No preamble. Just:
Request for contribution to Alliance War Memorial Broadcast.
Topic: Truth. Survival. Freedom.
Voice-only. Secure link.
Optional anonymity.
Deadline: 48 hours.
My heart stutters.
I scroll through it again, like maybe the words will change. They don’t.
I close the pad and lean back against the wooden post, staring at nothing.
“You okay?”Valtron asks, later. He’s got dirt on his forearm and a smear of purple pollen across his neck. Ripley’s asleep inside, curled around one of her weird bug toys.
I nod, slow. Then shake my head.
He waits.
“I got a message,” I say finally. “From Leena.”
His brow furrows. “What kind of message?”
I hand him the pad.
He reads it in silence. His jaw flexes, just once.
“You gonna do it?”
“I don’t know.”
I’m not afraid of telling the truth. I’ve lived it. Bled it. Buried parts of myself with it.
But speaking into that void again, even for something as solemn as a war memorial… It feels like inviting ghosts to dinner.
Valtron leans on the railing beside me. The boards creak beneath his weight, but it’s a comforting sound now. Familiar.
“You were never just a voice,” he says quietly. “You were the signal.”
I look at him, startled.
He shrugs. “When everything else was falling apart… you were the thing people tuned into. Even me.”
I blink fast. “Damn it.”
He grins. “Didn’t mean to get you all sentimental.”
I shake my head, but something in my chest settles.
I recordthe message that night.
Valtron sets up a sound shield around the bench with old plasma shell casings and a length of curtain wire. Ripley sleeps under a bug net, snoring softly, her hair a tangle of curls and dreams.
The pad sits on my lap, blinking red. Waiting.
