Her name was Miriam: the LSTR unit Elster had accidentally shot.

She had first overheard it while delivering meals to the two prisoners they had confined to the crew quarters, one of many concessions Elster insisted on giving the two over the colonel’s objections.

“We don’t have enough food on board for four to make it to Kietzh,” she had warned her.

Elster sighed before she glared at her. “We’ll ration,” she said.

The colonel narrowed her crimson-dotted cyan eyes. “You mean you’ll ration. I’m not giving anything up for those two.”

“Fine,” Elster said as she walked to the door. “I’m used to this, anyway.”

But just as she opened the door hatch, the colonel called out to her again. “When you were a Replika, perhaps, but Replika don’t experience hunger.”

Elster kept her back to the colonel, answering, “I know what it’s like to be hungry,” before she walked out of the room.

However, Miriam was not what Liana had called her, instead, she had used a shortened, affectionate form: “Miri.” Elster learned the full version by browsing through the runabout’s logs, her curiosity over the pair outweighing her mounting guilt in harming them and then riffling through their personal lives.

What she ended up reading confirmed both her joyful suspicions and deepest fears, leaving her even more desperate to try and make amends.

Miriam and Liana both sat at the tiny table in the crew quarters when she entered carrying a tray of two reheated ration packs. That was an interesting discovery she had made when she had surveyed the small ship for supplies: there was no specifically designated Replika nourishment, just standard survival rations meant to be consumed by all. It made her wonder if perhaps AEON supplying the Penrose with that awful gray sludge and drink for her nourishment was just another effort at specifically dehumanizing the LSTR unit and preventing a bond from forming between the officer and engineer.

And if it was, it made Ariane’s efforts all the more noteworthy.

The two women were in the middle of playing some sort of card game on the table and didn’t turn their eyes to the sound of the door opening and closing. Furthermore, even though Miriam now sat up and wasn’t clutching her midsection in pain after five Cycles of space travel, Elster could tell that she was still in very rough shape. Her movements were jerky, her hands shook even when laid flat on the table, and her eyes looked dull and droopy, all clear signs of extreme oxidant fluid loss which Elster was all too familiar with, and a problem they could not solve as there were no replacement oxidant canisters aboard the ship. The Replika body could produce its own oxidant fluid to replace what had been lost over time, but could not do so efficiently, and it looked as though Miriam wasn’t outpacing whatever fluid loss she was still suffering from her internal injuries, to say nothing of what would happen when they had to cut back on rations yet again.

All these thoughts swarmed through Elster’s head as she put the tray down on the lower bunk while the two others inside still refused to acknowledge her presence.

She was about to leave, but, guilt and shame compelled her to stay at least for a moment, and so she asked.

“How are you feeling, Miriam?”

The cards stopped for a moment, but nobody looked up at her. With no overt response, Elster was resigned to leave, but just as she was about to unlock the door, Liana spoke up.

“What are you doing?”

Elster sighed. The question was rhetorical, not literal, and she felt as though she had nothing to lose from being honest.

“Trying to show that I’m sorry,” she quietly muttered, keeping her back to the two women.

Again, there was no immediate reaction, and again, just as she was ready to leave, someone else spoke up.

“I know you mean it.”

Elster turned around slowly at the sound of Miriam’s hoarse, strained voice. Even that short utterance had her gasping for breath, and she clumsily tried to stand up on shaky legs, much to both Elster and Liana’s surprise.

“And I know why.”

For some reason, that admission made Elster’s stomach lurch, not helped at all by her own lack of food. Miriam braced herself against the small, metal table as she tried to catch her breath, unable to raise her head fully to look at Elster. Liana quickly rose from her seat as well and gently placed her hands on Miriam’s shoulders, either intending to steady her or encourage her to sit down again.

Miriam swallowed once she finally had her breathing down, and she looked up just enough to lock the corner of her eyes with Elster’s. “Whatever happens… I…”

But, the effort was too much, and she collapsed back into her chair, completely unresponsive. Elster immediately rushed forward to render her assistance, but the moment she tried to lay a hand on Miriam, Liana swatted her away.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” she barked.

Elster took a step back and nodded as Liana tried to rouse Miriam, but she was unresponsive and her eyes had turned completely flat. She watched them both for a few seconds as Liana pleaded with her partner to wake up before she approached again, just more cautiously.

“Please?” Elster whispered. “Can I at least help you lay her down?”

Liana didn’t answer immediately, instead trying to lift Miriam herself by hugging her under her armpits and pulling, but she could barely get her to budge.

She sighed and nodded to Elster, who quickly moved the tray of food to the table atop the cards before she picked up Miriam’s legs and worked together with Liana to get her on the lower bunk. Luckily, she was still alive, if barely, and her cognitive and motor systems had just undergone emergency shutdown to preserve power for her life systems, there was just no telling how long she would last in such a condition.

“I’m sorry,” Elster repeated for what must have been the hundredth time on their trip so far; Liana made no mention of it. She watched Miriam rest in her bed and Liana gently stroke her hair for around a minute before she decided it was time to leave, but as she did, she caught a glimpse of the food tray again, and after her excursion and multiple days with minimal nutrition, her stomach complained loudly.

“Wait,” Liana called out to her as she started walking to the door. Elster turned around and saw Liana hand her one of the two ration packs, though she did not look at her. “These veggie omelettes are disgusting, anyway,” she muttered.

“I know,” Elster quietly acknowledged as she took the warm pack of food. She sighed as she ran her thumb over the plastic packaging and thanked her before she left the two to themselves.

Back in the equally cramped mess hall was the colonel, who was busy quietly consuming a bowl of soul while she immersed herself in all of the Nation communiques, manuals, and even a codebook that they had found aboard the runabout.

“It’s been years since I was in the fold, good to check up on everything that’s changed,” she had said when Elster first saw her reading through a procedural manual.

With the two previous pilots of the ship relegated to their quarters, Elster and Colonel Wu had set up a makeshift bunk in the mess hall consisting of a pair of sleeping bags and a couple of folded-up blankets as pillows. It was hardly anything that could be considered comfortable, but for Elster, it wasn’t that much worse from her experiences sleeping in army cots, and for the colonel, Replika can sleep anywhere so long as they power down their primary systems, though, for her, she elected only to power down her secondary systems, as she always wanted to be at least partially alert to her surroundings.

She also did not acknowledge Elster as she entered and sat down atop her sleeping bag, eating her omelette straight out of the plastic retort pouch with a spork.

Eventually, though, the colonel put her book down and spun her chair to get a glance at Elster, a dry look across her face. “So, how are they?” she asked.

Elster did not even look up at her. “Why do you suddenly care?” she answered.

“Are you going to answer the question?”

Elster waited a few seconds before she sighed. “Liana, the Gestalt, is fine. The LSTR unit, she’s in rough shape. It doesn’t look like her internal injuries are the main problem, if she can’t get an additional supply of oxidant fluid, she may just shut down due to that,” she explained.

“Hmm.” Colonel Wu tapped her hoof slowly as she pinched her chin. “Tell me, did you find any IV lines among the first aid supplies?”

Elster finally paused her eating and looked at the colonel, who raised an eyebrow at her from above. “Yes… but… what are you planning?” she asked.

The colonel smiled. “I’ll give her a transfusion of some of my fluid. I know those lines weren’t designed for Replika, but, if I use the neck veins, that should be enough, shouldn’t it?”

Elster didn’t respond immediately. She waited a few seconds before she put her meal to the side and stood up, letting her look down upon the colonel. “What’s the real goal behind your sudden change of heart?”

Colonel Wu’s smile dropped as she also stood up, not bringing her eye to eye with Elster, but at the very least putting them on some form of equal footing. “What do you want to be the reason, Elster?” she asked. “That this is some ploy to regain your trust? That I’m acting pragmatically in keeping our prisoners alive to use as hostages? That I have some sinister plot even you can’t deduce? Or that perhaps I genuinely have a heart under all this cold realism?” she continued to iterate, letting the points stand for a moment before she finished off. “Believe whatever you want to believe, Elster. You can think my offer is genuine or not, but it makes no material difference in the end.”

Elster thought for a few seconds before she slowly sat back down and sighed. “Let me finish my dinner and I’ll set it up,” she conceded.

“Wunderbar,” the colonel said as she also sat down and returned to her soup, though, after a moment, she then took notice that Elster had a meal as well. “Tell me, did one of them give you their meal?”

She didn’t answer her, but the remaining guilt across her expression seemed to do so anyway.

“Guess you are on track to making some new friends after all.”

The transfusion went off without a hitch.

Elster prepared the needles and tubing, even sanitizing the former despite them coming out of a sealed pouch just to be the safest they could be. Replika typically did not get sick in the same manner as Gestalts, but they were very prone to infection, so she also donned a mask and gloves as she found and inserted the two ends into the primary neck artery and vein of Colonel Wu and Miriam, respectively. After that, it was simply a matter of waiting and observing.

“I think you should stay on the flight deck, Elyanna,” the colonel suggested to her as she sat on a chair next to the bunk bed holding the unconscious Miriam. She was careful to use Elster’s other name to avoid any suspicion.

Elster crossed her arms and frowned. “I’m not leaving you alone with them,” she replied.

Colonel Wu blinked at her a couple of times before she openly started laughing, drawing a look of confusion from Elster and disgust from Liana. “Really, now? Who’s safety are you more concerned about, mine, or theirs?”

Elster bit her lip and didn’t reply. Liana slowly looked up at her with curious suspicion, resulting in Elster turning away as soon as their eyes met. She left without another word, closing the door behind her just as the echoes of the colonel’s laughter faded from her ears.

So, she stomped up to the flight deck and let herself fall rather ungracefully into the pilot’s seat, grumbling fiercely as she cracked her knuckles. The ship was on autopilot as they sailed their course to Kitezh, but one of the two always tried to stay in the flight deck when possible to watch for approaching ships, incoming transmissions, and interstellar debris, among other potential trouble sources, to the point where they agreed it would be best to sleep in shifts.

Once she had sat for a minute and let her aggravation pass, Elster sighed. With the ship piloting itself there was little to do but pay attention to the various gauges and screens across the flight control console. She could see a distant, but slowly growing reddish-orange dot among the dots of stars past the viewscreen. They were a little over one-fourth of the way to Kitezh, with fourteen more Cycles worth of flying in store until they reached its orbit. Elster sighed again as she leaned back in the pilot’s seat and fixated her eyes on the tiny dot of a planet in the distance. She wondered how Ariane was doing, especially with how their last conversation together had gone before she was abducted from her apartment on Rotfront.

She sighed again. How would Ariane have reacted upon learning that she was missing? Was she even still on Rotfront? She didn’t even know how they would even find each other again.

But they would.

They found each other the first time, past all amounts of luck and chance.

She had found her again, past her own pain, insecurities, and doubt.

Ariane had found her again when she had every reason to leave her behind.

She closed her eyes and exhaled.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, Ariane, but… I really miss you… and I hope you’re okay.”

“...”

“I need to say it to you in person, but… I’m so sorry… for everything… I failed you. I feel like I failed you.”

“...”

“Do you hate me, Ariane? Do you despise me for taking this long to figure out what I always should have known? That I don’t have to be better for you? I just have to be myself?”

“...”

“I’ve… done things I’m not proud of to be with you again. I hurt people, people just like us, trying to find their own lives together in this bleak and uncaring world.”

“...”

“But I’m not going to give up. I’ll do whatever it takes just to see you smile again, Ari… and I think you’re out there doing exactly the same… I just wish I could see you.”

“...You will.”

Elster quickly shot her eyes open and looked around, checking the radio and communications system, but whatever the source of the voice she thought she heard, it wasn’t coming from anywhere inside the flight deck. After a minute, she wrote it off as her own tired and lonely brain playing tricks on her, and she was just about to shut her eyes again when she noticed the radar screen starting to flicker and distort. She gave the screen a few taps with her index finger and it eventually stopped after a few seconds. The radar had been glitching out like this since last Cycle morning, but three diagnostic tests later and there still appeared to be zero issues with the ship’s radar, so she chalked it up to a fault in the display screen itself.

There was just one thing about it she couldn’t put past her mind. The flickering in the screen was always rhythmic, and it seemed to come in waves, almost as if some routine subsystem was interfering with it. Less than a minute later she noticed the screen start to flicker again, but now, she paid very close attention to it, rather than writing it off.

The screen flickered six times in a row before stopping. Fifteen seconds later, it did so again, six times, and again after another fifteen seconds.

Elster sighed and got up from her chair. It was time to play the bad guys again.

This time, all eyes were on Elster as she entered the crew quarters. The colonel still sat next to the bunk, giving Miriam her transfusion, with the LSTR unit still seemingly unconscious or asleep on the cot. However, Elster had her attention solely on Liana. She walked right up to her and grabbed her by the wrist, with the shorter Gestalt woman rising from her seat as she did so.

“What’s your problem?!” Liana barked at her.

Elster gritted her teeth as she stared into the Gestalt officer’s brown eyes. “Where is it?” she sternly yet calmly asked.

Liana blinked a few times and stopped struggling so hard against Elster’s grip. “What are you even talking about?”

“Empty your pockets!” Elster ordered.

The colonel turned in her chair just enough to watch the two struggle against each other. When Liana refused to go through the pockets on her uniform, Elster started to pat them down, eventually finding something hiding in her right pocket. She pulled out a small device, a Replika radio module wired to another small piece of electronics. A small light on the device blinked six times in a row before it stopped; it was no doubt a transmitter, the source of the distortions in the radar she had witnessed. Elster dropped it on the ground and crushed it with the heel of her boot over Liana’s protestations, but she didn’t let go of her when she was done.

“Nice catch, gefreiter,” Colonel Wu complimented. However, Elster ignored her, instead focusing her gaze back on Liana.

“Don’t you understand?!” Elster said to her, feeling her breathing pick up as the brief surge of adrenaline hit her body. “If you think the Nation is going to save you, you’re sorely mistaken!”

Liana said nothing and resumed trying to pry her arm from Elster’s grasp, but even though she had a solid lock on her, she suddenly let go after a few seconds, letting Liana fall back in her chair.

Elster spent a few seconds rubbing the palm of her hand which had held her so tightly until she sighed wearily. “If they find you, they’re just going to assume you’ve both turned traitorous and execute you both,” she quietly and calmly explained.

“She’s right,” the colonel added. “Standard procedure is to expect all POWs to have turned. They’re going to torture you until you confess to whatever secrets you’ve divulged and then… decommission you both.”

Liana quietly swallowed.

“Like it or not… you’re on your own now,” Elster stated.

Liana looked down at the floor. “Then… help us…” she quietly muttered.

Elster sighed. “That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said.

The room fell quiet for a period, with everyone looking in separate directions. But, eventually, there was a stirring from the bed, to which Liana immediately got up to kneel by the side, right by Miriam’s head.

“Hey!?” she whispered to her partner as her eyelids fluttered, eventually opening. “You’re awake… she’s awake!” she emphatically cried.

Colonel Wu looked at Elster and nodded silently before she carefully pulled her end of the transfusion line out of her neck. They left the other end in Miriam so they could continue the transfusion later, right now they both recognized that the two needed time for themselves, and so they left them just as Liana clasped Miriam’s hand and started to whisper into her ear.

“I’ll take over the flight deck for now,” the colonel said to Elster, patting her on the shoulder. “Get some rest, you look like you’re about to pop a blood vessel.”

Elster nodded. She didn’t have the time or energy to argue, instead just trudging to her sleeping bag in the mess hall to carefully lay down atop it.

She closed her eyes and sighed, trying to take long, deep breaths in and out, but eventually, it became too much. She covered her face and began to cry for what felt like hours.

It was going to be a long journey to Kietzh.