The event had ended hours ago, and afterwards Apollonia had returned to her room and fallen asleep almost immediately. She hadn’t felt right since . . . Well, she wasn’t sure what happened after she had passed out in the armory. No one had told her how she had been saved, what had happened to the Hev that had blown in the door. Maybe some kind of automated defense system? Though she’d heard that the Hev had somehow blanked the computers in the area, killing such defenses.

She knew something had happened. But she did not want to examine it deeper. It did not sit well with her to probe into such things, even when it affected her directly. She’d spent her whole life in ignorance, and sometimes – sometimes – she thought it was better for some things to remain unknown.

It hadn’t felt like she’d been asleep long when the urgent message woke her.

It was only a voice; Jaya.

“Apollonia Nor, report to my office in thirty minutes.”

Her stomach flipped, and she wasn’t sure if she could handle food.

She really wanted to just go back to sleep, ignore the call. She would have at another time in her life, but now . . .

She didn’t want to betray the trust of some people. Not again.

Dragging herself up, she considered a stim, but those never sat right with her, and she ended up feeling horrible a few hours afterwards.

Instead she drank a quick cup of tea, dressed in the best clothes she had – a slightly more formal jumpsuit with the ship’s name and an SU logo on it. It felt appropriate.

Making her way to the office, she remembered that her system was still blanked out, and while it could do basic functions like guide her, it had lost all of her personal data.

Looking through it, she felt a pang as she realized that even meant the Abmon language pack she’d gotten on her return trip to the Craton after visiting Earth . . .

She didn’t actually need it anymore. Squats on Sand had been the only one of his kind aboard, and they might not even get another Abmon, given what had happened to him.

But she downloaded it again anyway.

Once she was at Jaya’s door, she stopped and adjusted her outfit, trying to look a little presentable. Turning her tablet screen to mirror mode, she saw that she was . . . well, frumpy. As usual.

She went in.

Jaya was sitting at her desk, as she so often was, and only glanced up as Apollonia entered.

“Sit,” the woman said, her eyes already back on her work.

Doing so, Apollonia realized with a start that they weren’t alone. Another woman was in the room, who Apollonia knew was another of the command officers, yet she found that she couldn’t remember her name.

The woman waited patiently, leaned against the wall in a way that still somehow seemed formal.

“I believe you two have met,” Jaya said finally, looking up.

“Uh, yes,” Apollonia said. She had been introduced to them all, she just had a terrible memory.

Kai, she thought. That might have been her name.

“I’m Kai Yong Fan,” the woman said. “It has been awhile, Ms. Nor.”

“Ah, right. Thank you.”

Jaya glanced at Kai.

“You understand why we are here, I imagine.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” Apollonia said. Her fear was growing stronger, along with her guilt.

“Dereliction of duty is a charge that we take most seriously,” Jaya said. “And I must say – I am sorry.”

Apollonia felt like her chair had dropped away. “What?”

“I failed you. I should not have let you into such deep waters alone,” Jaya continued. “It was my self-appointed task of training you, preparing you for your duties. And I did not do that sufficiently.”

Jaya sighed, looking down again. “Therefore, I cannot entirely blame you for your fear.”

Kai was still saying nothing, her face impassive, and Apollonia sincerely wondered what her part in this was going to be. If Jaya was being good cop, did that mean that Kai would be the bad?

“You understand that it does not entirely excuse you for your actions,” Jaya continued. “You did betray the trust of your comrades.”

“They were probably better off without me, to be honest,” Apollonia said, mumbling slightly.

She could tell that was the wrong thing to say.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I know that’s not the point. It’s just my . . . self-loathing, I guess.”

“I know you stated that you did not feel very useful, given your lack of augmentations,” Kai said. “But this is not the point. In nearly all circumstances we have assistance with heavy work. It is the point of having the human element, the human mind judging a situation and devising what is right according to what matters to us that is important. And a group effort is what makes it strong. This is how you failed your Volunteer unit.”

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Jaya spoke. “This is correct. Ultimately, you did not wrong us – but your comrades.”

“Will I . . . have a chance to apologize to them?” she asked.

“If you feel it necessary, of course,” Kai said.

She actually seemed like nicer cop. Or at least neutral cop. Was that a thing?

“Now, Apollonia,” Jaya continued. “Would you like to continue to be a member of the Volunteers?”

Her stomach squirmed more. The bold part of her, that wanted to become everything she could and more, wanted to jump at that opportunity.

But maybe she wasn’t ready? She wasn’t trying to second-guess herself into inaction, but get a realistic grip on what she could actually do.

“I’d like to help people,” she said finally. “I’d like to help. To do my part, I guess.”

“You guess?” Jaya asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I mean, I guess that’s how to phrase it. I mean what I say! But . . . I’m not sure if I’m worthy of being in the Volunteers right now.”

It was Kai’s turn to look surprised. Apollonia took that badly until the woman spoke.

“That is a good insight into yourself,” she said. “Many Volunteers who fail either give up entirely on such work, or else continue to have a false idea of their own abilities.”

“Oh. So that’s good? What I said, I mean.”

“It is,” Jaya answered. “And frankly, I would like to see you back in the Volunteers – eventually. But Commander Kai and I have been speaking and we both believe that you need more mentoring before it would be good for you to do that.”

More education? Oh, it just never seemed to end.

“All right,” she said instead.

“Jaya has been kind enough to aid you,” Kai said. “But there are other resources, and you know she is quite busy.”

“Yeah,” Apollonia agreed. So perhaps Jaya was just washing her hands of her . . .

But looking at the woman, she didn’t see loathing or hate on her face. She didn’t see judgment or condemnation.

No, a part of her realized. Jaya wasn’t abandoning her. She was doing her best – and sometimes that meant handing a task over to someone else.

“Commander Yaepanaya and I will both provide several tutors for you,” Kai said. “You will meet with them in lieu of meeting with Jaya for your preparations to take the officer candidacy test. Is this acceptable to you?”

“What? Oh, yes! Absolutely.” Apollonia swallowed hard. “But do I get a . . . black mark on my record for my failure?”

“It is noted in your record,” Jaya said plainly. “Because we do need to know what has been done in the past. But as for it reflecting upon you – such things can change based on your future performance.”

“Okay,” Apollonia said. Of all the ‘chewing outs’ she’d had, this was not like any other.

Jaya stood, and offered her hand. “Thank you, Ms. Nor.”

Standing up, Apollonia was not sure why Jaya was offering her hand. “I think I should be thanking you.”

Jaya smiled thinly. “We will see each other again, but not as regularly. I look forward to the day when you become an officer.”

Oh. So it was . . . goodbye.

Apollonia felt a fresh sorrow flood through her, and she shook the woman’s hand more vigorously. “Yeah . . . I look forward to that, too.”

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

He’d been rocking for over an hour now.

Sitting in the middle of the room, Iago had removed most of the furniture, getting rid of some, and placing others in storage. A lot of things had been knocked around in all the actions the ship had seen – while normally such things were secured prior to going into action, he . . .

He’d forgotten.

It was a good excuse, though, to get rid of it all.

He didn’t need it – didn’t need the objects he felt sure were full of scanners and bugs.

He’d found one, in the new chair that Zeela Cann had had brought to him recently, when he’d broken the arm of the old one.

Broken, a part of his mind asked. Or had they set it up to fail to justify putting the spying device in his room?

He had torn the new chair apart until he’d found it. He’d known it would be there. It was cleverly disguised as a smartchip, but he knew the tell-tale signs of it being more. The angles on the circuitboard were a little too curved, some of the colors not quite the standard shade of green. This was top-level equipment, disguised incredibly well as something mundane.

He was sure of it.

Clutching it in his hand, so hard that the edges cut him, he ignored the pain, and rocked more.

Why had everyone he trusted turned on him? The Captain, Zeela, even Pirra. They had treated him like an outsider – spied on him, lied to him.

It had to be because of what he’d seen.

Sometimes he wondered if any of it was actually real. Perhaps they’d never even gone into combat. Perhaps in the night they had taken him and hooked him into a system that merely tricked his mind into thinking he was experiencing these events.

For all he knew they weren’t even in the Mopu system.

Elliot was out doing volunteer work helping to repair part of the irrigation system in the garden. Easy work, it would be good for him. Even if it wasn’t real, it would help allay their suspicion and give the boy something to focus on.

He’d always kept a few Blank Boxes around, for security reasons. Just turn them on, they jammed nearly all recording or spying equipment in a small, adjustable radius. The smart system would provide enough false data to not arouse suspicion.

Of course, by even using it, if they were paying serious attention, they would see through it. He’d know for sure, if they came for him when he put it on.

An even better reason to get Elliot out.

He hardly wanted his son here if they came in to take him away . . . to where, he couldn’t even fathom. But if they had lied to him this much, manipulated, used him . . . then they might do anything. There might be a secret deck . . .

No, there couldn’t be a secret deck, he scolded himself. He knew the Craton inside and out!

Unless . . . unless he’d never known it?

He was too afraid to contemplate that to its conclusion.

A sound chimed on his door, and his heart nearly stopped.

But the door didn’t open, and no one even requested entry.

For a moment, he waited, for the door to be forced open and for a Response team to rush in. To think it could even be Pirra leading them, to arrest him . . .

All for what he’d seen.

Because they were after that knowledge, weren’t they? They didn’t know what harm it could do, did do, had done to him. They would only want to know it so they could know the thing, to know all things. Catalogue them, put them in a computer record and then lock it away. Along with him.

Just not Elliot . . .

Pirra had always loved him like family. His only hope remained that, if they had to take him, she might be kind to his son.

Because right now they had no way out.

The door, he realized, had not been forced.

He wanted to look out with the camera, but his own Blank Box was preventing that.

Rising, he went to the door, listening through it for the tell-tale sound of armed officers moving, shuffling, waiting. But he heard nothing.

Opening the door cautiously, he saw no one.

But on the floor near his door was a small plastic card.

Taking it, he saw it was folded in half. He stepped back inside, moving away from the door in case they still blasted it open.

Then he opened the card. In the dim light he preferred anymore, it was hard to read, but he could still make it out.

What you have seen is a gift, it said. I can help you.

Await further contact.

His heart was beating again, his pulse pounding.

This could be a trap, he thought. But no . . . No, it wasn’t.

There was an image below it. It was a cube, the three-dimensional object rendered in 2D with lines . . . but there was an extra set of lines, that connected to nothing, heading off into . . .

Into a space beyond the spaces they knew. Beyond the dimensional space that all of humanity before him had ever been limited to . . .

Iago Caraval, a man who believed himself lost, realized that he was not alone.

Someone else knew.

Someone else was on his side.

Tears streaked down his cheeks and he slid to the floor, crying and laughing both.