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.
I walk past her throne room. The luxurious drapes and golden seat appear as icy reminders of a haunted past. I look away as I continue toward the other end of the room where another set of large doors greet me.
Not caring what I find, I pull them open.
It's an enormous bedroom. This must be where Juno lived.
The room is as gold as the rest of the ship, but something homey and comfortable permeates the air. It's as if some happy family was living here only seconds before I entered.
A white blanket catches my eye. I stoop to pick it up.
It smells like nothing I've ever smelled before—like the soft petals from flowers in my memory, or like the scent of falling asleep nestled in strong arms. It must belong to my son.
I hold it to my chest and press it against my face, wondering if this is how he'd feel if I were to kiss his little cheek.
A bed as big as my entire shuttle occupies one corner of the room. Beside it, an opulent bassinet commands as much attention. The same luxurious drapes that surround Juno's throne room crown this magnificent bed and bassinet duo as well, shading the sleeping quarters in watery silk. When I scrape my fingers across the tiny mattress of the cradle, I gasp out loud.
It's still warm.
But now there is no baby to put inside. And I don't know if there ever will be.
Moon hasn't emerged since he took my son. No news on whether my child lived or died has reached me yet.
I think about my cradle aboard ARC10—the one that's now splinters in the galaxy. It's not fair that my bed for him has been shattered while this one is allowed to remain whole.
I'm his mother.
I push it over. I kick it on its side. Lifting my leg, I stomp hard, my foot crashing through the metal canopy. The thin gold rods bend under the force of my repetitive assault. Kicking isn't enough. I take the bars between my hands and bend them, cutting myself and further cracking the glass of my nearly demolished PAHLM. I make a noise like a crazed animal and plow the rod through the device. It crackles, the blue hologram sucking into my palm and blitzing in and out until it finally dies.
Life blazes through my bones. With the crib in my grasp, I lift it above my head and hurl it across the room, grunting with effort.
I break all the beautiful objects across my knee. I tear one end off the other. I rip the sheer drapes until they are threads. I grab the opulent chair and rip off one of the legs. I hurl the rest of it across the room, smashing it against the wall.
When the door behind me creaks open, I snarl, daring my visitor to stop me.
I expect to be stopped. I expect arms around me, squeezing me, restraining my movements, telling me to clamp down this fury until I can follow directions again. I expect Kai or Coodi or Hayomo or Dean to walk through the door and tell me to control myself.
It's Moon. He strides to the center of the room where my mindless body waits for his news.
His jaw is hard and firm—almost as if he's holding in a terrible secret.
The words I've been repeating over and over in my head fail me. I can't ask. Is he alive? Did he survive?
"The surgeons were able to act in time," he says.
I drop my gaze to the floor where I'm standing in a pile of splinters and glass.
Moon scans the room. "He is recovering. He'll be fine."
A wave of relief washes over me. My stance sags, my shoulders slouch and my arms become limp.
My relief is quickly followed by remorse. I've trashed his lover's room—the lover he didn't save even though he was right there. He used the bubble to save my baby instead. He chose him.
And this is how I repay him.
He walks a lap around my destruction, absorbing my work like it was art on display. He pauses at the bed and the tattered sheets I had ripped from the mattress. Some of the feathers still float in the air like delayed ashes after a volcanic eruption.
Moon returns to me. His body is rigid, tenser than I've ever seen him before. For a man with metal for bones, this is the first time his outsides match what I know is inside. He moves like a machine. Slow, jagged. Methodical.
He's mad.
With the broken chair leg in my hand, I wonder if I should use it to bash in his face and run. What does he plan on doing to me now that I've vandalized this sacred ground?
He steps closer. I catch his grim profile in the mirror at our side.
With tight lips and teeth gnashing together so hard, I hardly hear the words that slip out past them. "I used to sleep over there," he points to a corner on the by the massive window where a luxurious white chaise backs against the glass and universe. "And I'd wait for her to invite me into her bed. Like a pet. Like an obedient little puppy."
He rips the chair leg from my hand.
I wait for it to come down on my head. I welcome it.
But instead, Captain Shin-Hyun Moon bashes it against the mirror behind him. The glass screams and shatters, piling into shards and stars. He swings at the myriad mirrors lining the wall until the only sound in the room. He uses all his strength until the chair leg breaks in two. With his bare hands, he rips the bed post from its frame.
I join him. I kick at her dressing table, tip it over kick over the perfume vials that bleed over the ground that's littered with her sheer garments.
We dance this way, circling one another, destroying the room like a cyclone. When have made a full revolution, we meet at the corner where his past bed used to be. I'm panting from exertion.
At my side, Moon grabs a shard of mirror like it's a knife. He cuts the chaise's fabric down the middle, splitting the fabric like a maw. He topples it, kicks it, pulls it apart until pieces of it are scattered on all corners of the room.
He turned to me. Moon is so close, staring so intently into my eyes, I become mesmerized by a woman who is staring back at me from the reflection of his gold socket.
She's wild. Like him.
Her skin sinks under exhaustion, but the soul behind her gaze is untamed. She looks familiar, but not really.
We collapse side-by-side. Our backs rest against the upturned remains of Moon's plush-white chaise. We observe our handiwork. I sink farther to the side until our shoulders touch. My eyes are so heavy—it must be why my head tilts until my temple lands on his.