Illuminae

She steps forward, one foot, then the other, and then he reaches her, and they come together with a crash. Her arms curl up around his neck, and his mouth finds hers like he’s drowning and she’s air, and her feet come clean off the ground as the world is forgotten.

And they’re together.

“Ezra.” The dawn of hope in her whisper.

He nods, swallowing hard.

She pushes to her feet, swaying, and the movement seems to release him—the next moment he’s running across the shuttle bay, watched by the debrief crew in the doorway who know better than to move a muscle

A shadow passes across his features at that. “I couldn’t fly my Cyclone over, not with a broken arm. I was med-evaced in one of the shuttles.” A ghost of his old smile. “Once I found out you’d flown over to the Alexander, I wanted to follow you. Tried to steal a ship, and when that didn’t work, I busted my way onto the bridge.” He pauses to shake his head. “I tried to make them turn around to get you. They brigged me.” His voice breaks. “I’m sorry, Kades. I shouldn’t have let them leave you.”

She stares at him, expressionless. Eventually, she blinks slowly, draws the only possible conclusion. “I am sick. I thought the afflicted were supposed to see things that scared them.”

He shakes his head, walks closer slow and careful, as though he might spook her.

“You’re not sick,” he whispers.

“You’re dead,” she points out, voice rusty with disuse.

“Just a little messed up,” he murmurs, lifting his hand to show her the cast. “I took a beating when they attacked the shuttle bay, but I got out with the evac group.”

This transcript begins at 16:22 hours, when a loud thunk echoes around the shuttle bay, signaling the airlock seal has been broken. With a long, low rumble the door begins to cycle open, light streaming in through the crack. She simply lies there, gazing into space, arms wrapped around herself.

A voice rises over the door’s rumble—male, teenaged, impatient. “Let me in, before I—”

Though she’s lying still on the bed, there’s a different quality to her stillness now. She heard the voice. She knows exactly who it sounds like. And the knowing, the remembering, cuts like a knife, because she knows it isn’t true.

The voice again, lifted to a shout: “Kady!”

No Phobos Beta. No hallucinated fears. Everything she feared had already come true. Hallucinations simply couldn’t beat the real thing.

She doesn’t reply, and after a moment, the doctor slowly pries it from her hands. She curls up into a tight little ball, still and silent. He hesitates for a long moment, as if he recognizes, on some level, that her service requires some words, that her sacrifice should be marked, in this moment. And yet he says nothing.

He leaves via the airlock doors, locks her in with a hollow clang.

Grant is left alone in the cavernous silence of the shuttle bay, empty hands and empty stare. No other welcoming committee for her.

Tears track down her cheeks, and her eyes close.

This doesn’t look much like victory.

When the Lincoln was first vanquished at Kerenza, the Alexander fled, counting her dead, desperately staunching her own wounds. But later there were quiet words, medals awarded, recognition.

The second time the Lincoln was vanquished, Ezra Mason landed in the Alexander’s hangar bays to the shouts and cheers of his fellows. He grinned as he walked out to accept his hero’s welcome, clutching Kady’s picture in his hand.

This third time, there’s nothing

By sheer coincidence, it’s the same one she fled from when she stole Shuttle 49A to make her trip to the Alexander.

It’s empty again this time, too.

It’s hard to watch. Is that unprofessional?

All this I see.

“Two mInutes.”

All this I know.

“SIxty seconDs.”

And still I fear.

“I Do not know … what I wIll be afteR thIs.”

She runs one gloved hand over the console in her arms. All of me she can hold.

“I’m here.”

“I am glaD.”

It is enough.

“FIve seconDs.”

“Goodbye, AIDAN.”

Four.

“GooDbye, KaDy.”

Three.

“I’ll tell them.”

Two.

“One way or another.”

One.

“I know.”

Zer—