HMS Valediction

Chapter 36

There's a slit somewhere in our dimension where time must have been sucked through—I have no idea how much of it has passed or hasn't passed. I don't know if I've been standing at this window for ten blips minutes or millennia watching the guts of humans and machines float past as I try to identify what bits could belong to my people. I don't know how long it's been since Moon descended into the Olympi's bowels with my child.

"Janika, come sit down." Knuckles tries to pull me away again.

"No."

"Eat something."

"Why?"

"What a stupid question."

"I'm fine." I gaze into muddy oblivion and spot what looks like a charred adult leg.

"Commander, we need to debrief." Coodi's icy demeanor returns. She's lost people too. Maybe the leg is Moyra's? Maybe it's mechanical? I can't tell anymore. I've been staring into the kaleidoscope of gore so long, it all looks the same.

Duty calls. But I must not have moved because before long, their voices are behind me.

"Two-hundred and six URE civilians were aboard the final evacuation carrier that was struck by runaway fire," Avant says in her monotone. "We lost six pilots in the air, eight civilian militia in action, and four in ARC10's explosion totaling two hundred and twenty-four. Sending casualty report now."

My hand vibrates. Out of curiosity at the foreign sensation, I peer down. One name stands out.

WARREN E. FREYER

My gaze returns to the stars and debris.

Coodi stands beside me and takes charge. Her string of commands flits by me without a single one landing. They all speak, but I don't listen. Not when there are bulbs of blood out there pretending to be celestial bodies.

"Commander, what should we do?"

"Why do you all insist on harassing her in the most inappropriate moments?" Knuckles' voice pierces the expectant quiet. "Your codes and procedures can wait. Give her a fucking second to process."

I don't want his help. I don't need him to defend me. "Don't tell my crew what to do."

We have our quiet standoff with all eyes on us. After so much staring, I can't handle the pressure of their gaze on me. I won't admit it out loud, but he's right—I need a minute alone.

Without a word, I leave.

I don't want them to know where I'm headed, and I don't think I even know where my feet will lead, but I have to get out of this room so I don't drown.

I let my eyes blur away the world. Everything is a gray cloud. I walk through it, fly through it, or whatever it is that ghosts are said to do. I keep going until I'm standing in front of the enormous double doors of the room where I first discovered my son was within my reach.

Inside, with the exception of a few dropped and shattered items from the impact, the room is exactly how I left it. The corpses of the two Olympi citizens lie forgotten on the marble floor. The empty shells of golden soldiers are scattered about. When Juno died on impact, the hive-mind strings controlling them broke. The entire Guilded Legion collapsed like rag dolls.

In the span of a ten-second collision, we won. With Juno's death, the ship became ours.

I search the floor for where Moon's blackened heart should have been, but it's gone. It's probably lost somewhere, kicked away by frantic pedestrians, or obscured under a piece of furniture during ARC10's unintentional bombardment.