Von Braun’s steel-tipped dreams hum with blood and gasoline. A factory of shadows, all twisted spines and raw hands—dying by the hundreds, whispering curses in languages he never cared to learn. “Build me a ladder to the stars,” he says, boot heels clicking on the concrete, the sound swallowed by the choking wheeze of the dying.

And they built it. Bone by bone, rib by rib. V-2 rockets screamed into the air like angry ghosts, their trails searing the night sky, lighting the path to ruin. Didn’t matter who won. The ladder was his. Rockets kissed the edge of heaven while kingdoms below burned and dissolved into ash.

When the winds shifted, he packed his ladder neatly into a briefcase, swapped the swastika for the star-spangled banner. “No hard feelings,” he whispered to the ghosts of Mittelbau-Dora. “It’s not personal; it’s orbital.”

And so von Braun dreamed, sold his sins to the highest bidder, and built his rockets higher. He aimed for Mars but left his soul somewhere in the dust of the camps, tangled in the smoke of a war he could never win.

One night, under the cold hum of fluorescent lights, von Braun found himself face to face with the ghost of Mittelbau-Dora. It shimmered like grease on water, eyes hollow as the craters his rockets carved into London streets.

“You summoned me,” the ghost whispered, its voice a low-frequency rumble like bombers over Dresden.

“I didn’t,” von Braun said, lighting a cigarette with an unsteady hand. “You misunderstand. I’m a scientist, not a… conjurer.”

The ghost laughed, a sound like metal grinding against bone. “You don’t summon me with rituals, Herr Doctor. You summon me with equations. With each launch, my shadow grows taller.”

Von Braun exhaled smoke, staring into the ghost’s shifting form. “I regret nothing. You misunderstand progress. Sacrifice is inevitable.”

“You misunderstand sacrifice,” the ghost snapped, advancing. Its translucent limbs bore the scars of whip marks and crushed fingers. “Sacrifice is giving something willingly. You stole.”

The cigarette trembled in von Braun’s hand. “I didn’t steal. I was ordered. I followed orders.”

The ghost leaned closer, its breath reeking of burnt flesh and ammonia. “The universe doesn’t care about your orders. It only records the weight of your sins. Gravity is impartial, Herr Doctor. It drags all things down—rockets and souls alike.”

Von Braun’s voice grew sharp, defensive. “And yet, I rose. I escaped. I brought humanity to the stars!”

The ghost grinned, revealing teeth that cracked like splintered stone. “You didn’t bring humanity. You brought its corpse, wrapped in equations and stamped with approval. But tell me, when you sleep, do you dream of the stars… or of the camp?”

Von Braun fell silent, his cigarette now a smoldering stub between his fingers.

“Keep building, Herr Doctor,” the ghost said, retreating into the dim corners of the room. “Every launch is a prayer, and I’ll be waiting at the altar. Heaven is colder than you think.”

And then it was gone, leaving von Braun alone, the silence around him vast as the vacuum he so admired.

<>

Von Braun sat for a long while in the empty room, the ghost’s words reverberating in his skull like the countdown clock he had memorized so long ago. Ten, nine, eight… His hands were shaking. He crushed the cigarette stub into an ashtray overflowing with others, each one a failed attempt to quiet the noise.

The ghost returned the next night. This time it was not alone.

Behind it, a procession emerged: spectral workers from Mittelbau-Dora, their translucent bodies hunched beneath the weight of phantom chains. Their faces were smeared with ash, their eyes empty pits that seemed to absorb the light from von Braun’s desk lamp.

“You’ve built a cathedral of fire,” the ghost said, gesturing at the blueprints sprawled across the table. “But who does it worship? The stars? Or the ruins below?”

Von Braun’s voice was thin, almost pleading. “You can’t understand. The war… it demanded impossible things. I didn’t choose—”

“You always choose,” the ghost interrupted. Its tone was sharp now, like the snap of a taut wire. “You chose ambition. You chose to climb, even as others burned beneath you.”

The workers began to speak, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of accusations, memories, and half-formed screams.

“I was sixteen.”

“My lungs filled with dust.”

“They beat us for slowing down.”

“They shot my brother in the quarry.”

Von Braun staggered backward, his mind reeling. He pressed his palms to his ears, but their voices seeped through, each word clawing at his defenses.

“Enough!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “What do you want from me? I did what I had to do. Without me, the rockets wouldn’t have flown. The world would have lost decades—”

The ghost cut him off with a gesture. “You think progress absolves you? Progress is indifferent. Rockets don’t care who builds them or who dies in the process. And the stars you worship—they’re silent. They won’t absolve you. They won’t even notice you.”

Von Braun collapsed into his chair, his head in his hands. The ghost moved closer, its form flickering like a damaged film reel.

“Do you know the difference between you and the stars, Herr Doctor?” it asked softly.

He didn’t answer.

“They burn without taking,” the ghost whispered. “You burn everything around you to keep your flame alive.”

Von Braun didn’t sleep that night, nor the night after. Each launch he orchestrated brought a fresh visit. The specters grew louder, their forms more vivid, until he could no longer tell if they haunted his waking hours or his dreams.

But he kept building. Because what else could he do?

One day, years later, when the Apollo 11 rocket touched down on the moon, von Braun sat alone in a dark room, watching the grainy broadcast. He should have felt triumph. Instead, the ghost’s words echoed in his mind:

“Heaven is colder than you think.”

<>

Von Braun jerked awake, his breath ragged, sweat pooling in the folds of his collar. The conference table loomed before him, its polished surface reflecting faces frozen mid-expression—Walt Disney, his eyes sharp and glittering; a clutch of clean-cut executives; and a secretary poised with her shorthand pad, staring at him as if he’d just crawled out of a grave.

“Dr. von Braun?” Walt’s voice was cool, a salesman’s pitch buried beneath the genial tone. “You were saying something about the Saturn V?”

Von Braun blinked, his vision still blurry. The ghost’s voice whispered in the corners of his mind: They burn without taking. He swallowed hard, forcing himself back into the skin of the polished scientist, the American visionary.

“Yes,” he stammered, brushing the cold sweat from his forehead. “The Saturn V… a tremendous leap for mankind. Reliable, scalable… limitless potential.” His words sounded hollow to his own ears, like an echo in an empty silo.

The executives exchanged glances. One of them—a younger man with slicked-back hair and the wide, toothy grin of a salesman—spoke up.

“Limitless potential,” he repeated, leaning forward. “That’s what America’s all about, Doc. Taking us to the stars!”

“Indeed,” Walt said, his voice like honey poured over gears. “And with your help, we’ll inspire the next generation. Rockets, adventure, the frontier spirit—it’s a story we can sell.”

Von Braun nodded, but his stomach churned. His eyes darted to the mock-up sketches on the table: gleaming rockets against the backdrop of Tomorrowland, astronauts shaking hands in zero gravity, a grinning Mickey Mouse saluting the moon. The future, sanitized and sparkling.

The ghost’s voice slithered into his thoughts: Progress is indifferent.

Walt leaned closer, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone. “We’re talking about more than just technology here, Dr. von Braun. We’re talking about storytelling. You’ll be the face of a new era—a bridge between the old world and the new. And America? We love a redemption story.”

Von Braun hesitated, his hand gripping the edge of the table. Redemption. Was that what this was?

“Is something wrong?” Walt asked, his smile tightening just a fraction.

“No,” von Braun said quickly, forcing a smile of his own. “I’m just… overwhelmed by the possibilities.”

“Well,” Walt said, leaning back in his chair, “possibilities are why we’re all here. Let’s move on.”

The meeting droned on, talk of funding and timelines, television specials and public enthusiasm. But von Braun wasn’t listening. His mind wandered back to the ghost, to the voices of the workers he’d buried in the darkness of Mittelbau-Dora. They lingered in the edges of his vision, just out of reach, their hands outstretched toward him.

“Dr. von Braun,” Walt said suddenly, snapping him back to the room. “Are you with us?”

“Yes,” von Braun said, his voice distant. “Of course.”

But as he spoke, he noticed Walt’s smile falter, just for a moment. The man’s eyes narrowed, as if he saw something flickering behind von Braun’s carefully constructed facade. Something hollow. Something haunted.

The meeting ended, handshakes were exchanged, and von Braun walked out into the California sunshine. The warmth on his skin felt like a mockery. As he stepped into his car, he caught his reflection in the rearview mirror. For a moment, it wasn’t his face staring back. It was the ghost’s, its hollow eyes burning with quiet fury.

And then it was gone.

Von Braun drove away, gripping the wheel tightly. In his mind, the countdown began again. Ten, nine, eight…