Charlie trotted down the hall until he came to Maggie's room. Inside Maggie coughed into her pillow adding to the blood already there.

"Hi Charlie. How's my doggie? Huh." Another fit of coughing stopped her before she could pet him. Charlie rubbed against Maggie but could offer little other comfort. "Probably my last day Charlie. When the others started coughing up blood they didn't last twenty four hours. Glad you didn't get this." She struggled to her feet and staggered to the door.

Charlie took off at full speed toward the gym. Maggie turned the other way toward the bridge of the ship. Half way there Charlie showed up with a ball in his mouth. Maggie ruffled his head and he dropped the ball but she didn't pick it up. Charlie looked from Maggie to the ball and back but when she started to the bridge he picked up the ball and walked beside her.

On the bridge Maggie collapsed into the comms chair and coughed into a rag. "Arty, any good news?" Charlie sat next to her and lay his head in her lap.

"Afraid not Maggie. The doctors back at base have identified it as an old bio-weapon but no cure was ever developed."

"So, what's next?" Maggie asked.

"Protocol is severe. You can't land or disembark anywhere. The planet you visited, Giselle 2234C, has been declared off limits until such time as a cure is developed."

"It would be a shame to lose it. The terraforming is all done. The fauna has established itself. Once Charlie had to run off a couple of dingos who were trying to eat me." Maggie coughed some more.

"We wont, with current technology a cure is estimated to take about a year."

"And I've got a day at most." She coughed into her rag again. "And you?" she asked the ship.

"Magellan class ships are not cheap but in this case it will be written off. I've been asked to destruct the ship. If I were in a system I would dive it into a star or a gas giant. Out here I'll overload the FTL and go out in a flash of Cherenkov radiation."

"That's the ship. You?"

"I'll leave a caretaker program aboard to run the self destruct and transmit myself to base. In time I will get another ship. Don't concern yourself about me."

"Yeah, I wasn't," Maggie said. Charlie whined. "And Charlie?" Maggie reached to pet him then doubled over coughing.

A mobile chair rolled up to Maggie and she crawled onto it. It started toward sickbay. "Save Charlie. Please. He did save me once." She started coughing again and a restraint wrapped around her. Charlie trotted behind the chair.

Arty monitored Maggie's progress to sickbay. At best he could sedate her and keep her pain free for the last hours of her life. The ship needed to get a few weeks closer to base before he could transmit himself and be sure that he was received properly. He watched as Charlie sat next to Maggie and licked her hand. She didn't respond.

The ship dropped out of FTL space and turned one hundred eighty degrees. It would take a couple of months to get back to 2234C.

Charlie stuck his nose out the shuttle airlock. He could smell the bunnies in the distance. There was no scent from other dogs though. He bounded down the ramp and raced through the tall grass.

From orbit Arty watched as Charlie chased a rabbit. There was plenty of food on the shuttle but he expected Charlie to be living off the land soon enough. Arty started to power down the life support systems. That would save him enough power to last a long time. Eventually another human ship would come by. This planet was too prime to abandon and a cure for the virus would be found. Until then Arty would sleep.