43I LET OUT A YELP as the bandages are ripped off my back in one fell swoop. The nurse attending me clucks sympathetically as she throws the old dressings—along with half the hair off my back—into the recycler.

“You did say ‘fast,’” she points out with irritating condescension.

I grunt, not deigning to dignify that completely true assertion with a response. She merely laughs and begins dissolving the suture ointment off my back.

It’s been over a week since my interview with the Admiral, and judging by the fact that I haven’t been locked in a hole or brain-drained by PsyCorp, I can only assume I passed the interview. In the intervening time, I’ve had a few more sessions with Mittag, but they’re less detailed, less intense, more like he’s going through the motions than really grilling me for information. He even mentioned something about possibly having me reassigned, which I take for a good sign. Whatever conclusion the top brass has come to, apparently I’m not being held responsible.

The nurse continues her task, patiently spreading the cool solvent over each scar, then dabbing the suture away as it dissolves. Despite the persisting sting, her touch is soothing, the matter-of-fact ministrations a strange sort of comfort after the past few weeks. Against my will, my eyes start to prickle, even this indifferent comfort enough to make the inner pain flare up all over again.

I carried the shards of Sky Station Epsilon-065 around in my back for nineteen days after The Fall, unable to pull them out myself or obtain proper medical assistance during my flight from Prism. Once I arrived here, it took over three hours for the doctors to pull every last piece of shrapnel from my legs, back, and buttocks. I refused any anesthetic, passed out from the pain after the first half hour, and spent the final two and a half hours in blissful unconsciousness, only waking as they were rubbing in the suture oil that would slowly stitch up my wounds from the inside out. Or at least that’s what they told me. Despite their promise, everything inside me still bleeds, and I don’t think any amount of suture cream in the universe could ever staunch the flow.

Some burdens you never put down. You just find an easier way to carry them.

Chen’s words echo in my head, a gift I don’t deserve, though I keep it anyway. Her face flashes into my mind, and I wonder what will happen to her. Will the squatters down on Prism take care of her, tending to her empty body along with the rest of our people? Or will they simply leave them all to rot beneath the pastel mists and golden suns? I’ll probably never know.

“All done,” the nurse says with a final swipe. “Unfortunately, there is a bit of ointment left in your upper back where the suture cream fused with some of the deeper cuts. If we’d been able to get to them sooner, we might have prevented it—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupt. “Can I have my clothes back?”

As she goes to get them, I walk to the full-length mirror at the other end of the exam room. Turning my back to it, I awkwardly glance over my shoulder. The silvery ointment has fused into a feathered pattern over the mocha skin of my shoulder blades and upper back.

“My goodness! I didn’t see it before, but that scar pattern almost looks like wings.”

I flinch as if struck, grabbing my clothes from her hands and quickly pulling on my shirt. My gear is on and I’m heading for the door in under a minute. As I reach the exit, I pause for the barest moment.

“Only ghouls can fly.”

Any response she might have made is swallowed up in the whoosh of the door behind me.

Back in the room I’ve been assigned to while on base, I activate my chit, hand practically shaking with anxiety as I cue up the link. In my weeks aboard Angelou’s ship, I was never able to clear up the communications issue, whatever it might have been, and once I arrived here I was immediately put under a com blackout for security purposes. No links in, no links out. It was only as of this morning that the blackout was finally lifted. I can finally link my family to let them know I’m okay.

I can finally link Teal.

My foot twitches in my boot as I uplink to the interstellar array on base and wait for them to put the call through. While I’m forbidden to speak of classified matters—basically anything that’s happened since I arrived on R&D—I’ll take anything I can get, even if it’s just a chance to hear her voice again. To tell her I’m sorry. That as angry as I was, as betrayed as I felt all those months, I still missed her.

That as much as I hated her, I never stopped loving her.

My chit beeps, three high-pitched pulses, and I frown as I read the message spooling over my hand.

*Error: Unable to Establish a Connection*

What the hell? It’s the exact same message I received when trying to link her from Angelou’s ship.

My heart lurches, fueled by an uneasiness some four weeks in the making. Could there be some sort of security field around the base, keeping anyone without special authorization from linking out? As an experiment, I try linking Gran. Over the past several weeks, she’s left me half a dozen messages to call her, but between my issues with the ship’s communications and my com blackout here I haven’t had a chance to contact her. I uplink with the station’s interstellar com system, then listen as the line rings, only now thinking to check the time. It’s the middle of the night on New Sol. Damn! My timing’s off, as usual. Still, at least I get a holo recording rather than an error message. I watch the recorded message hovering above my hand, and my anxiety turns to full-blown dread.

For a moment, I can’t figure out what to do. Then with a shake of my head, I pull up the base directory and start hunting for Mittag’s link number. Enough is enough. I’ve spent twelve days answering his endless questions again and again. The least he can do is help me make one link.

I try calling him first, then when he doesn’t answer, search for his chit signature on the base map. He’s in the Command Section, an area I’m definitely not cleared to enter. So I go to the next best place: the corridor leading to his quarters. He has to sleep sometime, right?

Five hours later, his lean form rounds the corner. He frowns when he catches sight of me, clearly not crazy about seeing me unless it’s on the other end of an interrogation table. When I ask him about the com system, he shakes his head.

“I cleared you for interstellar communication myself,” Mittag says. “If you can’t get through, it would have to be some sort of technical issue on the receiving end. Most likely a temporary phenomenon, like solar flares or atmospheric interference. I’m sure it will be cleared up in due time if you keep trying periodically.”

His words make perfect sense, but when I think of all those times I tried to link Teal from space, somehow the explanation doesn’t add up.

“Please, sir,” I beg as he starts to push past me. “I tried for days to make a connection before I even arrived here. I just—” My voice catches, and I cough once to clear it. “I just want to make one call.”

The colonel sighs, but he finally relents. “All right, I’ll see what I can find out.” Activating his chit, he asks, “Name, planet, and link number?”

“Teal Sorenson, link number 098-A34-013-K112. Planet: Iolanthe.”

The Colonel starts keying in the information, stopping when I say the planet name. “Iolanthe. You’re sure she’s there? Not home for a visit or on summer break?”

“Yes, sir. My parents both serve in the fleet, and my grandmother would have sent me an hmail if she’d gone home. Is there a problem?”

Mittag slowly de-acs his chit. A chill runs through me as I take in the look on his face. It’s the look officers wear in one situation, and one situation alone: When they go to inform a family that their kin in the service has fallen. I shake my head, not wanting to hear, but he speaks anyway.

“I’m sorry, Team Leader. Iolanthe was hit by a mass ghoul invasion almost four weeks ago. By the time the fleet arrived, it was already too late. Iolanthe is under full planetary quarantine. There were no successful evacuees.”

He briefly puts a hand on my shoulder, turns, and walks away. I stand stock still in the corridor, unable to do anything but listen as his words reverberate in my head.

Mass ghoul invasion.

Full planetary quarantine.

No successful evacuees.

I shake my head, unwilling to believe what I’ve just heard, but Mittag’s cold tone left no room for doubt. And though he never came out and said it, still his meaning tolls as clearly as the wind whistling across the crystalline walls of R&D.

My sister is gone.

Something inside me ruptures, every loss, every pain, every trauma splintering through me in a rush of agony, and just like that, my final hope shatters, littered in shards at my feet as surely as R&D lies shattered across Prism while the bodies of those I love die a slow death inside.