★ Minerva ★

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Many floors above where Martin sat in that holding cell, an officer of the Space Corps stood in their quarters staring through the window at the dark, expansive void of space.

Colonel Minerva Gray felt every bit as much a prisoner, although she didn’t look it. Her clean, stately uniform, adorned with stripes, insignia, and gold trim denoting a member of senior command, lent an aura of agency and authority. But there was a quiet panic in her eyes and a subtle tremor in her hands—one she’d tried to conceal by clasping them tightly behind her back, although it didn’t work. The void without was matched by the void within—fraught with darkness and unspoken fears—and there was nothing to distract from it in this small, enclosed room.

Colonel Gray hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning, and she hadn’t slept the two nights before, either. Well, they called them nights, but in reality these were just dark shifts with dimmed lights that simulated nighttime on the Europa Station. There were no true nights here—not on this strange metal satellite she called home.

This was the least strange place she’d ever been, she told herself—more like a true home than the moon base in which she’d spent five years of her childhood, or the military academy which had regimented her schedule to a second’s precision for five more, or the frozen, seemingly endless plains where she’d completed her tactical training. However, it had always felt like something was missing, and she could never quite identify what.

“I designed it, you know,” her grandfather had said during their shuttle approach a few days prior. They’d been returning from leave, and they took in that view, watching the Europa Station grow larger and larger until it swallowed the sky around it.

“Yes, you did,” Minerva replied. She’d heard this story many times, even though it wasn’t entirely true.

He’d been the lead engineer on the project—that part was accurate—but he’d been a late entry to the design team, and by the time he came along, the Station was nearing completion. But to hear him tell it, he might as well have designed the structure from scratch and personally welded every single rivet together.

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Construction took forever, and it would’ve never been finished if I hadn’t intervened. They went through four directors in three years, and each one found new and creative ways to fail. I warned them—I told Headquarters that you don’t bring in terrestrial engineers for off-world projects. Best to have an astronaut with no engineering background rather than a veteran engineer whose only knowledge of space comes from fiction. But did they listen to me?”

No, Minerva thought.

“Of course not,” he said. “By the time they handed it over to me, they were about to declare the whole thing a loss. Billions of tons of materials, trillions in investor funds, and over a decade of effort, all about to be written off as a floating pile of scrap metal. But I did it. I cleaned up their mess and made this place operational, and I was also smart enough to demand a cut of the profits.”

He‘d been standing at the window with his back to her, but Minerva envisioned the condescending smile on his face—the one he wore when speaking of those he believed to be beneath him. “The naysayers were loud and many. ‘Why spend that much on a scientific outpost? Who would ever want to go out there?’ And those criticisms made sense when the journey took months, but as usual, I was one step ahead of them. The mining companies had already started funding research and dumping their profits into the creation of stable wormholes. Everyone thought jump points were the stuff of fiction, but I’d read the patent filings, and I knew the technology was on the verge of being approved. Another risk, and another reward. I was the only person willing to invest in it, and now I control the main access point for deep space excursions. If anyone wants to go out there, they have to go through us, and we charge accordingly. They always complain about it, but at the end of the day, they pay what we’re asking. If they want to find an alternate route, they’re welcome to. But they haven’t, have they?”

“No, they haven’t,” Minerva had responded. And yet, as she stood in her quarters staring through the window, she decided that no place had ever felt more foreign. The bare, sterile walls and ceilings and floors made a mockery of her loneliness. She’d found dirt in everything she owned for years after moving from that dust-covered moon base, and swore she’d never live that way again. Her standards were immaculate, and she’d thought there was no such thing as ‘too clean.’ The Europa Station, however, proved her wrong.

Everything is wrong, she thought to herself. She studied the stars again, but try as she might, her mind was drawn back to the present, and she sighed as she glanced at the clock.

She wouldn’t be here much longer. Her promotion ceremony was taking place in less than an hour, and there, she was going to assume the rank of general.

She turned away from the window in an attempt to dismiss the ever-present fears from her mind, but all that served to do was give her a view of the door, and she was reminded of the reason she’d come here in the first place.

She’d retreated here to escape the shouting match taking place outside—one that had been steadily growing in volume for the past half-hour.

She could still hear every word, though. The closed door did nothing to stop it, and she was treated to the sound of two men sitting in her living room arguing about the direction of her future as if she wasn’t even there.

These were no strangers; she knew them well. One was her uncle, Rear Admiral Titus Gray of the Fleet—the Corps’ elite sub-branch that served as their interstellar navy—and the other was her grandfather, the soon-to-be-retired General Richard Gray himself. And today, they were arguing about who was to be Richard’s successor—or more specifically, who deserved this promotion which, in true Gray family fashion, had been awarded to his granddaughter.

She’d just wanted a quiet moment to collect her thoughts, but that was impossible now, thanks to them. They’d come here to offer support, they’d said, during what was arguably one of the most defining moments of her career, but instead, all they’d contributed was a fight—one she wasn’t allowed to participate in, but was still forced to listen to.

“How dare you speak to me that way!” Her grandfather shouted. He was eighty-seven years old—a record among Space Corps leadership—but despite his age, his mind was still sharp, and his voice was still very loud as it carried through that door.

“Because somebody has to! What’s wrong with you, Richard?” her uncle shouted in reply.

“Nothing. I’m the only one who seems to want to do their job.”

“Their job? Fine, let’s talk about what happens to people who do this job. Your father wore that uniform for most of his life, and he was buried in it, but it was a rushed, discreet graveside service that you weren’t even able to attend because there was a war going on. That war dragged on for far longer than it ever should've—long enough for your son to become a general too and meet the same fate. He was buried right there beside him, also in uniform. Remember that?”

Minerva closed her eyes as the scene entered her thoughts, unbidden. She was taken back to that day at fifteen years old, sitting at her father’s closed-casket funeral, listening to speeches she barely remembered, surrounded by people she barely knew. The service seemed to drag on forever, and her mind had wandered. The flower arrangements were gaudy, she’d thought, and her father wouldn’t have liked them. He was never one for excess. She’d wondered what he’d say if he could see them. He’d probably laugh.

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She’d been half-expecting him to walk in the room, but then she was hit by the stark realization that she’d never get to talk to him again.

That moment represented a sharp line delineating her youth from the next few years—a tumultuous adulthood she’d been abruptly thrust into.

“What’s next?” Her uncle’s voice jarred her back to reality. “Are you looking to bury your granddaughter too? You want to see her lying in state at a general’s funeral? You’ve seen it before, and you know what to expect, but now it seems you want to do it again. Not only does that not seem to distress you, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re nearly elated by the prospect.”

“This is different. She’ll be a peacetime general. Even a rock could handle that.”

“Then put a rock in that Council seat, instead of your granddaughter! Peacetime command is arguably more dangerous than wartime command, since it’s more difficult to prevent a war than it is to continue one. But even if that weren’t the case, peacetime generals are just one mistake away from becoming wartime generals. You know that better than most. It doesn’t even have to be their mistake—it can be someone else’s—but they’re always the ones left picking up the pieces. The last error in judgment turned into a decade-long conflict.”

“Protest all you want, but it’s already done. Her promotion ceremony begins in half an hour.”

“You speak as if he had no agency in this decision, and knowing you, she probably didn’t.”

“Don’t you dare diminish Minerva’s accomplishments! She’s incredibly talented, and she’s earned this. She’s ready.”

“Funny how you never told her any of that when she was younger. She graduated with some of the best scores the Academy has ever seen and she’s led an exemplary career, but all you ever had for her was criticism. Suddenly, though, the instant you’re ready to retire, she’s the brightest star in the sky, ready to claim her rightful place that you’ve chosen for her. You saw your son sitting across from you at that Council table for years, and you saw the flag draped over his empty chair when he died, but now you seem to want the same for your granddaughter in both respects. Minerva’s brilliant—you’re not wrong there—but she deserves better than this.”

“Nothing’s better than this.”

“Tell that to your dead son.”

“How dare you!” Richard repeated. “Do you think I’m ignorant of the past? I came out of retirement to replace him, for Christ’s sake!”

“Yes, you did, and by no means do I want to minimize the significance of that choice. But that was thirteen years ago, and you were already considered too old to be bearing those responsibilities at the time, so what does that make you now? You should’ve nominated someone else, and you should’ve done it long ago. If you had even a shred of decency, you’d ask yourself this—would Fred approve of what you’re doing? Promoting his daughter to the same role that killed him, only this time we’re doing it while she’s still in her twenties? Fred had decades on Minerva, and he fully understood what he’d committed to.”

“We’ve done it before. She’s not the youngest to hold this rank.”

“That was during a war, Richard. Keep telling yourself that Minerva’s talent is why she’s one of the youngest officers to ever receive this promotion, because that’s a lie only you seem to believe. Someone in their twenties should never hold this office. I don’t care how talented they are; that’s not enough experience. The only reason we allowed it in the first place was because the war was so out of control, it started killing our generals. That war’s over now, and you have no excuse. She’s too young.”

“Harlow was a success.”

“Of course you bring him up now. Harlow was only meant to be a placeholder, remember? His promotion was supposed to be temporary—an emergency measure to fill an interim vacancy. Not only that, but you voted against him. You didn’t even want him. He wasn’t the best the Academy had to offer, nor was he all that outstanding of an officer, and he was even younger than Minerva. His promotion was practically an accident. You just got lucky because sometimes accidents yield perfection.”

“We can do it again. She’s ready.”

“That kind of fortune won’t be granted twice. Minerva’s too young, just like you’re too old. Maybe it’s time to relinquish control for a while.”

“Never. There should always be a General Gray on the Council. And unless you want it to be Andrew—”

“Don’t even suggest that!”

“—then it’ll be Minerva.”

At the sound of her name, Minerva turned toward the window as the conversation turned to noise inside her head, watching as the stars gleamed against the beautiful, inviting darkness.

Even that couldn’t settle her fears today, though. This promotion should’ve been exciting, but she felt a sense of dread like none other.

She’d spent her whole life preparing for this moment, but when it was finally upon her, it felt like a terrible mistake. Regardless of how qualified she was, no one would ever believe she’d earned this, because she hadn’t. Even she would admit it.

It’s not too late, she thought. I’m not sworn in yet. I could decline, and no harm would come of it. Yet the thought made her ill, even more so than she’d felt that morning after not eating for a day and a half. The same fear that gripped Martin so tightly rose up within her now, too, squeezing her stomach even tighter.

It whispered that her training, her family legacy, and her elite schooling would all be for naught if she was to leave, and reminded her that this opportunity would never be offered again. If she was to turn down this promotion, her career would effectively be over, and there would be very few prospects left for her here. Even her grandfather wouldn’t make an exception for that.

She turned her attention back to the window. The stars awakened some faint modicum of joy within, but otherwise she felt nothing. She stared for a while, feeling as empty as the sky surrounding them, and after a few pensive moments, she turned away as the conversation picked its way back into her conscious mind.

“She’s too young.”

“She’s ready.”

“She’s. Too. Young.”

“She’s being sworn in soon, whether you agree with it or not.”

“You disgust me, Richard. This promotion killed my brother—your son—and now it could very well kill your granddaughter too.” There was a long pause, and Minerva heard her uncle’s voice waver slightly. “You know as well as I do that Fred was no typical wartime casualty. It may have been recorded as an accident, but make no mistake—that was a targeted assassination. Retaliation for some grievance or another. They killed one of our generals to make a point, and they got away with it.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Peace treaties do little good if you’ve got a target on your back. Fred was an exemplary officer, but he was naïve. He was too good for this place, and he was taken advantage of by those who… weren’t. That’s what this job does to the unprepared. It kills them.”

“Your outlook is skewed by your endless pessimism. I managed to survive all these years, somehow.”

“Too bad.”

“Enough!” her grandfather shouted. “I’ve tolerated far too much of your disrespect. This conversation is over. Leave.”

“I just want better for Minerva.”

“She needs your support, not your negativity. She’s right there in the next room. She can probably hear us, you know.”

“Good. Maybe she’ll come to her senses and put a stop to this foolishness, just as you should’ve long ago.”

“It’s not up to me, nor you either. This is her decision, remember? Besides, the Council seems to think she’s earned her place there.”

“The Council is a mockery of what it once was, and her membership on it is a mockery of this rank. Their reputation has declined to the point of being abysmal—and rightfully so, I might add.”

“Well, maybe now they’ll have a chance to redeem themselves. But as for Minerva, this is her choice, and she’s made it. Now, I’ve grown tired of repeating myself. You can leave.”

Minerva heard the sound of her uncle’s chair scraping against the floor, and she knew he’d gotten up and stormed off without casting so much as a parting glance behind him.

Several long, silent seconds passed, then she heard her grandfather stand too. Richard was far quieter, but there was the unmistakable sound of his footsteps—a slow, methodical shuffling—drawing closer. Then came the sharp rap of aged knuckles against her door—once, twice, and then a third time.

“Minerva!” he shouted.

She glanced at the clock. Time was up.

“I’m coming,” she answered.

“Well, hurry up. I‘m hosting some personal guests from Headquarters, and I’ll be damned if we make them sit through that whole ceremony without even a basic acknowledgement. I told them we’d stop by the executive lounge to say ‘hello’ first, and they don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Minerva sighed. “I’ll be out in a moment.”

She lingered by the window and gave the stars a parting glance, then turned away.

Her grandfather was right about one thing. She’d made her choice. In a few short minutes, she’d be attending that ceremony despite the sick feeling roiling in her stomach. Then, after she’d taken that oath of office, her grandfather would formally relinquish command, and she would be General Gray now.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and crossed the room.