It's Funny When People Cry." It's a bit like that for me. The problem for me is the part where there isn't a solution. The problem is it isn't. It's just a stage in a long life of being human, just a stage that my sister and brother are experiencing now. If I was a parent, and I had a teenage daughter with C.T.N.L., I'd tell her that it's pretty normal, that we'll all feel this way at some point, that life is hard, and so that we should just ride the wave through it. It's going to be hard, we're all going to be scared, and we'll all have bad days. But that we'll ride the wave through them, and as soon as we do, the pain and trauma of it will be far behind us. I wish I could say more. I don't know how to make it better. It's never going to be any different than this. It's a bit like that for me. _The Last Human_ , copyright (c) 2015 by Joe Haldeman **Gwen Moffat** is the bestselling author of the acclaimed _Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Spartacus: Vengeance,_ and the Starbuck Chronicles _Starbuck: Blood and Fire, Starbuck: Mercenary_ , and _Starbuck: Enemy of Rome_. Her latest novel, _The Last Human,_ is available in June 2015. Gwen is a writer and artist with twenty-five books, including two Star Trek novels, under her belt. Her other writing includes scripts for TV and film, a novella set in the _Star Wars_ universe, the fantasy novel _The Warrior Prophet: Son of Spartacus,_ and a novelization of the television miniseries _War of the Worlds._ Gwen lives and works in Los Angeles. **About Joe:** Joe Haldeman was born in Denver in the late 1950s. He worked as a fork-lift truck driver, as a file clerk in a chemical laboratory, and as a busboy in a restaurant. While working for the IRS, he fell in love with a beautiful coworker and married her. A job opportunity with the California Highway Patrol resulted in a transfer to a small-town post in Northern California. It was there that Joe found his life's true love: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. But being new in the area, he didn't know any other SF writers. Joe decided to create a new persona for himself—Joe L. Haldeman—and began publishing stories professionally in 1976. Joe lives with his family in the rural midwest and has fond memories of the Bay Area, where he now spends a little time every year helping to edit a literary magazine. **AUTHOR 'S NOTE:** I was thinking about it the other day, as I was about to get into the car to take my son to school: There's a part in the first book in the Starbuck Chronicles, _Spartacus: Blood and Sand_ , that I wrote that I think the readers of these books will find especially meaningful. It's from near the beginning, when Starbuck meets up with the escaped slave Gaius Claudius Glabrus. The character Glabrus is based on a historical figure: Gaius Claudius Glaber, who was a Roman military officer and politician and eventually the Roman governor of Roman Britain. As you may know, Spartacus and his rebel army were eventually captured and crucified in Italy by Roman forces sent there by Gaius Claudius Glaber. In the book, Glabrus gives Starbuck a drink of wine to wash down some bread and cheese. This wine was actually a real ancient vintage, aged as an ancient Roman wine would be today. But it's also the story of Spartacus that Starbuck's drinking that wine that morning in front of Glabrus. We don't see it happen, but we know that Spartacus was captured, and that he was starved to death. We never know if Glabrus knew about Starbuck's involvement in the rebellion. But we do know that in that moment, the two of them were drinking the wine that Glabrus has ordered to be made from a vineyard the rebels had been using, and which had been taken over by Glabrus for his own wine cellar. And we know that in his later life as Roman governor of Britain, Glabrus was responsible for some of the executions that were some of the most brutal in Rome. It's from the time when Rome was at its peak. This was the time of the Twelve Caesars, meaning "emperors." There were about twenty emperors after Augustus, about sixty emperors in all, and they ruled over the largest empire in the history of the world, right until Rome itself was sacked in 476 AD. So there was Glabrus, a man who had once been a free man, but had been bought into slavery and then had been sold again, and so ended up being owned by a Roman citizen. Now Glabrus had been named commander of the army of the Roman province of Britain, as he marched through the southern part of England on his way to Roman Britain. But back at home in Rome, the Republic was under attack, and Julius Caesar was marching on Rome itself. Glabrus had been in the army of Julius Caesar during the first days of his march on Rome, and before he left for Britain he'd been put in command of a contingent of soldiers to march through Gaul to aid Julius Caesar as needed. At the time, it was believed that the British were planning to join in the revolt of the Gauls in Gaul. But the war continued, and finally Julius Caesar himself came to Britain, where he had a famous affair with a princess named Cleopatra, the lover of Marc Antony. Then Julius Caesar finally fell on his sword, and was turned into a god by the army of the Roman Empire. But before that happened, the Senate voted that all of his conquests belonged to Rome and all of his legions belonged to Rome and that the men and women of his army would be taken away as slaves. And so all of the men were taken away as slaves, but so were some of the women, including those in the Roman army in Britain. So Glabrus arrived on the shores of Britain to find the women who had fought with him in the campaign against Cleopatra and who would have been his wife and his slaves turned into concubines, and who would have been forced to fight in his army now as slaves. I think that these women's history deserves to be remembered, and there should be more stories written about them. If there are stories that have been told, I hope that I have done justice to them in this book. But a story like this is important, too. Because it shows how human slaves were treated in ancient times, and how they responded. This story shows how these women came to see Spartacus as a kind of hero, how he freed them and showed them a life that was no longer based on servitude. If only we could see the world today through the eyes of the women and children who were the slaves in ancient Rome. Spartacus himself was the kind of man that all men are: He was caught in the midst of a civil war, a war between those who wanted to live in a republic and those who wanted to live in a monarchy. The story told in Spartacus: Blood and Sand shows the kind of man he was, the kind of person who could see beyond the hatred of those who fought with him, and who could see a different kind of life that was possible—a life that was no longer based on servitude. I also want to mention one other thing. This story is about the women of Starbuck's army. But there was a battle with one of the rebel armies of Spartacus, and a Roman general died in that battle, and so did one of his officers. But we never hear the name of the officer who died in battle. That's because it's Gaius Claudius Glabrus. Gaius Claudius Glabrus is the man who had put Starbuck in the prison dungeon where he had been locked up, and so who had locked him away from all of the others. But Glabrus didn't really understand what he was locking away, or who he was locking away. It was the beginning of something that was to last hundreds of years. # Copyright No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. All characters in this publication are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Dark Skies © 2016 Joe Haldeman Cover image © 2016 by Alex Chiu Cover design by Mauricio Diaz, adapted from a design by Mauricio Diaz and Tim Eldred. Photo collage by Eric Pelletier. Map by Tim Eldred. Interior text design by Jared Shapiro. Thanks to Jennifer Schobel and Danielle Vega for editorial advice. Thanks to Matt Bialer for the concept design, and for keeping me