At least there’s someone on this big blue Earth who doesn’t seem to care how much I fuck up, someone who’s spreading her own comforter over my crumpled, beaten body. I didn’t notice her sneak back into the room. I guess I was too busy wallowing. Swift pries at the straps around my arm until the Otachi comes loose, and a moment later, I hear a clunk as she sets it on the floor.

“Thanks,” I mumble, my eyelids sealed shut.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. For what, I’m not sure. I feel the brush of fingertips on my cheek as she tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and then her footsteps are moving back toward the door.

“Swift?”

“Yeah?” she croaks.

My next words are whispered through my teeth, something small and secret, something I can barely admit to myself, but she needs to know. “It was worth it,” I tell her, and the rest is darkness.

29

29

I feel like a ghost aboard this ship. When I wander to the mess, nobody pays me any mind. I don’t get eye contact or nods. Swift’s vanished. Her trainee duties must be keeping her busy. I half expect her to be there when I wake up the morning after sinking the copters, but the only part of her left when my eyes slide open is the warmth of her blanket around me and the scent of her in its fibers.

I haven’t returned it.

I go about my usual duties, not knowing what else to do. When the Minnow makes berth at an island to refuel, I check on Bao, making sure that the quadcopters’ guns haven’t hit him anywhere vital. He’s got battle scars now, in the form of bullet holes peppering his plating. A few of them struck true in the cracks between his keratin. I have to probe them with a long metal lance to make sure no bullets made it through his hide and into his muscle. It’s exhausting work, climbing over every inch of his monstrous bulk, and when I’m done I end up napping on the trainer deck, leaning against the wall under the counter. The rattle of the engines jolts me awake an hour later as the Minnow puts to flight again.

That night, I wake to a knock. If it were another attack, they wouldn’t be knocking, so I throw on a hoodie and answer it, half-expecting the sight that greets me when I swing the door open.

Swift stands in the hall, her hair swept back and her hands stuck so deep in her pockets that she looks like she’s about to fold in on herself.

“Do you … uh, do you want to talk?” she asks, flashing me a nervous grimace. From the way she glances over her shoulder, I assume this visit isn’t captain-sanctioned.

I nod.