HMS Valediction

Chapter 5

The Heapists scraped together a small memorial for Martin. I linger in the open entrance as they light his solitary candle at the foot of the Lady. With the way her downcast eyes are painted on the sheet, it seems as though her focus is honed in on that candle — her single care is for the soul the tiny flame represents. The only person in attendance is Cassie. She stands in the bench-less room with her hand holding her bicep, her tears dripping down her chin and smacking the metal deck.

When the service ends, she exits alone.

"Miss Winters. I'm —"

She shoves past me, not stopping to listen to my pathetic apology. Brother Roy meanders around the room for a few minutes, fussing with the candle before allowing me to have the room to myself. I suffocate with the inescapable heat. There's only one candle, but it burns hotter than the fire that consumed the Sink. I drop to my knees and rest on my heels. When the chapel doors clink closed and I know I'm totally alone, I release everything I'd been holding back.

I cry.

This has been too much. Too much too fast. Seeing the kid, his shocked expression as he was cut down the middle, split in two, his entrails slithering out and dropping to the deck around the ridged claw of the Xani, was too much. I'm not used to slicing. I'm accustomed to burning. Exploding. Bullets. Falling. Smushing by concrete slabs.

Not slicing.

A violent sickness rises with each throat-clogging sob.

Martin was so young. Not a boy, but not one of the hardened adults of the URE. He was just a kid. I wonder if his mother will know what happened. If his father will light a candle on his ship as well. He was someone's child. Now he's dead.

When my shallow well of sadness dries, I wipe my face with my sleeve and stand. Brother Roy's blobby outline startles me as I perceive it through the shadows. He's been behind me all along, his own eyes as puffy and red as mine must be.

An insult rises as rancid as the bile I choke down.

Not today. We're all suffering here. Instead, I leave without another word.

If we considered McCroy the quiet type before, it's nothing compared to how he recedes after the event with the Xani. His presence is wispy thin, like words have never come from him—like silence is a natural state of his existence. McCroy's been living on mute. A few of the VIPERs and I sit in the mess hall, quietly contemplating the contents of our plastic bowls of soup, no one registering the rubbery taste of the protein cubes floating in the sand-colored liquid. Flatts slurps what's in her spoon, but not with her customary gusto. Coodi hasn't touched her bowl. Neither have I. There's an empty space between Umpire and Flatts where I didn't realize McCroy was a constant fixture at our dinner time routine. The emptiness screams louder than if his solemn face appeared to join us for our melancholy meal. I miss him.

Umpire, his unofficial guardian, says he hasn't left his rack in days—since the event.

"I'm worried about him, Boss. The kid's gone real quiet."

McCroy isn't the only one. I noticed it this morning while standing in the thick of the Marketplace with the civilians, their dagger glares scraping across my skin. News of Martin's death spread faster than noxious gas. With all the different labels I've worn in the past — traitor, Reaper, killer, barren — over my head, I've become accustomed to this treatment. What bothers me most is that my VIPERs are feeling the animosity as much as I am.

I nod and continue staring into my soup.

"They're shocked, acting like they just discovered I'm their enemy," Coodi says into her next bite, her spoon mid-air. "Like they're surprised my disguise lasted this long."