It’s in the way I hear her laugh sometimes when the engines groan.
And the dreams?
I see her eyes.
Every damn night.
Brown like dusk, like safe places I’ll never get back to. Her voice finds me in my sleep, saying nothing, just looking. Like she’s waiting for me to answer a question I never got to ask.
I wake up clawing the floor.
Every. Single. Time.
So, I build.
That’s what keeps me moving. Building keeps the grief from rotting.
A comm array, first. The big kind—long-range, illegal even by Combine standards. I dig it out from the Hulk’s spinal antennae, splice it with old cargo beacons and the last functioning dish Reflector salvaged from the dead captain’s chair.
I angle it toward every net I can remember.
No pings.
No signals.
Only static.
But I keep broadcasting. Coordinates. Emergency tags. No words. No name.
Because she’s smart.
If she’s alive, she’llknow.
Then come the tags.
It’s a ping in the middle of a routine vent flush—a sharp, cold alert across the auxiliary board. Bounty markers. Someone placed Combine-level tags on the Hulk’s hull, backdated and reactivated with a new kill order.
Not just a bounty.
Areclamation.
They think I’m a weapon left to rust. And they’re coming to fetch what’s left.
Reflector confirms the signal within minutes.
Combine isn’t subtle.
They send scouts first—slim, quiet ships that drift too close and vanish when hailed. I let them scan. Let them think I’m scrap. Then I power up the old gunnery arm and fire once—just once.
The shockwave rips a hole clean through the second ship's flank. The debris hits their third tail-first.
Then I cut the signal and go dark.
Next come the pirates.
Not bounty hunters. Worse.
Scavvers.
