Sk-4. The Radiolaria Galactica

Zehra Aslanbek’s Amazing Space-Warping Drive (or as everyone except Zehra called it, ‘warp drive’) was such a blatant mockery of causality and relativity that the universe damn near issued humanity a speeding ticket when they first invented it. The drive used gravity manipulation to create a bubble of isolated spacetime, then compressed space in front of the bubble and expanded space behind, resulting in a wave that the bubble surfed along like a rickety fishing trawler riding a tsunami. Because the ship or Gravity Frame inside the bubble was not technically accelerating relative to its immediate spacetime, it resulted in no time dilation or backwards time travel, and therefore the universe decided to let humanity off with a warning. Humanity, who had a collective history of laughing in the face of unrelenting physics, simply flipped the universe off and went on their merry way.

This is not to say every human was comfortable using warp drive, however. As a relatively new transportation technology, a fair number of folk were unsettled by the idea of travelling faster-than-light. One such doubter was Lydia Tereshkova.

“Are you SURE this thing is safe?” Lydia fretted as she strapped herself into Sveta’s cockpit chair.

“Of course it is! I’ve made thousands of warp jumps, and the number that ended in horrible disaster is in the low double digits. Rest assured, the drive is 99% safe to use!” Sveta said as she docked her Telepresence Doll in an alcove behind the cockpit chair and powered it down. Kometka and Miette followed suit, and a moment later their avatars popped up in a holographic window projected by the cockpit’s spherical screen.

“Low… double… DIGITS?!” Lydia screeched.

Miette smacked Sveta upside the head. “Oy, cut that out, Sveta. Don’t scare the poor girl. Lydia, we’ve been operating the warp drive without incident for several years now, and I’ve made dozens of warp jumps myself. It’s perfectly safe.”

Sveta rubbed the virtual bump on her virtual head for a moment, pouting, before switching back to her usual peppiness with ease. “Yeah! I’m the one who tested the experimental models, so me and Zehra ironed out all the kinks! The current generation of warp drives has the Sveta Seal of Quality, guaranteed to safely transit you from point A to point B with all organs intact and all fingers and toes accounted for!”

Miette groaned. “Not helping, Sveta.”

“What? I’m just lightening the mood with humor!” Sveta growled back petulantly.

Miette rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Just pilot, brat.”

As Sveta brought up the 360-degree cockpit holo-screen, which displayed the Martian surface around her Frame, Lydia gripped the armrests of the cockpit chair so tightly her knuckles turned white… not that anyone could see it under the gloves of her Inertia Suit. She braced herself for the usual sense of acceleration that accompanied a Gravity Frame lifting off, ready to get slammed back into her chair.

Sveta pulsed the gravity fins, lifting the Frame off the surface a few dozen meters, and reconfigured the combat chassis from robot to shuttlecraft mode. Another pulse of the fins sent them hundreds of feet into the air, then thousands as they broke the sound barrier. As Lydia watched the Martian surface recede, she frowned.

“There’s no… acceleration… G-force…” she muttered, looking at her hand while she clenched and unclenched her fingers.

“That’s because of the inertial dampeners!” Sveta boasted. “You’re used to those janky old Velocipede and X-23 Lisichka model Frames which only partially cancelled out acceleration, but the new models completely neutralize any G-forces! Pilot comfort is beyond compare!”

“The… the Velocipedes were cutting edge…” Lydia said disbelievingly.

Sveta snorted. “They were cutting edge seven years ago. Science marches on, Lydia, especially when Zehra’s involved.”

Miette smiled mischievously. “If you think the new Frames are something, just wait until you see the ship. We’ve been working our proverbial tails off to get her ready.”

“Oy, my tail’s not proverbial!” Sveta protested, manifesting her cat ears and tail.

Lydia only half-listened to Sveta and Miette’s usual antics, her eyes fixed on the reddish tinge of Mars as the full disc of the planet came into view. She’d seen Mars from orbit many times, but the sight never failed to move her… doubly so now, since she knew she wouldn’t return for a long, long time.

“Wait for me, everyone. I’ll be back, I promise,” she whispered. The three AI girls heard her clearly because of the cockpit’s advanced audio sensors, but didn’t say anything out of respect.

A moment later, far beyond the orbit of Phobos and Deimos, the Frame twinkled out of spacetime with a purple flash.

******

“So this is warp, huh?” Lydia said, her eyes skittered off the cockpit screen’s pixel-perfect projection of the pitch-black void that surrounded them. “Somehow, I was expecting, I dunno… a cool lightshow? Stars whooshing past?”

“You’ve been scrolling up too many cinemas, Lydia,” Sveta teased. “We’re in a bubble of spacetime pinched off from the larger universe… in essence, a microverse fifty meters across. There are no stars, hence no light.

“…So you’re flying blind? How do you steer?” Lydia asked, feeling her nerves fraying even further.

“Well you see, I deploy an artificial lattice of paired photons just outside the event horizon of the spacetime boundary, with one half of the pair entangled to a set of digital switches inside my secondary hyperprocessor. Then, when one of the photons crosses the event horizon and the other escapes as Schwarzschild radiation, it causes a trans-Planckian reverberant affect across the skein of the…”

Miette cut in before the technobabble got out of hand. “She steers very well, thanks for asking.”

“H-Hey, you interrupted my explanation!” Sveta groaned.

“You were starting to sound too much like Zehra,” Miette retorted, blepping out her tongue. “Cool your jets, Astro Girl.”

Sveta gasped and clutched her hands to her chest. “An ASTRO BOY reference?! Oh my dear wife, my heart flutters!”

“Yeah, yeah. Settle down or I’ll smooch you, brat,” Miette said, pursing her lips.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” Sveta said, breaking into a huge grin. “Actually, do threaten me and follow through, please.”

Lydia shook her head and looked over at Kometka’s projection, who was watching the pair with her usual unblinking gaze. “Oy, Kometka, do these two have an off switch?”

Kometka smiled thinly. “Let me poke around Sveta’s systems and see if I can find it.”

Sveta balled her hands into fists and placed them on her hips, arms akimbo. “Good luck, my dear sister! My core systems are protected behind seven proxies!”

“Trying to make it easy for me? How very Sveta-esque of you,” Kometka replied, her small smile never wavering.

There was a moment of silence, then the four girls burst into laughter. As she tittered hand-to-mouth, Kometka thought to herself how nice it was to hear Lydia laugh again.

A few minutes later, the warp drive spooled down and the Frame re-entered sidereal space, a few thousand kilometers from the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrange point.

“We’re heeeeeeeeeere!” Sveta announced.

Lydia saw the familiar glowing orb of the Moon’s far side… and silhouetted against it was a grey arrowhead shape encircled by two glowing purple rings, its surface aglitter with thousands of lights. As Lydia realized the scale of what she was looking at, her eyes bugged.

“That’s…”

“Our new ship,” Sveta responded proudly. “Humanity’s first faster-than-light Gravity Frame carrier, and the first ship designed to wage war on an interstellar scale. May I present… the Radiolaria Galactica.”

******

Back during the dark days of the Sarcophage War, humanity’s largest mobile starships were Gravity Frame carriers and artillery destroyers, both of which averaged around a half-kilometer long. Larger still were the stationary Almaz positron cannon stations, which were a full kilometer in length. The largest spaceborne structures humanity built from scratch were the gravity centrifuge space colony cylinders at around five kilometers long, and even those were eclipsed by hollowed-out asteroid bases like 433 Eros which clocked in at a whopping seven kilometers.

The Radiolaria Galactica broke all those records at eight kilometers long. It bore the typical arrowhead shape of a Gravity Frame carrier, with a cluster of angular gravity drive fins fanning out from the broadest part of the arrowhead, the stern. At the opposite end, the ship’s prow was notched and featured a recessed outlet which contained no less than sixty gravitic launch tubes for Gravity Frames and other craft, and two far larger outlets for massive gravitic railcannons that ran the full length of the ship’s central axis. Encircling the ship’s back half, just afore the conventional drive fins, were two huge purple glowing rings which joined to the ship at port and starboard. These gravity rings were a new configuration of drive fin designed specifically to create a powerful warp field that could accelerate the ship to a top speed of 1000 times the speed of light. The ship’s hull was dotted with dozens upon dozens of positron turret emplacements, and the port and starboard lengths of the hull both sported two massive Almaz-type positron cannons, each nearly four kilometers long and ten times as powerful as the Almaz cannons of yore.

This extensive armament was supplemented by the ship’s embarked compliment of 1400 Gravity Frames and a Gravity Swarm. This was humanity’s answer to the galactic threat of the Sarcophage: a massive vessel that could singlehandedly battle an entire swarm of the ravening horrors, delivering enough firepower to split a planet in two while remaining safe behind its powerful energy shields.

As Sveta’s Frame transformed back into robot mode and entered one of the Radiolaria Galactica’s massive hanger bays, it was seized by a giant robotic arm extending from the ceiling and unceremoniously shoved into a docking port in the wall. As small scarab-like drones skittered all over the Frame’s hull and the cockpit hatch opened, Lydia poked her head out and looked around the cavernous hanger with wide eyes.

“Everything is so… big!” she said with awe.

Sveta, Miette and Kometka, once more in their Telepresence Dolls, crowded behind her and gently urged her forwards. “Just follow the yellow lines on the wall over to the pilot’s locker room,” Sveta said. “Watch the orange and black striped boundary, that’s where the artificial gravity kicks in.”

Lydia swiveled around, her muscle memory informing graceful movements in microgravity despite her lack of practice, and looked right at Sveta. “Artificial gravity? Seriously?!”

Sveta chuckled. “This ship is more advanced than anything humanity’s ever produced before. You’re in for quite a few surprises, Lydia. Welcome to our now home.”

The transition between microgravity and artificial gravity at the entrance to the locker room was gradual, starting with a slight downwards tug and building to full Earth-normal over the course of two meters. After nearly a decade spent on Mars, a sudden return to 1G took Lydia by surprise and she sagged, dropping to one knee; her prosthetic legs could bear her increased weight with no problem, but the rest of her body ached as her muscles strained against the increased load. Kometka rushed forwards and wedged herself under Lydia’s left arm, providing support.

“You alright?” she asked softly.

“I-I’m fine, just wasn’t prepared. Thanks…” Lydia said, panting as Kometka smiled at her gently. “Guess I need to spend some time in the gym, huh?”

“One moment,” rang out a businesslike voice. A moment later, the gravity in the room lightened to 38% of Earth-normal, and Lydia rose to her full height once more. A three-dimensional holographic projection flickered to life a few feet in front of her, depicting a woman with long ice-blue hair and eyes. She was dressed in a standard uniform, except fringed with blue highlights instead of red and bearing a rank insignia of Vice Admiral.

“Apologies, Senior Lieutenant Tereshkova. I’ve adjusted the gravity in the room to Mars-normal. I will make the same adjustments in whatever room you occupy, and slowly increase the gravity to Earth-normal until you are acclimated.”

Lydia saluted the woman. “Thank you, Laria, it’s much appreciated. You’re a Vice Admiral now, huh?”

Laria gave the barest of nods. “Indeed. After the implementation of the AI Personhood and Self-Determination Act four years ago, all AI serving on active duty were retroactively granted official Revolutionary Army ranks. No doubt you’ve noticed that Sveta bears the rank of Captain, and Kometka the rank of Senior Lieutenant.”

Lydia’s eyebrows raised, and she turned to Kometka. The red-eyed AI shrugged. “I didn’t think it was worth mentioning, considering the rank was mostly ceremonial at the time.”

“Ri-ight.” Lydia said, shame twinging at her gut. She’s been living in her own depressive world so completely that she’d even missed details about her romantic partner’s life. She clenched her teeth, resolving not to spiral, and turned back to Laria. “Vice Admiral Radiolaria, Senior Lieutenant Tereshkova is officially requesting permission to come aboard.”

Laria opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the hiss of a sliding door, followed by twin high-pitched yelps. She caught a brief glimpse of violet hair out of the corner of her eye, but before her head swiveled more than a quarter-turn, she was impacted by a double tackle-hug.

“Lydiaaaaaaa! Welcome back!” Sabina cried out in pure joy.

“We missed you!” Genevi added, nuzzling her cheek against Lydia’s chest like a cat marking territory.

Unsure of how to react at first, Lydia gave into the moment and snaked her arms around the shoulders of the two girls, subconsciously noticing their skin felt cold to the touch. “Hello, you two. Been keeping out of trouble?” she asked, fighting against the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

““Of course not!”” they responded in unison, earning a chuckle from Sveta and Miette both. Kometka stood off to the side, observing the scene with her usual unblinking gaze, like an entomologist studying the mating rituals of moths.

Laria cleared her throat loudly, a prim and proper hm-hem that was undercut by mild frustration. “I might remind you two that you are on duty.”

Sabina turned her head and stuck out her tongue. “Bite me, Vice Admiral.”

“W-With all due respect,” Genevi added.

Laria pinched the bridge of her nose and looked very much like she was about to develop a migraine, despite her inability to do so. “Alright, that’s enough sass out of you two. There will be plenty of time to catch up after Lydia reports to the Admiral. Hop to, rapscallions.”

Sabina and Genevi reluctantly untangled themselves from Lydia. “Fiiiiiiine,” Sabina said. “Join us for drinks later, Lydia?”

“…Can either one of you drink?” Lydia asked cautiously, remembering the coldness of their skin.

“Not in the same way as you, but yes,” Genevi answered. “Let us know when you get out, and we’ll show you our favorite bar.”

Lydia’s eyes widened. “This ship has bars? Multiple?”

“I’ll give you the grand tour later,” Laria said, inserting herself between the twins and Lydia. “For the moment, follow me. The Admiral is quite eager to meet you and Kometka. This way, please.”

Lydia saw the twins, Sveta and Miette off with a half-wave before scurrying after Laria, with Kometka not far behind. “I assume ‘Admiral’ refers to who I think it does?”

“Oh, yes, without a doubt,” Laria replied proudly, not even trying to hide her fondness for her commanding officer and romantic partner.

******

Admiral of the Fleet Ekatrina Savitskaya had initially resisted promotion, certain it would remove her from her beloved ship command and park her squarely behind a desk. Alas, as a four-times decorated Hero of the Soviet States whose risky tactics had proved humanity’s salvation, she hadn’t been given much choice. It’s often said those who eschew power are most deserving to hold it, and Admiral Savitskaya was an exemplar of that; now she could count the number of people in the whole Revolutionary Army who outranked her on one hand. All this had made her a shoe-in to command humanity’s first faster-than-light expedition beyond the solar system… with a little nudging from the KGB and Teles, of course.

As the door to her office whooshed open, Admiral Savitskaya (Katya to her friends) looked up from the swirl of floating holo-screens that surrounded her, dismissing them with a wave of her hand as Laria, Lydia and Kometka entered. She noticed the decrease in gravity, giving the barest of nods to Laria before focusing her attention on the conversation to come.

“Senior Lieutenant Tereshkova,” she said.

Lydia regarded her for a moment, her eyes drifting from her pressed uniform and perfect posture to her angular face, and noticed how she hadn’t seemed to age a day in the last seven years. “Reporting for duty, ma’am,” she said, saluting sharply.

Katya returned the salute, then smiled gently. “Good to see you again, Lydia and Kometka. Have you been well?”

“I’ve been surviving, I suppose.”

“Fair enough.” Katya stepped forward and extended her hand, which Lydia took and shook firmly. She looked right into Katya’s brilliant green eyes, stern and analytical, and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her.

“Admiral, if I may ask a question?” she asked cautiously.

“Go ahead,” Katya responded.

“…Is everyone on this ship a robot?”

Katya withdrew her hand and stroked her chin. “You’re very observant, Lydia.”

Lydia shrugged. “It’s not hard to figure out. Sabina and Genevi’s skin was cold to the touch, as is yours. And none of you have aged at all these last seven years. In fact, you look younger than before.”

Katya chuckled. “Well, it wouldn’t suit me very well to grow old and wrinkly while my eternally young AI lover remains frozen in time, would it?” She shot a glance over to Laria.

The ship’s central AI straightened her glasses. “I wouldn’t mind either way. But to answer your question, Lydia, of my present crew complement of 704,272 souls, approximately one-third are biological humans, one-third are hard uploads and one-third are soft uploads. That means two-thirds of the crew are AI of one form or another.”

Lydia whistled. “A full-blown technological singularity, then?”

Katya nodded. “Limited to the military for the moment, but yes. The upload technology will be released to the general public in six month’s time. Should you wish to undergo the process yourself, Lydia, the ship’s facilities are at your disposal.”

Lydia thought about that for a moment, feeling her gut twist in knots at the prospect. “I’ll… pass for now.”

“As you wish. Now, more to the point, I’m certain Sveta has already briefed you on our upcoming mission?”

“The summary, yes,” Lydia responded. “We’re going to save a race of intelligent crabs from annihilation by the Sarcophage, right?”

Katya sighed heavily. “I’ve re-iterated this point to Sveta many times, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t refer to them as ‘crabs.’ This is a first-contact situation, only the second time in humanity’s history we’ll be communicating with an alien intelligence, and comparing them to animals from Earth might cause offense… or not. Until we know for sure, we need to be as careful and diplomatic as possible.”

“Point well taken. What should we call them, then?”

“For the moment, intelligent arthropods. It’s not perfect, but it’s scientific enough to sound detached, clinical and somewhat neutral.”

Lydia and Kometka exchanged a glance as Katya kept talking. “We are expecting their solar system to be at a Stage 2 infestation, approximately the same level as when the Sarcophage first began their bombardment of Mars in 2024. Based on Moby’s projection of their tactical strength, we believe the Radiolaria Galactica’s firepower should be sufficient to purge the infestation with negligible casualties.”

At the mention of Moby, Lydia’s skin prickled. She felt Kometka’s hand wrap around her arm, providing support. “Moby’s still around?” she asked softly.

Katya paused for a few moments before responding. “Yes, she is. What’s more, she’s been exceptionally helpful to us; she’s freely shared her knowledge of Sarcophage bio-engineering and technology, which has enabled us to make leaps and bounds in our development of gravity manipulation and warp drive. Furthermore, she’s authored an exhaustive tactical codex on the Sarcophage that’s become standard reading for all Gravity Frame pilots and officers in the Army.”

“I… see…” Lydia said, feeling her temples knot up.

Katya’s voice lowered to a gentle murmur. “Given your history with her, I fully understand if you do not wish to interact. I can arrange to keep the two of you separate at all times.”

“That’s not…” Lydia said, balling her fists. “I appreciate it, but that’s not necessary. I… I’ve had a lot of time to think on Mars, Admiral, and come to terms with my trauma. I still… I will probably be uneasy around her, but I’m willing to swallow my pride and work with her. For the good of the mission.”

Katya took a step forwards, her unblinking eyes searching Lydia’s. “I’m afraid that’s not an acceptable answer, Senior Lieutenant. I refuse to have any of my crew forcing themselves into uncomfortable or potentially traumatic situations in service to some nebulous, impersonal ideal of patriotism. Humanity went through enough of that nonsense during the Sarcophage War. Your mental health is as much a priority as anything.”

“That’s very magnanimous of you,” Lydia replied flatly.

“As well as practical, I assure you. The mental health of my crew is just as important to the ultimate success of our mission as any other factor. On that subject, I’ve reviewed the memory engrams of Sveta and Miette’s conversation with you on Mars.”

Lydia cringed, remembering her outburst with a stab of shame. “That’s not…”

“I will refrain from commenting on the situation. However, as a condition of your reinstatement to active service under my command, I will be requiring to you attend therapy sessions with the ship’s counselor.”

“I don’t need therapy…” Lydia began, only to be interrupted by Kometka.

“Understood, Admiral. Lydia will happily attend those sessions.” Kometka used a low, firm tone that made it very clear to Lydia she was unwilling to brook any argument. “Isn’t that right, Lydia?”

“…Yes, that’s right.” Lydia hastily agreed, realizing arguing with Kometka would be futile, not to mention humiliating.

“Good, because it was an order and not a suggestion,” Katya replied briskly. “I trust you remember that when I give an order, I expect it to be followed?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lydia said, straightening her posture. She felt like an excess of military formality was appropriate in the moment.

“Very good. At the risk of sounding dismissive, trauma is somewhat endemic to humanity as a whole these days. Our counselor has proven highly adept at helping many of my crew find some measure of peace. I am including myself in that number, by the way.”

Lydia sighed. “I get it. We had this same conversation seven years ago and I remember it well. I’ll attend the therapy sessions.”

“Good,” Katya said with a curt nod. “Now, as of this moment, I am officially promoting you to Senior Captain, commanding officer of Maid Corps. All ten squadrons of Gravity Frames aboard will be under your command, along with the Gravity Swarm.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “What’s a Gravity Swarm?”

“Laria will forward all the pertinent information, manuals and briefings to your quarters’ holosystems. Please review them at your leisure. I’d also like you to familiarize yourself with the ship, and log at least 48 hours simulator time learning the new Gravity Frame models. As for command structure… I will be assigning Miette as your second in command, and promoting her to full Captain. Sveta will function as your third-in-command.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

Katya clasped her hands behind her back. “The ship must undergo six more days of provisioning before we make the warp jump to a point half a lightyear above Barnard’s Star’s ecliptic, after which we will rendezvous with the instance of Sveta we sent ahead to scout. Our timetable is short; I’m afraid the next week will be a bit of a crunch for you, Senior Captain.”

“Nothing I’m not used to, ma’am,” Lydia replied, trying to push more confidence into her voice than she actually felt.

“Glad to hear it. It’s good to have you back, Lydia.”

“It’s good to be back,” Lydia replied, and mostly meant it.

******

“UGH,” Lydia mumbled, her head mushed face-down against the flat tabletop next to a mostly empty glass of vodka. “I can’t believe she’s making me attend therapy sessions.” She let herself drown in the thumping techno music and dancing technicolor lights of the bar for a moment, happy for the distraction.

“Oh, come now. It’ll be good for you,” Kometka said, patting her gently on the back.

“You got that right!” Sveta enthused. “We’ve all had to go see Mister Snuggles at one point or another, and he’s been a godsend! He helped me work through my lingering issues with my first wife’s death. You know, pre-reincarnation.”

Lydia rolled her head to the side and looked square at Sveta. “Did you say… Mister Snuggles?”

Sveta nodded, grinning loosely. “Yup. Mister Snuggles. He’s a talking cat.”

“What.”

“He’s an AI,” Miette explained, “who just happens to take the form of a talking cat. A Persian, I think they were called? Anyway, he says petting a cat while in therapy helps relax his patients.”

Lydia sat up and looked at her nearly-empty glass. “I see you lot haven’t gotten any less weird in the time I’ve been away.” She turned to Sabina, who was drinking a holographic beer. “What is that, exactly?”

“Exactly?” Sabina said, setting the mug down. “Simulated beer that contains computer code which makes AIs drunk.”

Lydia gawped. “Fake food and drink for AIs?”

“Why not?” Sabina mused. “Most of us are ex-biological these days. Even if I don’t need to eat anymore, I’d miss it if I stopped entirely.”

“I suppose that makes sense…” Lydia admitted. She hadn’t even considered that an AI would enjoy the sensation of consuming food, even if it was ultimately simulated.

“Maybe for her,” Genevi said, rolling her eyes, “I don’t miss eating, personally.”

Sabina snorted. “That’s cuz you’re WAY more into this whole AI thing than me, Ms. Soft Upload.”

As the two sisters lovingly bickered, Lydia stared at a floating robotic drone as it drifted over and refilled her vodka from a small spigot on its underside. The drone gave a little half-bow and then floated away to another table, oblivious to Lydia’s eyes boring holes in its backside. “I’m just having a hard time getting used to all this, you know? AIs, uploads, warp drive, antigravity, space crabs, little flying vodka robots. It’s kinda overwhelming.”

Miette reached out to pat her reassuringly on the arm. “You’ll catch on. We’re here to help you through this, Lydia. We’re your friends, after all.”

“More than that,” Sveta added. “Remember what you said back when we faced down the giant naked lady version of Moby? You called us your family.”

Something about that particular phrasing set Lydia off, and before she realized it tears were pouring down her face and snot leaking from her nose as she took short, gasping breaths. In an instant, she suddenly found herself in the middle of a group hug with Kometka, Sveta, Miette, Genevi and Sabina all wrapping their arms around her tightly.

“I-I’m so sorry!” Lydia bawled. “I missed s-so much of your lives… weddings, reunions, promotions… I m-missed it all because I was st-stuck in my own head… uuu…”

“You’re alright,” Sveta said softly. “Shh, shh, you’re alright. Let it all out.”

“I’ll be b-better… I pr-promise… You deserve b-better from me...” Lydia gulped.

“You don’t need to be better, Lydia,” Miette said, patting her head. “Just be yourself.”

“You’ll always have a place with us. Always,” Sabina added, giving Lydia’s arm a tight squeeze.

“We love you, no matter what you’re going through,” Genevi said warmly. “And we’ll be here for you.”

It was there, in a neon-soaked bar buried deep in the bowels of an interstellar warship, that Lydia finally had a stark realization. She’d stood her lonely vigil over the ruins of Mars for seven years, thinking it was her home, the place she belonged. But now, wrapped in the arms of her closest friends… no, her found family, she realized that home wasn’t necessarily a place.

It was people.

People who made her feel warm and loved and safe.

And after all those years, all that pain, all that time stewing in a depressive spiral …

Lydia Tereshkova was finally home.