She was built to clean. To serve. To fade quietly into the background.
But the stars have other plans for her.
*****
In the Gaian Empire, there are twelve kinds of clones. Hirayas are the lowest - built to clean, to obey, to fade into the backgroun...
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As Dylan Astarel questions him, Pol keeps his answers short, sharp, and clean. Just enough to satisfy, nothing extra. But every now and then, his eyes flick to me, a faint trace of the chase from earlier still sparking there, like he's not quite ready to let it go.
I force my expression into something blank, careful not to give Dylan any reason to turn his attention on me. Instead, I focus on Pol, on the familiar shape of him, something steady in the middle of all this.
His eyes are dark, almost black, his face narrow, his frame lean to the point of looking fragile. But it's just that—appearance. He's quick, always moving, always brimming with energy, and even now, I can see the tension in him, like he's seconds away from laughing despite everything.
There's something about him that feels... safe. Like a brother I didn't know I needed.
A sharp clap cuts through the air, snapping me out of it.
"Finally back from orbit?" Dylan Astarel mutters, dragging a chair up beside me, his voice low and cool as he sits.
ChatGPT said:
He flips open a small notebook—yes, an actual notebook—and starts writing without so much as a glance at us.
Pol and I both freeze, then trade a wide-eyed look. Paper. Real paper. It feels like watching someone pull out a relic from another world.
Paper isn't just outdated now—it's rare. The Ten Earths stopped producing it centuries ago, after the last forests were locked behind climate shields and declared untouchable. Trees became sacred, forbidden to touch, let alone cut. Only a handful of sanctioned guilds were ever allowed to make paper after that, and even then, it was rationed, tracked, treated more like art than material.
And here Dylan sits, filling a page like it's nothing. How much could that cost?
"So, you're the ship's Hiraya, right? Wanna tell me where you were last night between 1 and 2 a.m.?" the marshal presses, his tone nonchalant.
"I was in my bedroom, officer," I answer softly, my gaze dropping to the floor.
I wait for him to say something else, but. . . nothing comes.
So I risk a glance at him. . . and finds him to be absolutely good-looking.
At well over six feet, Dylan Astarel easily rivals Jon Gavelan in height, though where Jon feels like a thunderstorm contained in a man, Dylan is all ice and edges. His skin is pale, not pale as mine, but enough to catch the sterile light. His nose is sharp and straight, his eyes a beautiful denim blue. And that hair, gold and perfectly straight, falling just past his shoulders.
Pol never shuts up about how Jon and Dylan have been inseparable since their boarding school days, like brothers who just happened to be born to different moms. And if that's not enough, Dylan's been by Jon's side on every single voyage. Every. Single. One.
