“The proud leader in Muungano you will be.” Robin slung her Busta over her shoulder and walked away. “You survived. That was service enough for today.”

When Epyc Ro came across the body, she knew it was her kill. Even in the heat of the moment, she remembered this figure coming into her sights and her squeezing the trigger. The body was positioned exactly as she imagined they would have fallen. Their arm draped over them, still clutching their rifle. Half their face sheared through by her pulse blast. No neat hole, more like a small fist cored its way through an eye socket and out the back of the skull. The inside of the helmet caked with scorched blood. She never became hardened to the loss of life. The arbitrariness of violence, the way war inflicted its brutality on bodies. Each death representing the snuffing of dreams, hope, and potential. Every casualty had a human face and a human cost.

Only this time it was a friend.

The Interstellar Alliance left Fela’s body in a ditch for the Hellfighters to find. The setting sun pooled deep pockets of shadows in Fela’s face. The scene had been staged for their benefit, as a message. A warning. The way Confederate monuments were once erected to declare the future they hoped for and worked toward. Epyc Ro couldn’t bring herself to look at her commander in the face. Each of the HOVA had seen combat and knew its cost. Had cradled the dead of innocents. Friends. Enemies. The rest of the team studied her, took their cues from her in something akin to blank empathy, both allowing her a heartbeat to process the moment and offer their silent presence as support. Their calluses hadn’t shielded them to complete indifference, only provided the armor to protect their remaining humanity. This was always the true test.

Once the shock and disbelief wore off, grief gave way to rage.

“Damn.” Taking off her helmet, Robin dropped to her knees next to the commander’s still form. “Damn, damn, damn.”

“They just left her out here. In the open. Like she was trash not worth sweeping up.” Anitra stood apart from the rest of them, never comforted by the power of presence, but always ready to comfort. But her internal engine revved, steadily hyping herself up, ready to storm the gates of the refinery herself. Slowly, she moved behind Robin, a gray curtain cordoning off her grief display. “Someone’s gonna die. Bad.”

“Bad as fuck,” Epyc Ro cosigned in a whisper. The well of their grief drew her back into their circle. Huddled in shared condolence, allowing themselves the moment to fully absorb and feel their loss, since the realities of combat rarely granted such moments.