Hatred. It fills Lanis’ chest and radiates from her flushed cheeks like the final moments of a cracked fission core.

  Before her, on the Agni’s central holo-cast, the Fleet assault teams chirp confirmation codes that resistance upon the Bellitran flagship has ceased to meaningfully exist. They lower their weapons, allow a deafening moment of silence to pass between them, and then begin the ghoulish work of combing through the dead. She can see the medics already shaking their heads with resignation as they turn over a few of the stiff Human bodies, bodies that are heaped upon the floor of the Bellitran ship’s throne room like the discarded kindling of some unlit bonfire.

  A fire, yes; exactly that, Lanis thinks with a lurch to her stomach, remembering what the Dwellers taught her of the Bellitran League’s method of Warp traversal. They use the deaths of their servant species to pull them through the Warp; like a torch, guiding in the darkness.

  But these peoples’ deaths did not even serve that purpose. Instead, it appears that they were herded into the chamber for no other reason than to die alongside the Bellitran—a sort of final sacrifice to ease the pain of the giant alien’s disgraceful defeat. And to prevent anyone from telling Fleet of what they had seen.

  At least the faces of the dead appear to be peaceful—blissful, even, shaved heads framed by identical green robes. No doubt the Bellitrans had them pumped full of drugs before they activated whatever kill-switch they had implanted in these people. Of course they were not in pain; the Bellitran are not savages, she imagines the Trixilii admiral saying to her in its swaying, pompous way.

  Bastards. Every one of them. Even as she watches, the dais-bound Bellitran is dissolving into a husk of dripping grey bones, the armada leader’s suicide implants doing their diligent work beyond what Lanis had initially thought possible. It appears that Fleet won’t be having its Bellitran corpse after all, though at least the remnants of its biological data should still be useful.

  Other images spring up alongside the images of the throne room on the Agni’s central holo-cast. Elsewhere on the ship, Fleet technicians are already busy in their attempt to salvage some data from the ship’s bridge: a trio of helmeted techs unceremoniously drag aside Trixilii corpses while another fiddles with the wiring of a torn-apart bridge terminal, trying to find a physical access point that hasn’t been fried by the ship’s self-sabotage where she can implant herself and the specialized Fleet AI console unit. Throughout the ship, other techs attempt the same, trying to burrow into the dying ship’s data logs like so many vultures diving into putrefying flesh. The Bellitran are not stupid, though; their logs will be irrecoverable, corrupted beyond belief.

  There is nothing for Lanis to do, really, but retiring from the bridge to eat and rest feels out of the question. So, for over an hour, she is like a statue upon the Agni’s command bridge, her feet planted shoulder-width apart, arms crossed across her chest, holo-cast images flickering across her eyes.

  No one says a word to her, though Ash moves as if to speak several times before thinking better of it, even as her eyes linger worriedly upon the back of her admiral’s head as new images of Scoria’s devastation are relayed to the Agni. The bridge around them is eerily quiet too. It feels as if the only interruption to the distant hum of the Agni’s massive engines is Captain Dupont’s restless footsteps as he circles the central holo-cast.

  A ping, however, grows ever more insistent, until finally Lanis lowers her head, pinches the bridge of her nose, and answers:

  What?

  There’s a brief pause. Enough time for Lanis to wonder if Ether is reconsidering the wisdom of interrupting her admiral’s despondent reverie.

  I’m sorry, Ether says.

  They are not integrated—not even interfaced, like the command deck crew of the Agni— but Lanis still feels the weight behind the two words.

  For the first time in an hour, Lanis fully exhales. She swallows, shakes her head, and catches Dupont’s searching gaze.

  “Captain,” she says, her voice quietly hoarse. “I’m returning to the Navigation chamber.” God, it almost feels like she’s shouting at a funeral; but it also feels as if a certain tension goes out of the bridge. The interfaced officers around the holo-cast glance at her and nod in understanding.

  Dupont solemnly salutes her, and it suddenly occurs to Lanis that perhaps she should say something before she leaves—but what? Nothing is adequate. Let Vice-captain Dupont make a stirring speech, or better yet Admiral Atsuya and the Agni. Let the captain of the Heracles pay tribute to the deaths of her crew, or the colonel who’s leading the assault teams on the Bellitran flagship. The best Lanis can do is place one foot in front of the other, keeping her face hard and her eyes set with what she hopes comes across as steely determination.

  It’s not until the doors of the Agni’s elevator hiss shut that her face crumples, away from the rest of the crew, with Ash the only unwilling witness.

  Lanis crouches against the wall of the elevator, her hands squeezing into her short grey hair, pulling it painfully. She feels for a moment that she will rip it out.

  She screams.

  She feels the elevator glide to a stop as her body convulses with sobs. Feels a hand tentatively upon her shoulders, and then around her as she leans into Ash’s body. Feels the air of Ash’s fierce whispering against her wet face, air that forms itself into comprehensible sounds as her deafening sobs relent into choking crying.

  “It’s not your fault, Lanis. None of it. Do you understand? It isn’t, I swear to you! None of it.”

  It is a kind thing for her lieutenant to say. Even if it is a lie.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Slowly, her face still twisted in anguish, Lanis pulls away from her lieutenant—from her friend. Her mouth aches, from the grinding of her jaw on the bridge or from her sobs, she isn’t sure. She tries to take a steadying breath as she stands up, still leaning against the elevator wall, and attempts to straighten the wet, wrinkled shoulder of Ash’s uniform.

  “Sorry—”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You understand that, right? You have to understand,” Ash says, gripping Lanis’ arms and staring at her with a burning intensity. “You’re the reason any of us are even alive.”

  Lanis nods shakily, wiping her face on one sleeve of her uniform, and then the other as Ash releases her. She tries to nod in an automatic response, as much to reassure Ash as anything.

  “It’s just…. God, those people. Etana… and how many other colonies? How many other Webers?” she asks, the image of the flayed CDF officer flashing across her mind.

  “I know,” Ash whispers. “But we beat the Bellitran here. We fucking smashed them. Which means we can beat them anywhere.” Ash swallows and then gives a helpless shrug. “It’s… it’s war, Lanis.”

  Lanis considers the young ex-Versk AI technician: her short, slightly curly blond hair; the formed lines of concern across her forehead where once there were none; her perfect Fleet officer uniform, a shoulder of which Lanis has made a mess of.

  She believes in me. Just like the rest of them.

  Lanis can’t help but shake her head, and a brittle laugh escapes her lips. In response to Ash’s questioning look, she says, “I’m sorry. I just thought about when I met you. At Versk. The first time I integrated with Ether. And now look at us.” Lanis glances around at the Agni’s elevator with red-rimmed eyes before meeting Ash’s gaze. “You’re more Fleet than I am.”

  Ash stares silently at her admiral for a long moment, a subtle shift of emotions passing across her face. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she answers quietly.

  Lanis takes another deep breath, exhaling noisily through pursed lips as tries to straighten out her uniform. She wipes her face once again with her sleeves before rubbing their wetness against her pants. What a mess.

  “How do I look?” Lanis asks when she’s done all she can. “Hopefully not like someone who’s just had a minor breakdown?”

  Ash minutely shrugs. With a sad, rueful twist of her lips, she says, “Like the rest of us feel, I think.”

  Without warning, the elevator resumes, the ever-present Agni or perhaps Ether apparently deciding that their admiral has pulled herself together sufficiently to face her navigation officers. Lanis isn’t sure she agrees, but she supposes she appreciates the vote of confidence.

  A hushed second passes.

  “I wish Mirem were here,” Lanis whispers.

  She’s almost unaware that she’s said the words out loud until, after a moment, she feels Ash nod beside her.

  “I know.”

  If the officers within the Agni’s navigation chamber notice that their admiral’s uniform is slightly rumpled, her eyes red, her face puffy, then they feign ignorance; there are only solemn faces, full of restrained sorrow, and the customary salutes as they greet the return of their Navigator.

  Lanis returns their salutes as she strides to the transparent column of glass that dominates the center of their room. Her hand is already moving to begin unclipping the high collar of her admiral’s uniform when Ash clears her throat beside her.

  “You still haven’t actually rested, Admiral. Or eaten proper food,” Ash tentatively offers, glancing between Lanis’ hand, mid-unclipping, and the navigation pod.

  Of course, Lanis remembers. Except those people on the Bellitran ship will never eat again. So why should I? She knows that these are useless, self-pitying thoughts, and she tries to push them aside. The time for wallowing is done; anyway, she should be good at suppressing her emotions. So should this disaster feel so different than what already befell Terra? She swallows dryly. And yet it does. She grasps at her years of Fleet training, trying to focus on her breathing. Get it together. Ash is right. I need to be at peak performance. That’s the best way to serve the memory of the Etana.

  Lanis realizes that her officers are watching her, seeing how she’ll respond to the interruption of her clear desire to immediately re-integrate with Ether. She turns to Ash and curtly nods. “Not the mess hall though. I’ll eat here. And I’ll try to sleep in one of the pods,” she says, pulling her hand away from her collar and gesturing to one of the built-in sleeping cells where the Navigation officers remain unconscious during a Warp jump.

  She has to resist the impulse to contact Ether as she eats, wolfing down a prepackaged meal, trying not to scan the occupied faces of her Navigation officers in the hopes of gleaning some nugget of information. She reminds herself that if there was anything urgent, anything she truly needed to know, Ether or the Agni would already be in her mind.

  She sighs as she hands the empty meal-packet to an officer, having barely tasted the food, and turns to one of the sleeping cells. It silently opens, a hushed invitation to rest that Lanis can barely manage to accept.

  “One hour,” Ash says.

  “Thirty minutes,” Lanis replies.

  Ash purses her lips, and her eyes momentarily grow distant before refocusing on Lanis.

  “The Agni and Ether both say an hour. It will take at least another three to complete the evacuation of Scoria. Even Admiral Atsuya is on standby.” Ash squeezes Lanis’ shoulder, recognizing her Admiral’s impatience to do something—anything except being alone with her thoughts. “Any non-integrated rest you can get at this point will be helpful.”

  Lanis looks to the Navigation pod, and then back at Ash’s ever-concerned face. She knows she’s being difficult. Petulant, even. She manages something between a half-smile and a grimace, and nods.

  “I know. Fine. An hour, then.”

  She lies down into the sleeping pod, trying to relax her tense muscles into the gel-cushioning. The hatch slides shut, warm light settling into a half darkness. She feels a fine mesh of monitoring equipment descend over her head, like an inquisitive spider deciding how to best caress her mind.

  She wonders what her officers will make of her swirling emotions, manifested in points of data. The hatred. Despair. Guilt. Fear. But now, instead of trying to push them down, she turns each of them over in her mind’s eye, like a jeweler examining a series of precious stones, placing each upon a cushion behind a glass display case. She focuses on her breathing, the air passing into her lungs, still so fragile, so Human, despite Fleet’s tinkering augments, and then out again, carbon dioxide whisked away by the Agni’s life support systems to be converted and recycled.

  She whispers a prayer. A lamentation for the dead, from an ancient Greek poem.

  She sleeps.