We still don’t know anything about it, Jester replies.I think it’s killing Lament not to know.
The table falls quiet. No one’s meeting anyone’s eye. I try to look somewhere else, to give them all a moment to just… I don’t know. Be with their grief. I think about Lament, his stiff composure, his sharp dismissal. All the anger hidden underneath.
I know what that’s like. To suffer. To hide.
Vera is the first to break the silence. “Should we put in another order?” Her grin is firmly back in place. It’s not a true smile, more like a mustering of courage, and I know what that’s like, too. How sometimes, you just have to put on a face for the world.
I push out of my seat. “Next round’s on me.”
03
Later that evening, I’mlying in my new bedroom at Detachment 94, staring at the glossy aropolymer ceiling and struggling to sleep.
I’ve always been what Master Ira calls a “picky sleeper.” It’s not that I’m never tired. Rather, I’m perpetually tired, like sleep is a sticky film that coats my skin and won’t ever fully wash off. Sometimes there’s no good reason for my sleeplessness (unless you count a general sense of existential doom a good reason), but tonight, it’s obvious what’s keeping me awake.
This day has been nothing like I expected.
I lie there in my cot for a while, trying my usual tricks of counting backward from five hundred and naming every star in Romothrida Galaxy (an impossible task, there are hundreds of millions of them), but eventually I give up and swing my legs off the bed. A digital clock on the wall tells me it’s one in the morning, which is—in a pathetic, depraved sort of way—kind of comforting. One o’clock and I have a longstanding relationship. Seeing her thin number glowing on the display, sensing her cool darkness around me, is the closest I’ve felt to being home—tohavinga home—in a long time.
I frown at my knees, clad in flannel pajamas. I slide my feet into a pair of slippers and push out of bed.
Most of the furniture in this room looks like it was designed specifically for the space. There’s a sleek dresser set into the wall, a full-length mirror that appears only when called upon, a bathroom, and a sitting area. The closet is stocked with six sets of whites all tailored to my measurements, and the kitchenette has coffee and tea. It’s thoughtfully assembled, though not much actually belongs to me. Just a single box in the corner I haven’t even bothered to unpack: the whole of my life.
I flip on a light, then rummage around my welcome kit for my newly issued handheld. It takes a minute to get the thing configured, and I mess with the apps, skimming through the preinstalled contact list before pulling up a galactic map of Romothrida Galaxy. The stars dominate most of the screen, but the planets are what draw my eye, highlighted in different colors depending on their classification: Upper Planets (highly developed planets that host large populations of intelligent life), and Lower Planets (poorer, underdeveloped planets that host smaller pockets of intelligent life). Of the million or so planets in Romothrida Galaxy, there are only around three thousand that have been colonized by sentient beings and therefore fall under the Legion’s duty of protection.
It wasn’t always that way. Back before the Legion, planets were in charge of their own protection. Populations survived or failed based on the size of their armies and—more importantly—whether they had money to invest in weapons and training. The problem was that many planetsdidn’thave money, and even if they did, they struggled to diversify their skills enough to handle every potential galactic threat.
It was only around six hundred years ago that a group of political leaders realized if we pooled our resources and our knowledge, we could create a supreme fighting force, one equipped to fight every battle. And so the Legion was born.
After a moment’s hesitation, I zoom in on Planet Uru, where ARCAN Aviation Academy is located. It’s a live view, so I can see how daylight currently falls over each of the regions, but since deep surveillance is barred on Upper Planets, I’m blocked from expanding the view any farther. I slidethe map to Planet Venthros next, hovering over the hills where Master Ira’s school is located, touching my finger to the picture and trying to feel something. And I do. Feel something, I mean. Just not what I think I’m supposed to be feeling.
Most people have this assumption that to become an orphan, both of your parents must be dead. In truth, you can be an orphan with a living, breathing mom or dad, as long as they don’t want you. It’s surprisingly easy to abandon a child. All a person has to do is lose their kid in a crowd, or push them onto the wrong spacebus, or wake up early one morning and say they’re going on a day trip—just a short flight over to their neighboring planet, doesn’t that sound like fun?—only to dump them on the doorstep of Master Ira’s School for Children with nothing but an empty lunch box and the clothes on their back.
I was nine years old. The neighboring planet was called Venthros, and the school wasn’t really a school, but a children’s home.
I wish I’d been younger when it happened. In fairy tales, when a mother leaves her offspring on someone’s stoop, the child is always an infant. The kid grows up believing their parent didn’t have a choice, that they loved them and only wanted better for them. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also a mercy.
I never had the luxury of such fantasies. I remember that day perfectly. The way my mom bundled me in more layers than seemed necessary. The quiet that settled over her as we stepped onto the spacebus. How we landed in Longji—a small, gloomy village known for its proximity to the volcanic Mount Kilmon—and I asked about the zoo animals we were supposedly going to see. The way my mom wouldn’t quite meet my eye.
So yeah, I’ve never owned much. A few random belongings, my ray gun. Plus the lifestone, which I sometimes wish I didn’t own.
I minimize the map and click the handheld into sleep mode. I should probably tuck back under the covers and try for sleep mode myself, but it seems pointless now. Instead, I dig through the dresser for a T-shirt (standard-issue white), toss it on over my pajama bottoms, check thatmy lifestone is hidden, grab my ray gun. I call up the mirror to give my appearance a quick once-over (plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, my frame almost tall enough to disqualify me as a flight gunner) and, satisfied I haven’t forgotten anything, I head out.
My room opens into a sleek, narrow hallway of ten doors, each of which belongs to a Sixer. The floor isn’t carpeted, but my slippers are soft, so I’m able to tread quietly as I meander down the hall and into the detachment’s common room. The space is shaped like a wedge of cake with a bite taken off the end—which makes sense, given that Skyhub is designed like a wheel—and features more of the shiny aropolymer surfaces, a cluster of white chairs, and an elevator door that looks sort of like a face. I know through the wall to the right, the Fifth has a common room that looks just like this one, and to the left, so does the Seventh. The Sixth—and the ten members of our fleet—are just a small slice of this metaphorical Legion pie.
I wander, turning down one of the detachment’s two other hallways. Currently, the window at the far back of the corridor is shielded by a thin metal sheet to mimic nightfall (a necessity, given Skyhub Space Station isn’t a planet and therefore doesn’t experience the usual day-to-night rotations). The detachment’s overhead lights are dark, but recess lighting along the floorboards illuminates the space enough for me to find my way.
I poke my head into rooms, trying doors at random. There’s a briefing room, a fitness facility, a supply room, the command center. I eventually reach a library-slash-study, which—like everything else in the detachment—is designed in all white. Even the books are white. I wonder what Master Ira would make of it, then give myself the answer: He’d hate it. He always used to say color was a necessary expression of human life. At the children’s home, every room sported a mural, and the place always smelled like fresh paint because someone was always adding to the art; the ceilings, the doorways, even the furniture, were all covered in lifelike sea creatures and forest animals, trees and flowers.
I touch the hard face of my handheld through my pocket. Master Ira isn’t one of the preinstalled contacts, but I have his number memorized. Icould snap a picture and send it over. Even without the picture, I should contact him…
No, I think.You shouldn’t.
I rub my face and plop onto the library’s single sofa. The wall-mounted monitor is currently streaming the latest NewsNet airing, which is hosted by a reporter named Rudy Rivon. I’ve met Rivon a few times at the Academy. He’s handsome without being in your face about it, and he’s always seemed like a decent guy. Really cares about the news. Actually, he’s one of the first people I reached out to when I needed help finding information about the Sixth. And by that, I mean information about Lament.
The memory makes me burn a little.
My holster is digging into my hip, so I unclip it before melting into the sofa (white, of course, and square, but surprisingly comfortable). I glance around for a remote to unmute the monitor, and when I can’t find one, I give up easily and begin browsing the books on the coffee table.
