I drifted in darkness, a lost soul eternally awaiting judgment. Every time I thought about how I'd died, memories swamped me. Incoherent, flashing sensations flooded my mind. Blades sliced across my skin. Caustic fumes burned away my sinuses. Explosions pierced my eardrums before shattering my bones. Solid bars of light impacted with enough force to vaporize my flesh in an instant. Without a mouth I screamed, without eyes I sobbed, until finally there was nothing left, and I drifted, lost once more in eternal darkness.

I couldn't let it rest. I wondered how I'd gotten here. Destruction came again, pain in every unbearable form. I screamed.

"Cadet Captain Dabig, are you all right?" Tiamat's simple question was a lifeline. I clung to it, pulled myself screaming from the pit of despair that trapped me.

"Cadet Dabig, wake up!" My eyes shot open in reflexive response to the ship's command. Images of suffering still echoed behind my eyes, but at the sight of my cabin I stopped in mid-scream, only to gasp uncontrollably for the breath I'd wasted. Despite the way it made my head spin, I forced a few words out.

"Thank you, Tiamat."

"Cadet, do you need medical attention?" The question hung there, unanswered, while I regained my breath and my abused throat knitted itself back together. I knew she wasn't asking about my physical well-being. Imperial school ships communicated with their Junior and Middle Grade student's essie's on a constant basis. If there was anything wrong with me my essie couldn't handle, there would already be someone at my door to escort me to the med bay.

The sense of Tiamat's presence didn't diminish with my silence. She wouldn't go away any more than a mother would abandon a child who woke up screaming. I chalked up yet another reason to hate Grace, another reason I wouldn't call her 'mother'. I'd lived on Glaucus since she died, but my old school ship's AI had been more a nanny than a mother, giving me the sense that I was an intrusion into her otherwise important business.

"Dustie? Are you really awake?" More warmth suffused the simple statement than I'd gotten from anyone since Grace realized I wasn't my clone father. I hated both of them so much, but hate kept me warm at night when nothing else did.

"Yes, Tiamat. I'm awake. Thank you for waking me. I'm fine. Just a nightmare." I clutched at the vain hope the ship's interest was as purely professional as Glaucus' had been.

"That is the third time in the past ten days you've woken screaming." The maternal warmth was tempered with some disbelief this time. "While three instances are not enough to predict a pattern, I suspect they've been getting worse, not better."

A glance at my bedside clock showed me I had another four hours left until my first class. I shoved myself upright and swung my legs over the side of my bunk. Without a word, Tiamat slid my wardrobe open and spun through the garments until my workout sweats hung before me. I peeled off my pajamas, sticky with the sweat of my nightmares, and dumped them into my hamper.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"You'll be taking a turn in the laundry today as well. After lunch or before?"

Captains, even Cadet Captains, did not do their own laundry. I stood stunned by the peremptory loss of privilege. All I could force from my mouth was a stuttered "Why?"

"You've been producing nearly twice the laundry expected of a Cadet. Normally I would applaud your tenacity in the gym, but the other half of the extra laundry is nightwear. Either you've been having someone sneak into your room at night or you've had nightmares every night since you got here." Tiamat paused to let her statement sink in. "I don't know about Glaucus, but I try to allow my Middies some privacy. Do I need to check the records to see what's been going on?"

Everything on an Imperial ship is recorded. Privacy comes in the form of the ship's AI ignoring certain portions, as well as deciding who needed to see the rest. If I didn't talk to her, she was going to look. It didn't make a difference to her, but adults in the Imperial Service were expected to get help when they needed it. Not that they needed it often. The moment she looked, I wasn't a young woman. I was a child, and she would treat me like one, Cadet Captain or not.

Then again, I hadn't really expected her to treat me like an adult in the first place. Not for another year, at any rate.

"No, ma'am."

She waited patiently while I wiped myself down with a damp rag, courtesy of another of my Cadet Captain privileges, my personal sink. I pulled my sweats on and tugged my workout pumps from a helpfully extended drawer. A small cough interrupted as I laced them up.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. It's hard to talk about."

"I'm aware of that, Dustie. If you didn't need to talk about it, it wouldn't be hard. Do you need me to schedule an appointment with a Counselor?"

Counselor. It was a fancy name for the only Imperial medical profession to require a doctorate. Essies made almost anything physical a matter for technicians, but they wouldn't mess with human minds. Brains, sure, but the minds those brains produced were off limits, by Imperial decree no less. The Noobs back on Glaucus, a few who let me hang with them, used to argue over whether essies could actually affect human minds, or if the Empress was just decreeing what the laws of physics already put in place.

I reached to slide my door open, still lost in my own remembered arguments. I wrenched my arm when it didn't move. Tiamat wanted me to see a head shrink, and she wasn't about to let me out of my cabin until she had my answer one way or the other.

"I'm... really not comfortable with talking to a Counselor."

"They're there for a reason, Dustie. Are you sure?" I couldn't tell if the threat in her voice was real or my own guilty conscience.

I dropped my hand from the door. "No. I'm not sure of anything. I never had a problem with nightmares before. That's really kinda weird, considering all the stuff crammed in my head."

"Is it the new environment?" Yeah, I could really say 'yes' to that, considering I was talking to my new environment. Still, I didn't think it was. If I had a fear of maternal figures, it would have shown up long ago.

Then again, maybe not.

"I'm not sure. Look, can it wait? Maybe see if they go away on their own?"

Tiamat let out a longsuffering sigh, complete with a soft puff of air from one of my room's vents. "Ten more days. If they're not showing signs of going away on their own by then, we make an appointment."

"Thank you, ma'am."

The door slid open and I trotted off to the workout I'd done every night since my first on Tiamat.