Out There

INTREPID Few? I’ve heard of them. Old has-been officers, dreaming of their glory days.

Some of them are more. They’ve sponsored a project. Classified, high tech. Nav system like no one’s seen before. They want you for it, Veya.

The shard spins. Mistakes. Wrong turns. Errors. She spent her life striving for perfection. Now to end it, seeing every way she’d failed.

But this is Hell, after all.

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There are risks. Others play it safe.

Others stay home. That’s not for me.

Glad to hear it.

Home. She still fights. Still tugs the eye off its goal. Slightly. Slightly. There are ships ahead and Hell is hungry.

There are ships and one could be his. There are worlds ahead and one will be.

She mustn’t stop fighting. Won’t stop.

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Momma, can’t you stay a little longer? Till the hayberries are ripe. Stay till then, and we’ll pick them and—

Hush. You know I can’t. My ship needs me.

I need you.

Veya watches what might have been an arm or intestine drift past, broken free from its filament. More and more such lonesome bits pass in and out of sight; Hell’s damage or Hell’s waste. If only she could gather them, build with them, regain a shape. Fight with it. Die with it.

Her eye has found another ship.

And Hell is hungry.

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