metal in the desert of the Daymar moon. It was the beginning of my life as a scavenger. I collected and recycled what others left behind. In the process, I came across evidence that my White Rabbit had not been destroyed. From then on, I kept following the trail to my Mercury Star Runner, which I thought was lost. I finally found it in Lorville. With the help of Brubacker and Husky, I was able to steal it back.

And then, completely unexpectedly, a message from X, the stranger from Orison, appeared on the screen of my White Rabbit. He or she invited me to a program called ‘New Beginnings’, which Crusader Industries used to help people put the past behind them. And suddenly I was leading a double life. On the one hand, I was a righteous courier for Crusader Industries. On the other, I was trying to hack into Hurston Dynamics’ database to erase the last entries about my past life. And even working for Crusader Industries had two sides. One official and one unofficial. I worked for a special division that did unofficial jobs that Crusader Industries couldn’t be associated with. I got an insight into a covert world where even parts of the mega-corporations were working for the good and for the people.

But there were also the others, the shadow circles, who strove for power and destruction. They caught up with me again in the form of Project ENOS. Kjeld Stormanson and Thane McMarshall had asked me to help them find and decode a piece of Black Data. They suspected that it contained crucial clues to clearing up the ENOS scandal. The operation took me deep down the rabbit hole of power, politics, mistrust and conspiracy. In the end, we were able to hunt down the mastermind in Stanton, but ENOS lived on in the Pyro system.

A rattling noise jolted me out of my memories and caught my attention. I took a few steps towards a fan welded to a rusty pipe. A blow with the flat of my hand against the casing stopped the rattling. My gaze wandered over the flat roof of the communal building. The architectural style and construction was very similar to the dilapidated settlements of the Stanton system that had once been built by the first settlers in Stanton. I dropped into a chair and put my feet up on some grain sacks.

If Alaska saw this, what would he say? With the help of the scientist, I had cleared up the scandal surrounding the first settlers. We had strongly suspected that the first settlers of Stanton had come from the Pyro system. The similarity of the buildings confirmed this assumption.

Then I thought of Maria, who had come with her group as refugees from Pyro and had settled in a secluded place in Stanton. It had taken me a while to unravel Maria’s secrets. It was Maria who had shown me a different life, a life in peace, a life in the here and now. And thanks to her, I had found my way back to my roots.

And now I myself was living in seclusion in the desert on the planet Monox in the Pyro system.

After the attack by the Slicers in the Stanton system, I had brought relief supplies for the Citizens for Prosperity to the Pyro Gateway. That’s where I met Gerald. Gerald belonged to the local chapter of the Rust Society on Monox. I followed his stories and his invitation to Pyro. When I announced my arrival, Gerald asked me to take a shipment of Citizens for Prosperity to the Patch City space station in the Pyro system. From there, he wanted to arrange safe transportation for me to Monox.

It was the first time I had ever been to a space station in the Pyro system. It was an old, totally dilapidated station belonging to the mining company Pyrotechnic Amalgamated. The Rough & Ready gang had taken over the station and offered refueling services. They provided shelter for visitors, but they didn’t seem to invest in maintaining the station. Everything was littered, run-down and provisionally kept running. The food stalls served grilled rats, maggots in sauce and water that I didn’t quite trust. Grim Hex was a wellness center by comparison.

After visiting Gerald in Sunset Mesa, I returned to Stanton. But I found the colorful, flashy life in Stanton off-putting. I longed for the simple life in Pyro. After just one day in Stanton, I was back in the Pyro system. After visiting all the planets in the Pyro system, I retreated to the desert on Monox.

I enjoyed being alone, sitting in the sand, listening to the whisper of the desert and feeling the desert in a meditative state. It was a blessing to get away from all the chaos and dysfunctionality. The world was broken into camps. I had the impression that there was only one question left: us or them, inside or outside, left or right, up or down. People lived at the extremes, they only positioned themselves at the poles. What had become of the center? What had become of the many shades of gray? Life wasn’t just black and white. I had experienced that even the question of right and wrong was a question of perspective. It was easy to retreat to one pole. But recognizing the shades of grey and walking in the middle was exhausting. You needed patience and calm. The center was not a geometric point that could be calculated. It was individual, it had to be actively sought, found and balanced again and again.

Through the secluded life in the desert, I had found my center and thus my peace. This life had changed me, and not just on the outside. People here were already talking about the oddball who lives alone in the desert.

I had to laugh. Maybe I had become a bit weird. But the people who lived here seemed to appreciate me and I liked them. From time to time I came to their settlement, helped with repairs, replenished my supplies and then returned to the solitude of the desert.

The shadows on the roof grew longer. Pyro’s star was sinking towards the horizon. It was time to leave and retreat into solitude. I walked slowly down the rounded, dusty stairs. Dinner was being prepared in the common room. There was a sweet and sour smell in the air. The clattering of dishes and the crackling of the open fire created a cozy atmosphere. The settlers tried to persuade me to stay for dinner. But I refused. They put something in a clay bowl for me, I thanked them warmly and went out.

The air had become much cooler, but it was still over 30 degrees Celsius. I put on my goggles, pulled the hood over my head and got on my hoverbike. Then the sand beneath me and the sparse trees to the side rushed past me. After riding over a hill, the community center was out of sight. The solitude of the desert had me again, I was back in my element.

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