The cafeteria felt different to him.

Iago sat alone, in a corner booth, watching the other volunteers mingle and talk to each other. They were laughing, telling stories, one was clearly mimicking the act of carrying someone, and Iago knew exactly what training exercise it was related to.

And he knew most of these people; not the freshest volunteers, but anyone who’d had much time in Response had spent time under him.

Yet now they all were strangers.

They left him alone, which was good. Probably the newer initiates were hesitant to talk to him, and the officers . . . well, they probably pitied him or felt too awkward to talk to him since he had fallen so low.

And he had. He could recognize it; he should have realized it sooner, but he was not going to regain his old position. At least, he’d come to feel that he was never going to be fit for it. What had happened to him had changed him, permanently.

Pirra was doing well in the role, he thought. From his vantage, at least, it seemed that way. He’d seen far worse transitions under far better circumstances.

Meanwhile, he had broken. Cracked apart, and even though he’d pulled his disparate pieces back together again – it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t the same.

He’d made the mistake of seeing something that he wasn’t meant to see.

Just a moment of weakness, looking too deeply. Just as he wasn’t supposed to look too deeply now. Because whatever had made him look too long at that data, at those unnatural shapes and geometries out in the Terris system, was making him do it again.

He couldn’t unsee any of it. Not those hideous, unnatural thoughts, nor his insights into the world he’d known his whole life.

He sipped his drink. It took all his composure to look normal, to eat his food without gagging.

His system informed him of a new message. It was Alexander again, asking to talk to him. For the last while he’d been messaging asking how training had been going, how he felt, all kinds of questions.

Alexander . . .

He felt a pang of regret. They’d been friends since they were young men and Alexander had first left his home station, and Iago had always looked out for him. But he couldn’t talk to him now.

Even if Alexander had seen that truth, that glimpse of actual reality, he’d not understand it. He was too naive, too pure . . . a good person.

He found that his hand was shaking.

It was getting hard again to keep up the facade, to act normal. He’d been doing it all day, and by god it had been tiring. Over these last few days he’d been trying to let it all go. Just go back to how he’d been before.

He could work back up to his old position. He just had to get used to it again. He could gain back the respect he could see that he’d lost in everyone’s eyes. At first he’d thought it was for the weakness of his breakdown, but no.

That was normal. The mistake, the weakness that no one could forgive, had been that he’d looked in the first place.

Perhaps on some level, everyone knew the truth, but they did not want to think about it, to actually understand and accept it. His mere presence was a constant reminder.

God it was hard. It was only him and Elliot, and he couldn’t let his son know just how bad things were. They were stuck here until after this current madness was over.

Someone walked by his table, smiling, and he forced his own smile with herculean effort.

If only there was someone to talk to about this. To probe for a like mindedness. Someone equally out of place-

Kessissiin walked in, carrying a tray and looking around. He seemed to be searching for someone, but evidently didn’t see them. His crest fell in a way that was too subtle for most humans to catch, but Iago had been around Pirra enough to recognize the disappointment.

Dessei were a very gregarious people, and being away from their circle and thrown into another was very hard for them.

Which . . . was something he could empathize with right now.

The Dessei’s eyes wandered his way, and Iago found himself waving to the being.

Surprise went over his face – or rather his crest lifted in a way that indicated it – but he did head over.

“May I sit?” he asked, his tone formal.

“Please,” Iago said.

Kessissiin sat down. “It seems I still need to make more friends outside of training,” he said.

“It can be tough,” Iago said genuinely.

Unlike the others, he had this feeling he could trust Kessissiin. The being was an outsider, unknown to him, but that’s what made him perfect.

He didn’t seem to look judgmental when he looked at him, there was no prior history that had been upset.

“You do well out there in training, though,” Iago said. “I’m frankly surprised you aren’t assigned to a combat unit.”

“I wished for that,” Kessissiin said, the passion in his voice that Iago recognized, could empathize with. “But Commander Pirra determined that since I had only just come here for detachment training it was best if I was in a non-combat unit.”

Which was a completely normal procedure, Iago knew. He might have made the same call. But it still seemed an injustice from this side.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Well, we probably won’t face any combat, anyway,” Iago muttered.

“I’m not sure I believe that,” Kessissiin said. “It is foolish to trust any being not to act in their own self-interest, and . . .”

He cut himself off. “I am out of line,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have spoken.”

“No, it’s okay,” Iago said, curious.

Kessissiin frowned. “You are Iago Caraval, yes? Former head of Response Team One?”

“Yes,” Iago replied. So Kessissiin knew – but he still didn’t seem to judge. Iago found himself fearing that, suddenly, but nothing in the Dessei’s face or body language changed.

“I’m speaking poorly about your friend and former subordinate, and-“

“Really,” Iago said. “Words among friends. We get to grouse.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kessissiin added quickly. “I have a very high regard for Commander Pirra! She is something of a hero among our people, the first Dessei of rank to serve on a cratonic ship. She is well known!”

“I’ve heard,” Iago said. “But anyone can make mistakes. What were you going to say?”

Kessissiin still hesitated, but then leaned closer. “The Craton is a mighty prize. It is the most advanced technology humanity – even much of the Union – has. And here it is, alone, in a fleet of aggressive Hev. They would have so much to gain from taking this ship.”

“You really think they’d try? They’d have a war on their hands if they did.” Iago asked. The thought was one he’d had – probably many had had. It was audacious of Kessissiin to say it to him, but he respected that.

“It is short-sighted, yes, but many beings are. They simply see a gem dangled in front of them-“

“It’s also a warning,” Iago said. “And frankly, I think they’d find the Craton a lot harder to take than they’d think.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Kessissiin said quickly, as if to cover saying something insulting. “But they could take the ship eventually.”

“If we didn’t just jump away. We probably could, before they could overwhelm us,” Iago said.

“Yes,” Kessissiin agreed. “If.” He shook his head. “But tactically-“

Iago held up a hand, and Kessissiin dropped silent. “Your instincts are good. I understand your concerns, of course. They’re not unfounded. But we are Response – not Operations. We don’t train to make those decisions.”

Kessissiin nodded, reluctantly. “Surely your words must carry some weight with the Captain, however. I am not afraid to fight, of course – I have taken part in rescue operations during and after combat in the outer sectors. But I feel part of our job is to anticipate, not simply react.”

“Your willingness to do the right thing is a credit to you,” Iago told him. “I don’t know if anyone will listen to me right now. But why don’t we make a report on this and see if we can get Pirra to listen?”

Kessissiin’s crest rose in surprise, but then he nodded. “Thank you for taking my concerns seriously, Commander.”

“Of course. You’re talking sense.”

It felt good to be called Commander again, Iago thought.

----------------------------------------

“Acting-Captain Urle, the zerodrive is fully charged. We may make the jump whenever you order it.”

Urle had, naturally, already been informed by his system, but it was still a good habit for the first officer to relay such important status updates.

His scanners swept the command center of the Eyes Gazing Upon the Bright Flower.

The Sepht ship was a marvel of engineering, by any measure.

While the Craton could break physics rather easily with merely seven fusion reactors to power her jumps, for ships whose hull was not made of tenkionic matter, it was an incredible feat to pierce the veil and sink into zerospace.

This ship was only eight hundred meters, pencil thin in contrast to the Craton’s spherical shape,

yet contained twenty-one massive fusion reactors that could generate staggering amounts of energy. Nothing less could have powered their zerodrive.

Where the Craton was gifted, the Bright Flower had to do the same through just hard engineering. And as much as he loved the Craton, he had to admire that.

While the fore section of the ship was covered in the sensors that allowed the Bright Flower to fulfill its job as a scout ship, the latter half was covered in carefully-arranged radiators. They extended far out from the hull, taking away the deadly thermal waste generated by their reactors – heated up until they glowed white.

And they were glowing now. The ship was nearly at its maximum heat capacity, running perilously close to the red line, but that couldn’t be helped if they wanted to make a jump.

Her crew of eight thousand were, by bulk, mostly sensor operators and fusion generator technicians – masters of their craft, all. For a ship like this, that pushed the boundaries of what was possible, they had to be.

“Order all crew to strap in,” Urle told his acting-Executive Officer, the original Captain of the ship. Her name was Guono Daa, and she had offered Urle command as soon as he’d come aboard.

It was slightly odd, but she’d told him that he was well-known and respected for being the first officer of the Craton – a ship famous throughout the Sapient Union – and it only made sense for him to take at least an honorary command.

He did know that was an element of Sepht space tradition, and he had accepted the offer, however much it made him uncomfortable. Sepht technology was not fundamentally different from humanity’s, through technological convergence and sharing between their species, but in some ways it was still alien to him.

“All crew ordered, Acting-Captain,” Guono told him. “Entering zerospace in fifteen seconds.”

The command center crew had all strapped themselves in, bracing for the jump with the majority of their tentacles; the three they used as legs, while also those on their head that gripped onto grooves on the backrest of their seats. Some of the chairs were much bigger than others, their occupants of the larger sub-species of Sepht, the Nolem. They were tall enough to tower over him, and tended to be paler shades of blue or green. The Vem em, including the captain, averaged only four or five feet tall, with much brighter colors.

Guono had sat down herself, leaning back in her seat. She was a vivid shade of yellow and only a little over five feet tall – which was rather on the tall side for a Vem em.

Urle’s seat leaned back slightly too far for his comfort, but it was secure; they had constructed a handful of human-style chairs on board for him and Ambassador Decinus, while approximating a Hev seat as best they could.

N’Keeea had not complained, being oddly silent during the boarding, the reason for which Urle could only guess at. Nervousness, perhaps?

“Energy levels crossing threshold for succesful irising,” the jump officer called out.

The Bright Flower ran a tight line every time she made a jump; there was always variation in how much energy you needed to open a portal to zerospace, and so any jump was a nervous moment for anyone on board.

The pseudo-gravity of zerospace would pull them forward, imparting great momentum, but if the aperture was not properly and fully opened and the ship passed through it . . . the results would be disastrous.

“Portal open!” Guona Daa called.

They made the jump. The ship rattled a lot more than the Craton, with shimmies and jerks that would have been alarming if he hadn’t known what they were; for a small ship like this, her mass was low enough for the Pavlona Shivers, a strange sensation of movement that was entirely a hallucination.

He studied the crew as they went, seeing eyes jump and tentacles twitch as they felt their own shivers, but none seemed bothered. He continued to be impressed.

“We have successfully submerged in zerospace,” Guono said, and rose from her seat. “All may swim freely.”

The rest of the crew began to get up from their seats, not displaying the excitement he’d often seen in crews during a jump. Perhaps it was nerves, or perhaps another effect on the mind, but after a zerospace entry some felt elated – submersion euphoria, he’d heard it called.

He just thought it was excitement. They had, after all, just broken the laws of the universe.

“Anything to report?” he asked.

“Negative, Captain,” Guono said. “Estimated time of arrival at the third planet; two hours.”

After nearly three hours of charging the zerodrive. If the ship hadn’t already been charging for such a jump, they’d have had to wait twice as long.

He undid the straps on his seat and sat up. “The bridge is yours, Captain Guono,” he said, giving her a salute.

She began to give orders in the guttural command language of Sepht, one which did not rely on color signals.