Pirra looked at the caskets of the people she’d known. Jack Lal and Abioye Suarez, both good and loyal officers, now resting cold among many others.

“I am sorry,” she said. “But your duty has ended. Rest now with the heroes and legends of our memory.”

The old Dessei parting for the dead felt a little hollow to her when said it out loud, perhaps even trite. But she still was glad to have said it.

Standing there for a few moments longer, taking the time to try and remember the good moments with her comrades, she barely noticed as Alexander came up behind her.

“Are you all right?” he asked gently.

She stood up straighter. “I’m fine,” she said automatically.

Alexander’s eyebrow rose quizzically, that peculiar human gesture with the . . . well, she’d called them something along the lines of ‘tiny face crests’ for a long time. She had learned what the gesture meant, at least.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” he told her, his tone still gentle.

“I know,” she said. “But I am okay. At least, I have to tell myself that I am.”

“You can’t become an island, Pirra-“

“I am not an island,” she replied, fighting down annoyance. That had a much different meaning to her people than humankind, and she hated it when he misused the phrase. To suggest it meant she was isolating herself? All her people’s nations were islands! Islands were a community!

“I just mean,” he continued doggedly, “that you can’t suppress how you feel.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her crest going down. It had risen unbidden in anger. Her eyes closed and she kept them that way.

“I know what you mean. And I appreciate it. This is something I will work through – that I will have to work through.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I have to do it, because people are depending on me – I could be needed at any moment, even now. But I have to do it my way, and my way is not crying on anyone’s shoulder.”

Alexander listened to her, considering her words. “All right,” he said finally. “I understand that. I just . . . I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have support if you need it.”

She felt the affection and love she held for him rising, and put her arms around him, pressing her head to his. “I know I have that,” she said to him. “You truly are the best, and I love-“

Someone cleared their throat. It was not a human throat.

Raising her head, she saw, standing not three meters away, a regally dressed Dessei. His coloration was much like hers, and he was her height, with eyes the same red as her own.

“Greetings, Councilor Tallei,” she said formally.

Tallei’s crest and face did not budge in the slightest. “Am I interrupting?” he asked in a manner worthy of high inner circles, his crest moving just the right shade to suggest his thoughtfulness, but not overplay it.

He did, of course, know that he was interrupting.

“Of course not,” she said, equally as formally, repeating in just the same fashion the nearly-courtly demeanor.

Alexander, she knew, did not quite understand the significance. But he could tell the change in her body language, the formality of her movements.

“I am going to go talk to Mina,” he said. “I know she’s grieving quite hard over Jack . . .”

“Thank you,” she told him. “Would you give her my condolences, too? I will join you as soon as I can – after I am done talking to the councilor.”

Alexander hesitated. Something about the way she’d said the title was . . . if not informal, it was nearly rude.

“Of course,” he said, taking it in stride.

She loved that he understood when he needed to just play along.

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After he was out of earshot, she spoke again, dropping entirely her polite language.

“It’s nice to see you again, Brother,” she said.

“You as well, Sister,” Tallei replied. Amusement crept into him. “I am glad I was in time to preserve your life.”

“You just came running because of Mother,” she retorted.

He showed offense. “You know that I do care about your life,” he replied.

“Yes, but you could only have come if She had ordered it,” Pirra shot back. “Is this why we’re alive right now? Mother’s protectiveness?”

“I would think you would be more grateful,” Tallei replied. “Happy that your ship and the majority of your comrades and . . . significant other . . . are all alive. Or am I incorrect in assuming that?”

“You are not,” she said, annoyance growing. “But I do wonder what Mother has asked you to pass onto me.”

Tallei was amused, his crest fluttering in a way that was almost derisive. “You’re always so defensive, Sister. We only had what was best for you in mind, as always.”

“I’m sure,” she replied, but vaguely enough that it was not overtly rude.

His crest dipped twice rapidly, a signal that someone was approaching. She turned, and saw Kessissiin coming over. He offered a very formal and polite crest droop, perfectly in line with addressing an honored councilor.

“May I come and greet you?” he asked.

“Of course,” Tallei replied. “You need not be so formal, friend.”

Friend? The Tallei she knew would not have said that to someone of Kessissiin’s island and rank, not when he was in a formal situation.

Unless . . . They already knew each other.

She found herself floored by that realization. What it might mean.

Kessissiin had come over, chatting politely – with proper deference – to Tallei, who continued to insist he need not be so formal, while of course Kessissiin absolutely did have to continue being so formal.

“And you serve under my Sister, is that not right.” Tallei commented, it clearly being a statement of fact despite being phrased as a question.

“Of course, and a glorious leader she is,” Kessissiin replied. “Though I do not . . . serve under her directly.”

“No? Sister, what does my friend Kessissiin do in Response?” Tallei asked.

“He, uh, he’s in the Volunteer Response Corp,” she said.

“That’s it?” Tallei’s crest flattened. “But from what I understand, he fought with great gallantry in the last battle!”

“Yes,” she agreed, not looking at Kessissiin as she said it. “His unit acquired arms against orders and defended part of the ship. While he and . . . the unit’s commander exalted themselves, the rest of their unit were not of their skill and perished in the battle.”

Which was, of course, why they were not supposed to be in combat.

“Oh dear,” Tallei said. “How unfortunate. Ah, yes, surely some of the heroic dead we are giving our gratitude to tonight. Please forgive my terrible manners.” He paused. “. . . but surely you will now be placing my friend Kessissiin’s talents where they will be most fitting? He has proved his personal skill greatly. It would be . . . a borderline insult to not bring him into your unit – the most prestigious unit.”

Pirra could only founder as to why Tallei was picking this direction to come at her from. She could not understand it. Unless Kessissiin was a spy . . . ? But no, part of her service on the human ship involved all data of her actions being forwarded to her people. There was hardly anything they could learn from Kessissiin that they could not from that data.

Perhaps he was to protect her . . . ? The thought rankled her.

“I will, of course, take it under advisement, but I have not yet had time to deal with personnel issues.”

“Ah. A pity. Well, come friend Kessissiin. Accompany me, would you?”

“I would be honored,” the other Dessei said, again lowering his crest.

“Oh, I hope you have time to attend to those personnel issues soon, Sister,” Tallei said to her in parting.

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

He’d heard humans sometimes say that the severely injured looked smaller, and he mused with no mirth that it was true in Logus’s case.

That the man had survived this long was one of those things that was difficult to explain. That human concept of will overcoming the impossible was one he had never accepted, instead believing that numerous small factors combined to inject more unpredictability into outcomes.

He felt shaken in this belief, because Arn Logus should not be alive now.

His right arm was gone, torn off by the armor-piercing rounds that had penetrated the door of the bunker. Beyond that, his entire shoulder was too damaged to restore, along with the lung on that side of his body, and a portion of his lower mandible, taken off near the joint.

Humanity were so frail, he thought. And yet they trekked out into the stars anyway, aware on at least some level of the danger that faced them.

Reality was so often cruel to biological life . . .

Yet they still went out.

Perhaps one day, he’d understand why they so desperately fought for such things.

“Hello, friend,” he said, turning his voice cheery, though he did not feel it, as he began to replace some of the bandages. A number of drones aided him.

The evidence suggested Logus was not aware, but sometimes the subconscious understood things in its own way. A primitive, yet highly powerful system of the human mind.

So he would talk to his friend, and perhaps in some way it would help.

“After preliminary repairs are done, we will be heading to Gohhi Station. Isn’t that exciting? I know you have always wished to visit the place. So rare to find a human system that is not in the Sapient Union and is friendly! Or, well, friendly enough. I have heard stories from there . . .”

Perhaps that was not wise to talk about right now, he decided.

“. . . but I’ll tell you those another time. The doctors there have far more equipment than I do – an entire cloning lab! It will not be long before they are fusing a fresh arm and shoulder and . . . lung . . .”

He felt parts of his mind at war with itself. Different emotional cores were experiencing surges of feelings that were creating conflicting desires, and it was overwhelming.

He should keep talking.

He should give his friend silence.

He could not bear to say more words.

He was a coward for not saying them.

Finishing his work in silence, he dismissed the drones, and restructured his schedule.

Words still did not come, but he would stay here for awhile.