Three hours after Nic and his squadmates had arrived on Ayrus, the worst of the mission was behind them.

The celebrity lecture at Paradigm Military Academy—although Nic would always remember it as Paradigm Preparatory Institute—concluded after a long Q&A session and some more action-packed holos designed to boost class morale. What followed was a short and simple dinner paid for by the Galactic Defense Force. Nic and Maqsud both noted how it was a far cry from the luxurious feast they were served on their last day at PPI, and Nic hoped, for the students’ sake, that their graduation banquet would be more impressive.

But cutbacks were to be expected in times of war. Real war.

When the event was over, when PMA facilitators escorted students to the elevators that led kilometers up to the surface, and when the GDF finally dismissed Nic and his fellow war heroes, it was time to explore Ayrus. They exited the airlock and hopped in a rental rover to explore the newly expanded city of surface habs. A lot had changed in a year.

Colony 228 was greener than ever. Moss gardens and short, shrublike plants lined the marked roadways, saplings standing guard around nearly every hab. The dry, dusty rock was just a little damper than Nic remembered it, maybe a shade darker. The air outside was almost unnervingly warm.

But the most striking difference was the fact that no one wore airsuits outside the habs anymore. About a third of the people wore respiratory masks connected to bulky air tanks strapped to their backs, but they had no other protection, no bodily barrier to protect them from the outside. Half the people wore more discreet nasal cannula connected to clear tubing snaking into smaller backpacks—likely just supplemental oxygen. The rest of the people walked around and breathed the air completely unassisted. These developments were all at least years, if not decades, ahead of the normal terraforming schedule.

Ayrus was cloudier than ever, too. There were twice as many smokestacks churning out terraforming gases from the atmosphere pumps; they spewed gray-blue vapor into the sky constantly. “WorldGov planetologists would have an aneurysm if they saw this flagrant disregard for safe terraforming protocols,” said Maqsud. “Those pumps haven’t paused for a single filtration cycle this whole time.”

“If they saw it?” Jarek scoffed. “Bro, GDF owns this planet now—and all the other planets and corporations that were runnin’ the Wargames. WorldGov probably ordered it in the first place.”

“That’s a good point,” Perri agreed. Their rover passed a square field of freshly irrigated black soil. “Maybe they need it for agriculture.”

“Or,” Max suggested, “perhaps a more aggressive terraforming schedule makes for better prosperity propaganda. WorldGov certainly wastes no opportunities for a good holo these days. How better to drive recruitment? More terra for the populus, as it were...”

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They arrived back at the spaceport and Nic hopped out of the rover’s driver seat. “I thought we were going to the arboretum?” Perri asked.

“We are,” Nic answered. “I have a quick pit stop to make along the way. Wait here.”

He made his way through the spaceport’s airlock entry and commandeered a standing scooter. It whisked him across the spaceport, past two massive cargo ships docked near the door, then a row of Epsilon-Class Corvettes, to the back of the spaceport where Team Scarlet’s Patrol was parked. He climbed the airstairs into the ship’s airlock and made for the bedrooms—one in particular. Bedroom Five.

It had remained unoccupied in the ten standard months since they were assigned to the ship. Unoccupied except for one life form.

Shanti’s potted plant sat on the desk, just as it had sat on her desk in the old Corvette. Nic had kept it thriving for nearly a year after Nereus with meticulous watering and pruning, but he knew that potted plants were far from immortal, and it had started to wilt and brown despite his best efforts. It still hurt to part with it. Strangely, it felt like her funeral all over again.

He drew in a sharp breath, blinked away the deep, dark feeling that welled up inside him until it was gone. All gone. But the memories that replayed in his mind’s eye like a glitched holo couldn’t be suppressed so easily.

An alien battlefield. A suit of red vac-armor on the ground.

Nic grabbed the plant, packed it into an airtight container, and rushed to rejoin his squadmates.

***

They arrived at their destination and stepped out of the rover. The arboretum was a very new addition to the planet, one that likely wouldn’t have gone up for at least another decade under normal circumstances. The soil nourishing saplings and newly sprouted shrubs was all black and newly moistened thanks to the smart-irrigation system fed from a neighboring hab. A digital ticker sign erected over the entryway read AYRUS ABRORETUM / LOOK, DON’T TOUCH.

Nic took the airtight box out of the rover’s trunk.

“Are you gonna tell us what it is, man?” Jarek asked him.

A thin little gasp of a warm breeze meandered between them. It was one of the fledgling atmosphere’s first clumsy breaths, like a newborn before its first cries, weak but precious. “The plant,” Nic answered simply, and the looks of realization on his squadmates’ faces said what words couldn’t. “We’re going to rehome it here in the arboretum. Let it live out the rest of its days here.”

Max smiled sadly. “That’s a beautiful idea. Have the botanists given approval?”

“I contacted them six days ago through FTLCom. I gave them the species of plant, the dimensions of the potting soil, and RTIFIS was able to run a chemical analysis on everything. Ayrus Botany gave us the go-ahead. And I timed this just right so that we’re between arboretum tours, so we’ll have some privacy—but we don’t have long.”

Jarek’s eyes glistened with sudden dampness. He didn’t let it show in his voice. “Let’s get to it, then.”

Perri took Nic’s hand and squeezed it once.

The four surviving members of Team Scarlet carried on with a small, private ceremony remembering their fallen squadmate, one year to the day of her death. She and her plant were now both in their final resting places; they would forever share the dirt of the same world. Nic told the others of his decision to keep the pot, telling them that they could plant something else in it someday, maybe when the Contact War was over.

He said, “I think it’s what Shanti would have wanted.”