HMS Valediction

Chapter 30.3

I lose Moyra to her memory. Instead of clearing my throat to bring her back to our conversation, I let her slip away. Relishing my moments from the past has been one of the greatest motivators to keep me moving forward in pursuit of new moments to cherish in the future.

She blinks and shakes her head. "The point is, I don't like that you're wearing their colors."

"Mo. You're kidding, right? Their colors? Like they're some kind of enemy?"

"I don't know anything about them. And what was that back there?" She pointed up toward the briefing room. "What's going on, anyway? What aren't you spilling?"

"Give me a few hours. You'll have your answers."

"Don't clam up on me, Neeks." She enters my room, unzips the jacket and hands it over. "Don't make my mistakes. Don't cut your family out because the job is hard and you think you're protecting them. What I did protected nobody."

"You did what you had to do. I get that now."

A shadow covers us as a figure blocks the light from the corridor.

We turn to face Ledi.

Moyra shrieks. "Dean! What are you—" She leaps toward him, her arms wide and ready to wrap her whole body around him in their customary greeting from way back before she died.

He doesn't catch her. Shrieking again, she bounces off his chest and lands on her ass, staring up at him with hurt and confusion.

"Mo, this is Ledi." I grab her forearm and hoist her up. "He's the HMS Valediction's mobile assistance unit housing the ship's operating artificial intelligence. He really likes Dean."

Moyra backs up until she hits the wall. "The fuck. Nika. This is a robot?"

Ledi smiles and holds out his thick hand for her to shake. "Ledi. It's nice to meet you."

Her lip curls as her gaze volleys between me and my animatronic Dean. "That's disgusting."

"Hey. I didn't ask for this. He did it himself." I glare at him before turning to the trunk of books. "So much for going undetected."

"No one saw me come up here." He steps into the room. "What did you need me to haul away?"

Moyra spins around to face me. "Haul away?"

I detect her panic, so I try to remain as relaxed as possible. "Yeah. I asked Ledi up here to help me store some stuff on my ship. That's all."

"You're taking your stuff out of our ship and putting it on their vessel?"

"No. It's going on the ship I fixed myself from the section that broke off ARC10. If you're going to get technical with me, Sister, it's still on ARC10. I'd like to think it's more like a room upgrade."

Silence extends between us. Knowing Moyra as well as I do, I know she's stringing together the perfect words for this occasion, but I already know what she's going to say. I'm totally aware of what this looks like and I don't care.

"Just this, Ledi." I kick the edge of Dean's trunk. "That's all I really have in here. Stooping down, I pick up the crumpled remains of Brave New World by its battered cover. "Dean's going to kill me."

As Ledi pivots to leave, the trunk under his arm, I move to head out with him, Dean's favorite title tight in my grasp.

Moyra stops me with a hand on my shoulder. "Don't follow it, Neeks."

"But he's got my stuff."

"You know what I mean," she shouts, stomping her foot the way she would when she was thirteen and having a tantrum. "I'm losing you. You're not who you were before."

Glancing back over my shoulder at the destroyed cabin, I grin. "Part of me thinks that's a good thing."

"What are they doing over there? What has you so fascinated you didn't come back for five months?"

I stagger back. "Wait. What?"

"Don't act like you didn't know."

I stand in front of her, my mouth hanging open, words failing to appear. Five months. No. It can't be.

"Five months, Neeks. Five. Fucking. Months. You left us here to wait and do absolutely nothing while you've been, what? Upgrading your wardrobe? Having sex with your robot?"

"No. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're wrong. It wasn't that long. Three weeks, maybe..."

She crosses her arm and leans on her hip. "Bullshit. You had to know."

"I had no idea." I stumble back into my cabin and drop down onto the bed as the room begins to spin. "My son. He's living somewhere. Without me. For five months."

"Time's less complex than what you Earthen have calculated," Ledi says from the doorway. He hoists Dean's trunk higher under his arm. "It seems like a long time to you all because you had such a close orbit to your sun. Out here, it's not so much."

"I can't waste any more time." Pushing past both, I emerge in the passageway. John drops from the pipes to follow me.

"Hey, Neeks."

I turn at Moyra's call.

"Don't forget us." She opens my brown jacket, offering to help me into it.

With Brave New World rolled in my hand, I twist the book into a tight spiral and squeeze. "You're all I've thought about. You, my son, Dean, and the rest of the people of the URE."

"What do you need me to do?"

I shrug. "Trust me."

There's no time to wait for her to respond. Time—it's slipped too far from me already. Spinning on my heel, I leave her in the passageway to flicker with the shadows of the blinking sconces. John and Ledi trail close behind me.