1.06

“Hell of a day to miss work!”

Hollace hurried back to the corner of the library where she’d been sitting for uncounted hours, lifted the empty coffee cup one more time only to find it still empty. It probably wasn’t a great idea to be slamming caffeine so late in the day, she admitted, and the most monumental political earthquake of her entire life had her buzzing with a shock of adrenaline regardless.

She'd forgotten to eat since breakfast, but her appetite had vanished with the news of Valeric Lendrov’s death. She’d have to confirm the news (random screaming maniacs in the street were hardly a trusted source), but the longstanding dictator of the PDR dropping dead would never hit emergency alerts without some evidence to support it. Of that, she was certain.

As she scrambled to collect her cup, tablet, backpack – a sudden realization cleared every other thought from her overflowing mind, sending her plummeting back down to reality with a sobering clarity:

Tomorrow was Martin’s funeral.

_________________________

Rocketing through the blazing tunnel of subspace produced no sound on the Chrysalis’s bridge, only the warm, swirling glow of some inexplicable layer of the universe Andar Vokler did not comprehend.

He trusted science to traverse the core, trusted science to deliver them home, trusted the science of Lendrov Thought. Naively, he trusted science to find a cure for gastrophagy. 

Was it the science that had begun to fail him, or his trust that had begun to fail science? 

The question gripped him in silent agony as he stood at the fore of the bridge, appearing to be studying the subspace channel bringing the Chrysalis back to PDR space. He was the stillest object in the galaxy. 

Through the main observation window, he saw nothing of the illuminated orange channel, instead searching beyond it, beyond the darkness and the light, for whatever still-unknown corners of existence held the answers he sought.

A thousand lives at Liber, snuffed out at his press of a button. No one screamed, they simply died.

Andar asked himself for the thousandth time what Voit would have done in that scenario. The only conclusion he could draw was that Voit would not put himself in a situation where the choices were mission failure or a catastrophic war crime.

How could failure be the best outcome?

He missed something in his planning. He missed many things. Most crucially, he missed the depths of the cruelty of the United Empyreal Federation – something those living in the more egalitarian corner of the galaxy might find difficult to appropriately imagine. 

The wicked, it seemed, always had a frighteningly greater capacity for imagination in pursuing their goals of oppression than those who sought liberation.   

Every time Andar’s thoughts fell on the blonde girl with her left arm and leg torn off and replaced with cybernetics controlled by her enslavers, mission failure seemed less and less like the best case scenario.

If the PDR couldn’t do anything to help those most in need, those whose very bodies were sadistically ripped apart and rebuilt with the very machinery of war – the most profound perversion of science he had ever witnessed – what were they even fighting for?

The CMC had appointed Andar as Rear Admiral, but it was the Fed who had appointed him the torchbearer of his husband’s legacy when the effects of their barbaric chemical attack had removed Voit from the battlespace. 

The Chrysalis exited subspace with Andar still standing on the bridge, hands clasped behind his back, the orange glow vanishing, the architect of the mission now cloaked in starless shadow – a monument to failure. 

A chorus of chimes hit the communications console all at once now that the ship was back in PDR space.

“Prioritizing transmissions,” Banks called from her station. 

Andar turned, curiosity and fear mingling into a cocktail of dread at what had transpired within the PDR in their absence.

Ksenija approached the communications console. “Spit it out, Banks. What have we got?”

Andar watched the blue hue of the console’s holograms accentuate the blue in Banks’s eyes as the perky comms officer did her best to catalog the influx of messages.

Banks went through a hastily prioritized list that didn’t reach Andar’s ears. His mind was consumed by the reality that if his life had been in the hands of a lesser crew, he would have died on Liber. 

Commit an atrocity and return to live with the consequences – the best case scenario. 

“Hold on…oh no…”

Andar stepped forward at the sudden shift in Banks’s tone. Ksenija was already breathing over her shoulder.

Banks identified one message in the large list with her index finger. “At Thalassar…they’ve captured Sorenna Tal.”

Andar and Ksenija’s eyes met, drawn together by the news.

“Comrade Tal is in Federation custody?” Andar asked to be sure he’d heard correctly. 

Banks nodded. “That’s all we know.” Her voice lowered at the end of her sentence as if Sorenna’s fate had already been sealed, and Andar tried not to let his imagination run wild. 

Ksenija, intensely studying the report, said, “The 17th fleet has been ordered to Thalassar.” Her gaze snapped up to Andar. “The rest of the fleet is already on their way.”

Andar confirmed the order – 17th fleet to Thalassar – and quietly started assembling the puzzle pieces in his head. Surely, that did not include the Chrysalis.

But was the capture of Thalassar only part of the effort to secure a key figure in the Politburo? The Federation certainly had ways of knowing she was favored to be the next General Secretary. But if they knew that, had orbital supremacy of the planet, and soldiers on the ground, why not just kill her?

Andar went for the door, saying to Ksenija on the way out, “I need to think about this before we make a decision.” He pressed the manual button to open the door and strode down the hallway, breathing the cool, recycled air with hard breaths of determination.

While thankful that Admirals Korvic Vross and Amaj Maolian would be in this new fight, Andar could not let go of Liber until he rationalized what the Federation was planning. The dialectics of the operation made no sense at first blush. 

But if they were willing to violate their own people in the dehumanizing manner they had at Liber, then whatever they had planned for one of the highest profile figures in the PDR government, her homeworld, and the couple hundred-million people who lived there…

Andar dared not let his thoughts be so corrupted by potentialities too sickening to contemplate. 

Regardless of the Fed’s intentions, Comrade Tal’s life had to be saved, along with Thalassar. Andar could not afford another failure. Not for himself, and certainly not for Voit.

Andar did not hear the bridge door opening, but the uncommonly hurried  steps of someone behind made him stop and turn to see what was happening.

Ksenija stopped before him, taking one breath from behind the stern expression that never left her features. 

“Comrade Levik,” Andar said with curiosity. “What is the matter?”

With no preamble, the XO said plainly, “Lendrov is dead.”

_________________________

Sorenna Tal was dumped on the stage of the Thalassar Assembly Hall like a bag of garbage, her bloody head striking the hard wooden surface with a thud that resounded like a thunderclap in the large room.

Squirming into a ball, she turned onto her side, hands grasping her throbbing skull. She heard hollow footsteps depart, heard Visser give a command from a million miles away, heard a rustling as another of the PDR captives was pulled into the back room. She heard the largest door in the universe slam.

She kept her eyes closed from the intensity of the overhead lighting, from her left eye socket broken into several pieces that shifted at her every movement – a sensation more frightening than painful, and it was sufferingly painful. 

No one came to her side. 

She assumed Fed soldiers stood guard within the Hall, silently watching their captives with beam rifles at the ready. That had to be why no one spoke, why no one stood up to come to her. 

Rolling onto her palms and knees, Sorenna pushed herself up in a grueling effort, and opened her right eye to search for the maintenance tech that had put her plan into action. All she could see was a blur as the lump on the back of her head ached.

She fell onto her side, once again curling into a fetal position, pain overwhelming whatever spikes of adrenaline had already run their course. She almost laughed at the thought of asking the Fed soldiers to escort her to the hospital across the street for treatment. 

“Can I go to her?”

Sorenna lifted her head a centimeter from the wooden stage floor at the voice of the maintenance tech she had been hoping to find. 

“What for?” a Fed soldier asked. 

“She is obviously hurt. Let me sit with her.”

“If you want,” the Fed soldier said to Sorenna’s immense surprise. “I don’t give a shit.”

A gentle smile curled up the corners of Sorenna’s bloody lips – whoever was unlucky enough to draw the Thalassar assignment, much less during winter, likely only cared about getting out of there as soon as possible.

“Sorenna…” The maintenance tech’s touch on her shoulder was barely perceptible. “What did they do to you?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said without opening her eyes. 

She should have known the man’s name, but before she could ask, he said, “There’s a rumor circulating…that Lendrov died.”

Sorenna pressed herself to sit upright. “What?”

“That’s the rumor.”

“It’s not true,” Sorenna said with a voice of pure conviction. “It’s a classic strategy to diminish our resolve.”

“But what if–”

“It’s not true.” She opened one eye, her vision still blurred but improving. “They spread this lie when we are at our most vulnerable, with no way to confirm or deny its veracity. We have to keep our heads clear, focus on what lies before us.”

In the silent moment that trailed her words, she hoped that the tech could see in her eye the meaning that could not be spoken – the beam rifles and pulse grenades hidden in that very room, the shutdown sequence he had initialized before their capture. 

When she spotted that glimmer of recognition in his expression, she nodded, wincing from the bones in her face shifting. 

“Is there anything I can do?” the tech asked. 

“Tell me your name.”

“Bolan.”

Sorenna smiled. “Bolan, you have already done so much. The only thing we can do now is wait.”

_________________________

The worst part of the occupation is the time it takes for all the pieces to fall into place. I had expected it would not be swift, but the sheer number of hours that drag out between developments has become excruciating. All I can do to occupy my mind in these interminable stretches is remind myself of how much closer we are to being able to finally settle down and build a life together. If all goes according to plan, we’ll have to start on the blueprints for our little cabin in the mountains when we meet again in

The comms in Rane’s quarters buzzed for what seemed like the 900th time in a row. He had been trying to ignore it and finish the letter addressed to Shay, but the never-ending alert had sucked him out of his concentration to the point that he had to address it. 

Rane hit the button on his desk to respond and, with a sigh more exasperation than anger, he exhaled a single word: “What?”

Duncan’s voice blared out of the speaker. “Hey bossman, a shuttle was just dispatched to the surface. Thought you might wanna know, being the only motherfucker who has any idea what we’re doing here and all.”

Lowering his feet from the desktop to the floor, Rane sighed again. “Who the hell is making me work hard?”

“I’ll give you one guess, and if your answer isn’t Scrotum, I’m gonna smack you when you get to the bridge.”

“I’ll be there in a few. No smacking necessary.” Rane pressed himself up and began a weary walk toward the Dreadnaught’s bridge.

“Shuttle is still waiting for atmospheric entry. Apparently, the storm on the surface is getting worse,” Cade said.

The Dreadnaught's XO was staring at the shuttle’s inactivity from the main observation window on the bridge when Rane approached and stood by his side. The expression Cade wore was one of mild amusement.

Rane, however, found little humor in the development. “What the hell is Scothern doing?”

“Going to make some snow angels,” Duncan yelled from the captain’s chair. 

Cade crossed his arms, his eyes not leaving the shuttle hanging in stasis between them and Thalassar. “Apparently, we may have stumbled upon a high-value prisoner on the surface.” He turned to Rane. “Sorenna Tal ring a bell?”

Rane did not immediately respond to the name, silently wondering just how many ways Scothern might blunder the whole Thalassar operation. 

Returning his attention to the shuttle, Cade said, “I don’t know what you’re planning on doing here, Rane, but if capturing a member of the Politburo was–”

“It wasn’t.” Rane’s tone was firm as he spun to Duncan. “We’re succeeding at the wrong thing.”

“Oh no,” Duncan said with exaggerated apathy. “We’re succeeding. Whatever shall we do?”

Rane strode toward Duncan. “What we have to do is stop Scothern from fucking up our whole operation.”

“What is he fucking up, though?” Cade asked. “We have orbital supremacy, we have the government building secure, and we have the prime candidate to be the next leader of the PDR in custody. That’s about as much as we could ever hope for, Rane.”

“This is about more than Thalassar,” Rane said, attempting to will the truth of the words into existence, and threw his attention to the comms officer. “Get me a secure priority line to the Security Council.”

“Yes, sir.” The comms officer went to work at the task.

Duncan, shaking his head, said, “The Council already approved reinforcements.”

“They did what?” The words shot from Rane as if he was deflating.

“Second fleet’s being deployed. Should be here in half a day. We can hold them until–”

“No,” Rane said, his voice more firm than before. “We are not here to help Scothern succeed.”

“Priority comms line open, sir,” the comms officer interjected.

Rane hurried to the comms station so he didn’t have the conversation broadcast across the bridge. Into the mic, he said, “Admiral Hammersley, this is the Dreadnaught.”

“Vice Admiral Dryden.” The name was spoken in Armada Admiral West Hammersley’s stern, commanding resonance. He wasted no time. “As you are likely aware, plans changed.”

“Changed to what?” Rane instantly regretted his question, hoping not to antagonize the top-ranking admiral in the Federation. He reminded himself to breathe before speaking next time.

“The capture of Sorenna Tal has become mission priority,” Hammersley said. “Given the sudden death of Valeric Lendrov–”

“Wait, what?” Rane had not remembered to breathe before speaking. He raised his eyes from the console to Duncan and Cade, who were both too far away to hear the conversation clearly. They just stared back.

“Lendrov is dead,” Hammersley continued. “In all likelihood, Sorenna Tal will be the next dictator of the PDR. This is the highest-value prisoner we have ever taken in this war, Vice Admiral. After she is secure upon the Vindicator, you may proceed with the original strategy. But – only after the prisoner is secure. Good luck, Vice Admiral. Hammersley out.”

The subspace comms feed cut out as if sucked into the vacuum of space.

Rane, hands leaning on the comms console, stared back at the Captain and XO. “Well…this just got more complicated. Valeric Lendrov is dead.”

Duncan and Cade turned to each other – Duncan in jubilance, Cade in reserved shock.

Rane just sighed. Unknowingly, he had set up Vice Admiral Roland Scothern to be the hero of the United Empyreal Federation.

_________________________

Hollace had put on the long black sleeveless dress that she bought on clearance several years back with the fantasy of one day wearing it to concerts, but the fear of appearing too dark kept it confined to her closet.

It was such a silly thing, as she knew others at a rock or punk concert would be wearing far more alternative attire. There was just something about showing her true self to the world that she could never quite overcome.

The one person in the galaxy that allowed Hollace to let her guard down, to be her true self without any artifice, the one with whom she kept no secrets, was Martin Webb – whose grave she then stood beside.

Naturally, the dress had no pockets, so she left her cell comms at her apartment, but could not leave the bit of purple sea glass behind. Her father had given it to her, dug up from the surf during their one and only trip to the beach when she was seven years old. He’d told her that it used to be rough and sharp, but the sand and the sea wore it down over many years, so now she could rub her fingers against it and it wouldn’t cut her. Ever since, Hollace had held it close in moments of stress, finding comfort in running her fingertips over the smooth surface.

She didn’t carry a purse, and could not bring her work backpack to a funeral, certainly not for one small keepsake. The only option was to tuck it into her sock where it rested against the side of her black sneakers – she didn’t own nicer shoes suitable for such an occasion. When the sun dipped behind the clouds, a chill rocked her shoulders, and she rubbed her hands against her bare arms – she didn’t own a sweater or jacket suitable for such an occasion, either.

Throughout the entire ceremony, the sea glass had pressed hard against her ankle, but Hollace ignored it, more pleased that it was with her than irritated by the discomfort. 

The funeral was over and done with quicker than she had anticipated. An event she could never prepare for had become one she was not ready to let go. 

Hollace caught up with her boss as he was leaving. “Oscar…”

With the quiet, stoic approach to grief carried by large and imposing men, Oscar put his thick hand on her shoulder. “How are you holding up?”

Hollace stopped walking, and Oscar held up. “Oscar, I’m ready to come back to work.”

“Give it until Monday.” 

He turned away to leave but Hollace circled around to face him. “Please. I don’t want to just sit around. I need something to occupy my mind.”

Part of that was true – spiraling down the chasm of corruption had consumed her every waking moment. A return to some sort of normalcy could help to preserve her sanity.

The part that wasn’t true was that Hollace had more access to records on her work computer than she did at home on her personal tablet. 

“I was thinking,” she said, “I want to take the Whitlock assignment.”

“Hollace–” 

“For Martin.”

“Don’t–”

“I want to do this, Oscar. I want to–”

“Hollie. No.” Oscar’s deep voice held a finality that Hollace did not overstep. “This is not the time, number one. Number two, I can't give you an assignment you’re too close to. Your work has to be about the work, not about Martin. Nolan is taking Whitlock.”

“But…” Hollace’s shoulders slumped, wanting to fight back but knowing Oscar was right.

“I was going to tell you Monday, you can have Thorpe if you want it.”

She raised hopeful eyes to him. “Really? He’s running for reelection?”

“It hasn’t been announced but that’s the rumor.” Oscar turned again to leave. “We’ll talk on Monday. Be well, Hollie.”

Hollace stood under the shade of a tree overlooking Martin’s grave with the strangest confluence of emotions she had ever felt – joy, sorrow, relief, regret, fear, determination, loss.

She turned her eyes down to the casket resting six feet below the grass. 

First election assignment…the incumbent president…

“Martin, if you could see me now…” 

Hollace was torn from her private moment as Taryn approached, stricken silent by a grief heavier than a dying star. 

The two women hugged tightly, cried quietly, and said goodbye. Taryn had many affairs to settle, duties of a wife in handling the practical horrors of her husband’s death, but Hollace’s schedule was clear. 

The ceremony was over, there was nothing left to do except leave, but Hollace wanted to be nowhere else in the galaxy than at Martin's side.

“Hollace, do you need a ride?”

She glanced up to find Terrence standing over where she sat against the tree trunk near Martin’s grave. “I’d like to stay a while,” she said quietly. 

“Message me when you get home so I know. And call if you need anything.”

She smiled at Terrence, thanked him, and watched him go until she was alone.

The smile returned to Hollace’s face, more mischievous than before. “Do you remember when I started speaking to Terrence with more of a city accent one day, but only to Terrence,” she said to the ground where Martin lay. “And I didn’t tell you so that when he came asking you what was up, you’d have no idea what he was talking about.”

Hollace’s little laughter sent tears rolling over her cheeks. 

“And I didn’t tell him I was just fucking with him for two whole weeks. He was so pissed – so pissed! He almost threw his camera at me. And you were all-in the whole time, I didn’t even have to say a word…” She shook her head at the fond memory, wishing that moment would always stay with her. “Or, what about the time when you dared me to shave my head only six months after I got hired – and I did! You didn’t think I would! I thought the big man was gonna fire me for sure. And I came to you all upset and worried, and you just laughed and laughed. That hat that he wanted me to wear…”

Running a hand through her hair – that she had not cut since the dare – Hollace could barely hold herself together. A moment so early into their friendship, yet one that – even back then, she knew – solidified they would be close for life. 

She choked out another laugh as the recollections started coming back to her one by one, all the office hijinks and shenanigans that made working with Martin Webb so much fun. 

Sniffing back tears, she continued, “Or – ” She had to stop herself from laughing to get the story out. “Or that time when you put our seven beers on your corporate card … and told the big man that –” Another laughing fit struck. “ – that you had … had to get an informant drunk so – so he’d tell the truth!”

In the torrent of memories, one stuck out from all the rest…

“Or that time when – oh no...”

She couldn’t speak the words, a tsunami of emotion lodged in her chest, aching for release but to say them aloud would breach the levee holding every piece of her together – recalling a time when she was so overwhelmed with trying to report on a closed-door Security Council session that she hadn’t realized she’d run low on food for Slick. When she came into the office the next morning, she saw a new container of fish food beside the tank with a sticky note attached that read:

Don’t forget to eat!

–Webby

Laughing through sobs became crying through a smile, snot and tears mingling on her lips, as each good moment with Martin drifted further out of reach, hidden behind the crushing reality that they had already shared every moment they’d ever have together. 

She fished into her sock and retrieved the purple sea glass, moist from where it had blistered the skin over her ankle bone. Rubbing it between her fingers often helped deal with stress. 

But not this time.

“You shook the foundations of the world, Webby. And now it feels like everything is collapsing. Not just here, even Lendrov is dead. I feel like I’m … caught in a riptide, and it’s just pulling me, and pulling me, and no matter what I do, it’s just too much for one person to swim out of. Everything is darker and deeper and it’s drowning me, Martin. I can’t breathe in all this…this…everything.” 

Sucking a heavy breath drew a primal, strangled whimper from the depths of her throat, pained and wet and childlike, and tears came with a strength she could not hold back. 

“I need you here, Webby,” she squeaked through uncontrollable sobs. “I need you to pull me out of this... I can’t do it alone.”

For a long time, Hollace sat against the tree, with no more words to say, and no one left to hear them. 

The familiar industrial dirge echoing twenty stories below greeted Hollace when she returned to her apartment after dark.

She didn’t bother showering, and collapsed into a slump in the large circular window, still wearing her funeral dress. She messaged Terrence to confirm that she was home safely.

Pulling the sea glass from her sock, the wound on her ankle burning from the day’s friction, she stared at the vastness of Usona City at night stretching out before her, cloaked in darkness, the lights only making it harder to see what was beyond them.

All semblance of time fell away as she sat for well over an hour, just staring at the enormity of the world and all its immense systems at work, wondering what one skinny 24-year-old girl from the Usona outback could possibly do that could make a difference.

The world went on without Martin Webb as it had with him, a human life so easily discarded by all but a few. The problems of small people, titanic to them but insignificant to larger forces, simply…didn’t matter. 

The trucks kept moving in and out of the factories below, the sun would rise the next morning in the sky above, and people like Maren Whitlock would go on doing whatever it was people like Maren Whitlock did – Hollace couldn’t even imagine what that kind of life was like.   

It seemed to her that the people with all the money and all the power held everyone else in their palm, and could flick them off one by one, as life continued for everyone else still desperately hanging on. Someone like Hollace, with very little money, few friends, one browning apple alone in her fridge, was just another face in the crowd, clinging to whatever meager threads of life her hands could grasp in the chaos of existence. 

She wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her, shutting out childish thoughts. But she couldn’t peel herself away from the window, from the world that went on as it would without her. 

There had to be something out there, lost in the dark, cowering behind the light, something that mattered enough to put fear in the hearts of people like Whitlock. Something that people like her would kill to protect the life of privilege and power they have built. Something that a girl from the Usona outback could show to the world – to the galaxy – and…

And then what?

For another hour, Hollace sat in the window in silence, looking over a world that barely knew she existed.

_________________________

Sorenna’s vision was clearing, but her left eye was swollen shut and her head ached worse than before.

She heard the familiar squeak of Devana’s shoes in the hallway, faint over the roaring winds of the worsening storm but growing louder as she drew nearer, accompanied by the marching bootfalls of Fed soldiers.

Smiling again in spite of herself and her injuries, Sorenna thought of how a little thing that some could see as a trivial annoyance – the squeaking of shoes – could, in a different context, bring such profound relief. 

A friend was near.

She hoped the Federation soldiers did not bring any harm to Devana when they found her up in the communications center. Sorenna had herself convinced that the cadence of little squeaks was not outside of her normal gait, but the storm winds howled. 

The doors burst open and the cold wind rushed in like an invading force of its own. The temperature of the great hall dropped several degrees in an instant, and then the doors slammed shut, quieting the hall to echoes once again. 

Within moments, Devana Trava of the Thalassar State Planning Committee, member of the Central Committee in good standing, was pushed down unceremoniously beside Sorenna. 

By what Sorenna could gather, Devana was unharmed. Sorenna’s heart lightened with a flooding of relief. 

“Take a good look,” a Fed soldier said. “That’s what happens to those who don’t cooperate.” He marched off the stage.

Devana, hands bound before her in energy cuffs, used her elbows to push herself up to sitting. The whites of her eyes were wide with dismay as she studied Sorenna’s misshapen features.

“Sorenna…”

“Thank goodness you’re okay,” Sorenna said.

“But…you! Sorenna, you need medical attention.” Devana’s generally cool, dulcet voice teemed with anxiety. 

Regardless of how she appeared on the surface, Sorenna’s will remained unbruised. 

“This is nothing,” she assured Devana. “It is not as bad as it looks.” 

The second part was a lie; Sorenna had no idea how it looked, but that did not matter. Like a squeak of a shoe in the polished halls, appearance was a trivial annoyance – nothing more. 

As long as they were in Federation custody, it had to be.

To focus them on the mission, Sorenna asked, “Did you get through to anyone? To Volos, Vordelix…?”

Devana’s face scrunched up and she turned away, as if holding a swell of emotion behind a barrier too feeble for the task. 

After she rallied enough strength to keep herself together, Devana looked into Sorenna’s good eye and said, “Sorenna…Valeric is dead.” Her voice broke on the final word. 

Sorenna placed a soft, comforting, blood-stained hand on Devana’s thigh, her head shaking just subtly enough so as not to shift the fragments in her face. “He isn’t. They told us the same thing. It’s a tactic–”

“No. No, I heard it from Vordelix.” Devana’s chin quivered uncontrollably. She swallowed hard. “He really is. He’s gone, Sorenna. He’s gone…”

Devana turned away again, raising her cuffed hands to cover her silent sobs, the smell of ozone of the energy binding rich in the cold. 

As the words landed, a cold void opened in Sorenna’s gut, distinct from the throbbing in her skull. For a long stretch, she sat without words coming to her tongue or even to her thoughts. 

Reality intruded in the form of Visser’s heavy boots stomping into the Assembly Hall from the back room.

Sorenna’s hazy gaze found him at the opposite end of the stage, calling over a subordinate for a conversation that appeared critical. 

Too far away to hear clearly, Sorenna studied the echoes in the Hall, trying to shape their sounds into words. But the storm still raged. 

Something about…a shuttle? Transport to the cosmodrome? Not possible to launch in this weather, she knew. A prisoner…?

She turned to the duo when the echo of their voices faded, only then realizing that Visser was pointing at her directly.

There was only one prisoner worth braving the Thalassarian winter for, and that was the expected filler of Lendrov’s shoes – the next General Secretary of the PDR. 

A sudden rush of adrenaline hit Sorenna, and she no longer felt the brokenness of her body, only the looming dread of being taken from the Hall.

No…

She found Bolan in the group of others who were forced to sit in the chairs nearest the stage – a clear view of the consequences of being uncooperative. She wanted to ask him how much time was left on the shutdown timer, but that would give away the whole plan.

The weapons were already stashed away, the shutdown about to commence – coinciding perfectly as planned with Devana being found and brought to the Hall, but her hands were bound.

Any minute now…

Sorenna drew a steadying breath. She could not leave. Not yet. Not before her strategy was put into action.

Please…any minute now…any minu–

“You,” Visser’s voice boomed in the cavernous room, his boots thundering in their approach toward Sorenna. “Get up.”

_________________________

Vae had Emry escorted into a debriefing room for the Chrysalis officers – essentially a conference room with starmap holograms built into the walls. She knew that if she had brought the girl to the bridge (she hated still referring to Emry as a “prisoner”), Ksenija would not take kindly to that decision.

Best to avoid unnecessary altercations, Vae considered.

Security followed closely on Vae’s heels. “Comrade, I must insist. Her arm can still–”

“I understand,” Vae said to the head security officer. “And let’s not talk about her like she’s not right in front of us. Miss Privett is our guest, not our prisoner. You may wait outside.”

The head security officer gave one more scrupulous glance at Emry’s robotic arm and leg, and then nodded to the Captain. “Yes, comrade.”

Andar arrived moments after security had departed. “Vae, did you hear the news?”

Vae was pulling up the starmap location of Thalassar when she stopped and turned to Andar. “What news?”

He approached with a grim quality that had Vae’s nerves on end. “Comrade Lendrov has died.”

Vae’s arms dropped slack to her sides, her jaw hanging open. “Died!? When? How?”

“While we were at Liber.”

Vae’s eyes shifted between Andar, the starmap holograms, and Emry the asylum seeker. She had entered the room with the most confidence she had felt since before Andar had arrived on the Starlancer battleship, but that confidence was stripped away with the news of the General Secretary’s passing. She still didn’t know how he died. 

In the shock and confusion, Emry asked, “Who’s Lendrov?”

Vae turned wide eyes to the asylum seeker, but she was at a loss for words.

“Forgive me,” Andar said to Emry, “But have you not heard of Valeric Lendrov?”

Emry’s gaze danced confusedly between Andar and Vae. “Sorry, but it’s a little hard to keep up with current events when you’re putting in 126 hours a week processing quantum fusion cores.”

Vae’s expression fell somewhere between remorse and dismay. Sure, Emry was young, but… “Comrade Lendrov was the General Secretary for almost 30 years.” And Vae immediately regretted pushing the issue.

“Well, it’s not much easier fitting subspace modulators on Praetorians for 96 hours a week, either.” Emry’s eyes hardened, but she kept her voice steady, which sounded to Vae like it took some effort, not allowing herself to upset PDR officers who could throw her back in the brig at any moment.

Vae turned back to the starmap and simply stared. Less concerning to her was Emry’s not knowing the name of the PDR General Secretary than learning that so many Fed citizens remained wholly unaware of what the PDR was attempting to do. 

How was it possible to liberate a people when they had no basis for understanding the necessity of their own liberation? If Emry didn’t even know Lendrov’s name, certainly Lendrov Thought remained a monumental mystery to her and uncountable others. 

The question had Vae leaning heavily against the table behind her, the blue hologram glow of the starmap making the violet of her hair appear darker as she stared at the impression of Thalassar. For a dizzying moment, she saw the PDR's entire project – the sacrifices, the ships, the decades of war – sucked into the vacuum of space, as if the only part of the war that stuck was all the killing and all the dying.

The galaxy suddenly felt a million times larger, and victory that much further out of reach.

In a desperate, almost foolish effort to regain some of her lost confidence, Vae pointed Andar to the starmap she had pulled up. “I don’t know how this news changes anything, but Emry has some insider information that you might want to hear.”

Leaning her robotic cybernetic hand against the table, Emry said to Andar, “I guess you could call it that. Back on Liber, the guards would sometimes talk. If we weren’t being deafened by the machinery, we could pick out snippets of their conversations now and then. I heard talk of reassignments. It was the thing they talked about the most, given what I could tell. They often mentioned that planet…” She pointed with her human hand. “Thalassar.”

Andar slid closer to Emry. “In what way?”

Emry pushed herself up to sit on the tabletop, and shrugged her good shoulder, the other seemingly weighed down by the cybernetics. It was connected all the way up at the shoulder. When the Federation took something, they took the whole damn thing. The thought made Vae’s stomach turn.

“Don’t know,” Emry said. “Instead of bitching about the heat of Liber, they were bitching about the cold of Thalassar. That's all I can say for certain.” Her azure eyes shifted to Vae, almost resembling what Vae recalled of the icy world. “I don’t want to lead you to thinking I’m not telling the truth.”

“We appreciate everything you’ve told us,” Vae said to reassure the girl. 

Emry shrugged one shoulder again. “Whatever helps fuck up the Fed.”

Andar, approaching the hologram starmap, folded his arms in front of him, one hand touching his chin. Vae could see the smile of satisfaction blooming on his bearded features, the confusion giving way to that familiar, terrifying focus. “That’s it,” he said, turning to Vae as if the problem had already been conquered. “That is the contradiction.”

Emry leaned forward, as if looking for something Andar saw that she missed. “What do you mean?”

“This is our answer,” he said to her. 

Emry looked as though she didn’t get it, staring at a puzzle left unsolved.

“In the PDR, we’re taught that contradictions are the process," Vae said. "They’re not problems to solve, they’re how you see the shape of something. To build a lift that goes up, you have to build its opposite – one that goes down. A thing can't exist without what it pushes against.” She her explanation made sense to someone who had never heard of Valeric Lendrov.

“It is material, not logical,” Andar added with his attention still entranced by the glowing blue. “The Federation is mobilizing in the Austral Corridor, but not advancing to Thalassar. Why?”

The debriefing room was struck silent by the question, until Emry spoke up, “Maybe they aren’t?”

“By all accounts, they are,” Andar said. “What you have overheard at Liber only confirms this.”

“Maybe,” Vae said with a hesitation following the word. “They are sitting back, waiting for us to show up and retake the planet. They jump out of subspace in a surprise show of force, take us down then.”

She studied Andar’s expression. He did not appear convinced, and then Vae considered that it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if the PDR already knew they were mobilizing. 

“Because of Liber,” Emry said, and Vae detected newly emerging confidence in the girl’s uniquely soft-yet-raspy voice, sounding like something akin to torn silk. 

Vae couldn’t disagree with the logic, but materially, it did not add up. “It’s too recent,” she said out loud, mostly to herself as her words helped keep her mind active. “The supply lines would already have been stocked before leaving Erania and Portannis.” She looked to Andar. “They’re just lingering there…as if they want us to have it.”

“They want us to have Thalassar…” Andar’s statement sounded more like a question. He then stepped closer to the starmap and expanded the view, bringing the Federation worlds of Erania and Portannis into view, along with the neutral planet of Ombra Prime. 

Vae raised a hand to indicate the Federation fleets mobilized between Thalassar and Ombra Prime. “Whatever it is they’re doing, we better take Thalassar back soon, because they’re choking out our trade routes. If we don’t drive them back, we’re essentially bloc…ka…ded…”

The syllables of the last word stretched out as realization sank in, and Vae turned worried eyes to find Andar pointing to her vigorously in a horror of victory.

“That is it!” The words exploded out of him. “The Fed does not want Thalassar – they want Ombra Prime!”

Vae felt the room sinking away from her. The only neutral world remaining in the galaxy, the last bastion of peace to be found anywhere, cut off by Federation warships just waiting for an excuse to pull back, surround, and control their actual target. The PDR re-taking Thalassar would provide the exact justification the Fed needed to retreat to Ombra Prime.

Vae stumbled against the table, clutching her hands together to keep them from trembling. “No…no no no no no…”

She knew as well as Andar – if the Fed was allowed to occupy Ombra Prime, cut off the Austral Corridor, and use them as a proxy…the PDR had no chance of winning the war.