A new short story by Andrew Maclure.

A forbidden planet, a brutal war, a refusal to accept fate

A gritty story of refusal to accept the fate that destiny has dealt.

Sarang, a highly respected professor of military history, faces a tragic destiny. She has contracted the incurable Claris Eight virus, a rapidly mutating disease that inevitably leads to a painful death.

With each passing day, Sarang’s health deteriorated, and she was faced with a grim choice between an agonising death and self-termination. Sarang chooses a third option, a path that would allow her to meet her end on her own terms, immersed in the world of military history that had been her lifelong passion.

Sarang bribed a freighter Captain to take her to an inhabited, and therefore forbidden, planet in a remote solar system. This planet was home to a primitive civilization locked in a brutal Stage One war, a type of conflict that Sarang had studied extensively. She believed that by joining the war, she could find the meaningful end she desired.