Momma’s message instructed me to meet my family at the Blackbird, a bar and inn that the first person I ask is eager to direct me to. I stop along the way to eat, treating myself to an expensive restaurant that claims to serve “exotic Nibiran delicacies.” What they call “fish pastries” is a very poor attempt at reconstructing the Nibiran street food, with dry bread, a bare hint of curry flavoring, and only fish-flavored protein cubes inside, but it’s still leagues better than army rations.

By the time I reach the Blackbird, though, my stomach is queasy from food so much richer than it’s used to. The sight of more recruitment posters sickens me further. When I spot the HALF-OFF DRINKS FOR SOLDIERS sign in the window, I pull down my sleeve to hide my brand, the thought of the special treatment discomfiting.

Whether it’s my scarred face or my gait or something else entirely, the bartender still marks me as a veteran right away. He proudly displays the brand on his own brown skin as he insists on giving me my first beer free despite my protests that I’m no longer on active duty, and marks down the price for the room I rent, too. Once the key is in my hand—a physical key, so strange and outdated, since hardly anyone on Titan carries a comm—I find myself grateful for the excuse of the beer to keep me at the bar a bit longer. I may be alone now, but the distant-but-constant presences of people around me have provided a distraction. Once I go into that room and shut the door, it will just be me and my thoughts until my family arrives tomorrow.

I savor the taste of the beer, dark but sweet, and the quiet buzz of activity in the rest of the bar. It’s barely the afternoon, but there’s a group of uniformed soldiers sitting in one corner enjoying a leave of absence, and what looks to be a jubilant family gathering in the middle of the room.

“Their daughter’s off to Fort Sketa for basic tomorrow,” the bartender says, jerking his chin at the smiling blond girl in the midst of the festivities. “Maybe you could give her some advice?”

She doesn’t look like she wants advice. She looks like she’s never been so excited about anything in her young life. And why shouldn’t she be excited, with the tales this city has surely fed her about the war?

“It’s better to go knowing nothing,” I say, and finish my beer as quickly as I can before retreating to my room in the upper stories.