The cracked screen on my old PAHLM lights up as I rub it against the scanner in front of my old cabin. Old room, old device, old life—it's all archaic like some undisturbed monument to the woman who lived here a long time ago.
When the door slides open, I'm hit with a rush of cold air. Scanning the small space, I take stock of what's left of my previous life, narrating through it to remind myself of why its nothing but scraps and broken bits anymore.
If you direct your attention to the floor, you'll find the remains of your demolished stuff, courtesy of your mutinous passengers and the destruction they inflicted before you were flung into potential slavery and-or death.
Along with my belongings, blood stains and garment scraps criss-cross the area around my lopsided bed. Underneath, Dean's trunk's corner peeks out from sheets draping around its edges. Of course, as my luck would have it, Dean's possessions seem to have remained intact while everything I've ever owned is splintered.
I pull the trunk out and open it.
His mother's books are in perfect condition.
Well, perfect for them. They're still floppy, dog-eared and flimsy with excessive bending, but they're exactly as I left them. Exactly as Dean left them in my care.
"Ledi," I say into the communicator pinned to my lapel.
"Yeah?"
"Think you can get to me without being detected?" I press the silver button on my shoulder to alert him of my coordinates.
"Yeah. I can manage that. What do you need?"
"I need you to haul out a few things for me. They don't belong here anymore."
"Hold tight. On my way."
I shake away the lingering hope that bubbles up, thinking maybe it's really Dean heading over. "Great. Thanks."
In the meantime, I'll pack what stays here in Commander Country's shell while I gather my valuables and keep them closer to me. My small wardrobe doesn't hold much. It's a few quilt-sized shirts and jackets specially-made for my pregnant body. My fancy officer grays for when more formal attire was needed—but it never was—and, of course, my old jacket.
Its brown leather is rough in comparison to whatever creature's hide Moon used to make his. It's starchy in contrast to the thin, luxurious fibers of my current threads. I unbutton and shrug off the blue jacket Teeno insisted I use for my return home and slide my arms through the old familiar shape of my favorite wardrobe item. Its brown furry collar tickles my chin and brushes up against the upturned scar. I zip it up and stick my hands in the pockets. This feels right.
"It still looks better on me."
Somehow, Moyra has managed to sneak up on me again. Shrugging, I grin and hide my surprise. "I doubt it."
She accepts the jacket when I unzip and hand it to her. It slips over her body like water. "Still fits perfect. Like it was made for me. Because, you know, Sister, it was."
"I had first dibs when you died."
Moyra leans against my doorframe, her hands stuffed in the jacket's pockets. "If you promise to never wear that again—" she nods toward the powder-blue draped across my bed—"I'll give it to you. For keeps."
I pick up Teeno's jacket and hold it up, showing her the front and back, the cinched waist, the tall collar and squared shoulders with its myriad of shiny, silver buttons. "This thing? It's not so bad."
"It's not ours."
"No. But technically, neither is that."
She hugs the weathered leather tighter against her. "Hey. I knew where this came from. Jacob handmade this thing with love. Remember? After I complained about it being so cold on the Topside during driver training, he bought the material, sized it up, stitched it together, and gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. He said it was a perfect match for my Pop's from when he flew."
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.