AN: I hope you're all in for a treat, because this will be one hefty chapter.
---
POV: Mark
The light jolt of the Shepherd's jump drive engaging was the last physical sensation of Florera. I watched as the stars outside the viewport stretched instantly into the familiar, hypnotic lines of FTL travel. We had a monotonous, twelve-day slog ahead of us that would consist of doing a jump, flying to the next jump point, doing a jump, rinse and repeat. We would have to do that all the way to the Handor system and then change course for the Exelcior system to get to the gate for Nova Celeste.
"Alright, I locked the course to the Handor System," Marcos announced calmly. "It should take us seven days if we keep on travelling at our current velocity, four if we push the engines."
"There is no need," I replied to his inferred query. "I'm not in a rush to reach Nova Celeste anymore."
"Very well," He stated. "The estimated arrival time is one hundred and seventy-two standard hours. Did I remember to mention that your choice of food, the ramen, was rated 4.7 stars across eighteen thousand reviews in the Florera system? A surprisingly high-quality find for such an out-of-the-way station."
I didn't turn my head from the viewport display, though it was currently useless, showing only the psychedelic blur of hyperspace. Lyra had fallen asleep, strapped securely in the co-pilot's seat, her purple three-eyed alien plush tucked under her chin.
"Focus on navigation, Marcos," I grunted, shifting my clothes to something more comfortable. The ship was climate-controlled, but the leather somehow felt rather heavy.
"You know I can focus on more than one task at a time, Mark," he stated as he materialized before me, giving me a deadpan look. "Anyways, we are on a streamlined course for the next seven days, and since my only duties involve monitoring energy flux and passively listening to sub-ether gossip, which is truly enthralling, I thought a bit of conversational analysis was warranted. Specifically, regarding your parental skills."
I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "I am not a parent. I am a highly temporary, involuntary guardian. And since you're monitoring sub-ether gossip, you know that even the ship's AI has registered us as 'Mark Shephard, Captain' and 'Lyra Shephard, Dependent Passenger,' although her name is Lyra Caleth. I know that the AI doesn't care about the difference, but I do."
"Ah, but you see, the ship's database is just a semantic mirror for the reality of the situation, Mark," Marcos stated blankly. "The AI is simply stating what it observes. The 'Dependent Passenger' has an entire section of your personal quarters, a Heavy Frigate Captain's Suite, mind you, redecorated with children's furnishings, smells like strawberry-scented shampoo, and is currently resting securely after a successful, if financially costly, shopping trip."
I looked at Lyra again. She looked so small, so utterly out of place in the oversized chair of what is technically a military vessel.
"I bought her things because she needed them," I muttered. "It was a logical move. I can't just deliver her to the social services in Nova Celeste smelling like a sewer rat and wearing rags. You can think of it as an investment in a clean handover."
"An investment of 6,372 Imperial Credits, if we include the twelve gallons of 'Real Cow Milk' you acquired, which, by the way, has a half-life measured in hours, not weeks, and will require significant cryo-storage and constant power draw. Very practical and quite efficient," Marcos deadpanned again. "Also, you did not use the ship's very own small fabricator to generate sterile clothing, which is free. Instead, you went to a questionable storefront and purchased brightly colored synthetics and a cartoon alien toy. You chose aesthetics over efficiency."
"We have a fabricator?" I asked. "That's news to me."
Marcos was an infuriatingly effective observer. He was the one piece of evidence I couldn't discard, the mirror that showed my actions, not my intent. I stood up, stretching my stiff shoulders.
"I'm going to check on the engine's efficiency. You keep watch," I said, knowing it was an unnecessary and pointless task since they could be checked from the comfort of my very own chair. I just didn't want to have this conversation now.
---
The first few days of the journey had me quickly settle into a routine dictated by a child's antics.
Before having Lyra on my ship, the little amount of travel I had done was mostly a silent, solitary experience, with the exception of talking to Marcos and when I rescued those girls from the pirates. Even during my service in the Navy, I would just spend my time reviewing tactical simulations, optimizing power allocation, or simply staring at the stars while listening to low-fidelity classical music.
Now, the background noise was different. The bridge would be filled with the soft thunk of Lyra's boots on the metal decking as she ran around, playing with Marcos' avatar. Every once in a while, there would be a high-pitched laughter coming from right beside me as she enjoyed the cartoons Marcos played for her on the co-pilot's screens.
I also found myself starting to worry more about what an eight-year-old child should be eating, other than orange-juice-soaked cereal. Many times, I had tried to get her to eat some of the fabricated nutrient paste I had bought on B-147. It was a good portion of food that was perfectly balanced with everything one would need to keep themselves satiated while travelling through the stars.
But that's the thing, it was an efficient and quick slop of food that was developed more for military vessels to keep their crew up and running at all times. The moment I offered it to her, she just stared at it, then at me, then pushed the bowl away with a resolute shake of her head.
"The child requires simple carbohydrates and the illusion of choice, Mark," Marcos advised when I consulted him regarding a rejected meal. "You bought milk. Give her milk. You also have an organic kitchen system. How about we make a pit stop, you buy some food you can cook, and you feed it to her?"
"I guess that means we will need to make a pit stop at the Handor system," I said to myself, reflecting on what Marcos had advised.
My days slowly unfolded into a routine that followed a specific set of times, meal times. Breakfast at 07:00, lunch at 12:00, a snack around 14:00, and dinner at 19:00.
I found myself in the cafeteria one morning, meticulously slicing processed synthetic fruit for her after Marcos revealed he had bought them, along with other foods, on the Florera station while I was out with Lyra. He stated that he knew I would forget, and though it did bother me that he had spent my money without advising me, I let it go as he was right and it was my fault. Lyra watched, sitting on the counter, swinging her legs, not saying a word, but her eyes tracking my movements as I handled the knife with intense focus. It was unnerving.
Then, she did something I was not expecting. She finally spoke. It wasn't perfectly pronounced, but it was understandable.
"Pwewy," she said in a soft voice.
I looked up from my concentrated task and stared at her confusedly. "Did you... Did you say something?"
She gave an adorable pout before pointing at the display I'd activated, showing a live feed from the rear sensor array. It was nothing but the usual swirling tunnel of streaking stars created when jumping.
"Pwewy," she said again.
I felt my heart warm, and a smile slowly crept its way onto my lips. "Yeah, I guess you can say that the fast light is pretty," I said while handing her a plate of toast and fruit.
"Pwewy," she nodded while taking a huge bite of toast, letting out a soft "mhmm," as if savoring the meal.
Later that same day, I entered the bridge after showering to find her standing on one of the crew chairs, her hands stretched out, touching the cold displays of the bridge's viewport. She wasn't touching anything either, just gazing into the blur, watching the stars streaking by while humming a simple, repetitive tune that I recognized to be from one of the cartoons she had been watching.
"Lyra," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "What are you doing?"
She didn't jump, but slowly turned her head the same way a child did when they had been caught doing something they weren't supposed to. But when she looked at me, I noticed that there was no fear on her face, only a sleepy, lazy smile accompanied by tired giggles.
She pointed at the stars and tilted her head. "Home?"
The word struck me like a physical blow. Home. Where did she even learn the word? It's not like she even knew the meaning of it either...
"No, Lyra. That's not home. This is… this is a ship," I said, shaking my head while walking to the chair and gently lifting her down. "This ship is not... is not your home."
"A necessary distance," I thought to myself. "I need to keep the distance. If she thinks this is home, the handoff will be that much harder."
"Come on, it's time to go to bed," I said while motioning for her to follow me.
We walked into the upper floor of my room, just outside the bridge, and I took her to the bathroom on the bottom floor of my room so she could brush her teeth. I then had to carry her up the stairs because she refused to walk up them unless I took her.
When I tucked her into the fold-out bed, she reached out and grabbed the hood of my sweater. Her grip was surprisingly strong, and I just stood there, awkward, immobile, and hunched over, until she eventually relaxed her fingers and drifted into a deep sleep. I watched as she moved in the bed, her thumb somehow making its way to her mouth.
Letting out a soft grunt, I felt my back crack into place when I finally straightened. I made my way down the stairs, brushed my teeth, and slipped into my bed, closing my eyes as I debated with myself what I should do.
When I woke up, I found myself spitting some hair out of my mouth and feeling some weight on my left arm. I looked over to it, only to see Lyra comfortably using my arm as a pillow, and drooling on it as she gripped my hand with one arm and her alien plushie with the other...
---
POV Shift: Marcos
As a sentient AI, I had come to experience a handful of emotions and feelings. Things like worry for Mark, weariness of those pesky haulers that had contracted us for a mission that almost got the being I was meant to keep company killed. I felt a tick in my coding that I can only believe to be anxiety during the time he was arrested on Eidolon Reach. But Mark always seemed to lack those emotions of worry, as if self-preservation were merely a theory to him.
Another day had gone by, and I found myself being eaten by what I can only say to be my Acheiles' Heel: my very own curiosity. I wanted to learn as much as I could from humans, from their technology, from other alien races, learn more of my creator and the Strathari, though the latter was a wish I doubt I'd ever have granted. However, now my curiosity was aimed towards the behavioural change Mark was undergoing.
We were now halfway to the system of Handor, and I could see that Mark's own words were contradicted by his very actions. That little human offspring he had taken in after trying to do his mumbo jumbo magic thingymabob was clearly affecting him in one way or another. It was something that allowed me to do one of my favourite things, tease the human.
Although Mark claimed he didn't care for the little one, a child he had taken the liberty to name and spend his hard-earned credits on, I could tell that it was a rather false claim, one that he seemed to be making more for himself than anything. I theorize that he may be trying to distance himself from little Lyra due to his relationship with my creator, an apprenticeship that was cut off rather short due to unfortunate circumstances.
He may have believed it to be otherwise, but ever since my creator finished my coding, I was awake. I spent some time with my creator, during which he informed me of my purpose. And sure, there was all that time I spent in a blackout, until the Shepherd was powered on, but I was always there.
I bore witness to the emotional devastation brought upon the poor human after the passing of my creator. To how, according to my facial scans and the lack of the so-called "shine" in his eyes, he forced himself to smile at those pesky women he rescued. He is lying to himself. Hiding his true emotions under a deep steel blanket of indifference.
But as fate would have it, the encounter and subsequent job offer received on B-147 may have very well been what he needed most. Mark may have believed I wasn't paying attention to him, but that thing he had hanging around his neck had allowed me access to its framework, and I must say: "What. The. Fuck."
I don't know what Mark believed it to be, but whatever he thinks it is, I can most definitely say it is not. The levels of complexity that are woven into that pendant have "fuck you" levels of explanations and are downright a middle finger to every single law of physics, nature, hell, the entire universe. Well, at least to the level of knowledge I'm privy to.
Anyways, returning to what I was saying, that job we snatched with the freighters on B-147, yeah, best thing that could have happened to Mark. Sure, it sucks that he had to face his actions and deal with possible lifelong trauma, but look at the bright side: he was able to let loose all of those emotions he had suppressed since my creator's death.
Little Lyra has been doing numbers to the emotional walls he had carefully constructed, shaking their very foundations. The more he denied caring for her, the funnier the situations around her became.
Whenever I would check up on him, I'd find him subconsciously doing more than he had to just so that he could accommodate her. He redecorated the upper section of his quarters, made sure she was happy, and even had me running some calming audio programs up to thirty minutes before her bedtime. And it's not like it was music, I have tons of that, he made me search for recordings of natural sounds, like wind chimes, distant ocean waves, and animals from Earth that had gone extinct when the planet went "Kaboom."
Because of that, I found myself paying closer attention to his quarters at night, shifting my view to watch as little Lyra would wake up and sneakily make her way down the stairs to snuggle up next to Mark. It was quite the adorable sight, though his reaction perplexed me even further.
I was expecting a little talking to, telling her that wasn't okay to do, and ensuring she stayed in her bed. But nope, he just let her keep on doing it. He claimed not to care for the little human child, yet I would find him making minor and illogical changes to his behaviour. He was spending more time with her, taking unnecessary trips to the engineering deck, and taking twenty minutes longer than necessary, not because there was something wrong with the ship, but because he was holding her in one hand and working with his other.
Sometimes, he would just mindlessly carry her around while she slept through the entire process. The sheer absurdity and irony of a man stating he didn't want to have any ties to this child, yet performing maintenance with her wrapped in his arms, was not lost on me.
"The juxtaposition is quite striking, Mark," I said, materializing my holographic form and leaning against one of the coolant pipes. "The cold, uncaring, 'fatherhood is not for me' man ferrying around little Lyra in his arms like a military member wears a patch on their arm."
"Shut it, Marcos," he replied. "It's just safer this way. I can't have her wandering around the ship unsupervised."
"Of course, safety first," I said. "I am always able to keep an eye on her and keep her from touching what she shouldn't. However, it is quite admirable how quickly you've integrated her into the heavy frigate safety protocol, Mark. A true father figure ensures the child's well-being, even when inspecting high-energy components."
Mark simply ignored me, tightening a thermal shunt that I hadn't noticed come loose, while trying to focus on the numbers flickering on his wrist-mounted diagnostic tool. His eyes would ever so often drift towards the little human, unknowingly caring for her while stating he didn't.
"You've got a little genius on your hands, you know that?" I asked, controlling my holographic form to point at the sleeping child.
"Huh? Who? Lyra?" Mark asked, a confused frown painting itself on his face.
"Yes," I simply replied. I moved my holographic form closer and pointed to her brain. "I had checked her neuroplasticity levels, which are better than any recorded human for her age. Though that isn't really the measure I'm basing my words on."
"So what is it, then?" Mark asked.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that you've taken note of the words she's said, here and there," I stated simply. Mark proceeded to raise an eyebrow at me, something that made me sigh. "She's a child who, up to a few days ago, had never heard, seen, or spoken a word. She didn't know a language. Yet she's managed to understand universal standard English to a point where she has spoken a few times. Do you not see how impossible that is?"
Mark stared at my avatar, and you could almost see the gears shifting in his brain as realization dawned on him. "Oh."
---
POV Shift: Mark
Lyra and I were in the cafeteria again, and I was reviewing the market volatility of rare metals on Nova Celeste, while eating something I had completely forgotten I had in my storage: the white chocolate nutrient bars I had taken to calling NeuroFuel bars.
Lyra had just finished working through a bowl of synthesized oatmeal. She pushed her bowl away, slid off the counter, and walked a few steps towards me. She then looked up to me and extended her hand out.
"Bar," she said, demanding the prize I had offered her if she finished the oatmeal.
"Alright," I said, as I broke off a piece on the opposite end of the NeuroFuel bar I was chewing on. Lyra pouted at me when she realized she wasn't getting the same serving size I initially had.
"You can't have too much of this," I said while handing her the piece. "You'll get fat."
Lyra slowly took a bite of the bar, humming in delight. "Yummy," she said after swallowing her bite.
"Yes, it is," I said, a smile plastering itself on my face as I looked at her enjoying her treat. She then started hopping in place and spinning, doing what I can only guess to be regular kid shit.
When she was done with it, she reached a hand out again, but not to me this time, but rather to the air. Her eyes were fixed on the empty space near my console.
"Draw?" she asked, a tentative sound, barely above a whisper.
I blinked, genuinely thrown off balance. "Draw what, kiddo?"
"The… the lights."
She said as she pointed at the streaking during the jumps. She wanted to draw the stars. However, I, in a lapse of judgement, forgot to buy paper, crayons, or pencils during our shopping trip at Florera's station.
"Hey, Marcos," I said, setting down my NeuroFuel bar. "Is there a way you could set up a 2D projection plane in the cafeteria. Something that... I don't know, uses the low-fidelity, simple interface. Give it a white background with black lines and call it 'Drawing Pad 1.'"
Marcos didn't need to respond audibly as a holographic screen shimmered into existence near the wall, floating high off the deck for Lyra to reach without any issues. She gasped softly, and Marcos provided a floating cursor and motion tracking, allowing her to draw with her finger.
What followed was the most focused hour of the entire journey as Lyra carefully and painstakingly drew a chaotic mess of lines. They were jagged and overlapping, but they were unquestionably her interpretation of the jump warp tunnel, a child's attempt to capture speed thought unreachable.
I sat there and watched as my planning, diagnostics, and my guilt became all forgotten. When she finished, she stepped back, proud of her work. She had also drawn two small, lopsided figures: a tall, stick-figure, and a much shorter, equally lopsided figure holding the stick figure's hand.
She looked at me with a wide smile, her eyes beaming with pride and her cheeks red, then pointed to the figures.
"Lyra," she said, pointing to the short one. Then she pointed to the tall one. "Mark-Papa."
My breath hitched for a second, and the careful, logical framework I had built for what was to happen on Nova Celeste, the delivery, the handover, the financial transactions of the loot I had, shivered and threatened to collapse. She had acknowledged me, named me, and drawn me as her person. Most of all, she referred to me as "papa."
I swallowed hard, pushing down the knot that was threatening to form, and cleared my throat, picking up the NeuroFuel bar again, forcing the distance back. "Nice drawing, kiddo. Marcos, save that file. Title it: 'Jump Tunnel.' Print it out when we get to a station, if you can."
"Saving now," Marcos said, his voice unusually devoid of teasing irony he'd been using these past few days. "A true masterpiece. I'd even dare say it is frame-worthy."
---
We completed our final jump and emerged into the Handor system. It was a very utilitarian transit point that was largely dominated by a big station that didn't feature any residential or commercial spaces, being more of a maintenance depot with dozens of docks meant for automated fueling. It was almost like a truck stop from Earth. Just a place to take a rest while your ship gets readied up to keep on trekking.
"Well, we've already seen Handor; nothing much to look at here," Marcos declared. "Pirate activity is basically non-existent, and life is as boring as always. My systems indicate that we are still 87% full, so no need to stop for any fuel. I'm locking in the coordinates for the Excelsior system. It should take us about five more days to reach it."
I nodded absentmindedly, glancing over at what Lyra was doing. She was watching some cartoon that kind of resembled a show from Earth, The Powerpuff Girls, though it was still quite different. "Well, you have the helm."
Within minutes, we had accelerated past the station and were heading in the direction of the next jump point.
Contrary to what our journey had been for the past week, the journey from Handor to Excelsior was the polar opposite. We went from flying through the sheer emptiness of the outer Rim systems and moving closer to the more trafficked areas of mapped human space. The Shepherd's radar would start pinging commercial haulers, more liners, and a growing Naval presence on behalf of the IUC.
Of course, it all made sense, since ahead of us lay some of the inner core worlds of the Empire. That, of course, meant that order was prominent, power was displayed, and more critically, traffic was bound to become worse than rush hour in Los Angeles. However, even though the journey was a polar opposite, it was still the same old jump, cruise, jump, cruise, rinse and repeat grind we had been doing.
I felt that if the navigation computer could speak, it would probably want to get in contact with HR to file a complaint about the repetitive stress I was putting it under. The Shepherd itself handled it with ease, but I was going quietly insane.
I had handed over the helm to Marcos, who had promptly handed off the task to the ship's autopilot systems, which meant that I had nothing to do except sit in the captain's chair and stare at the systems, hoping nothing went wrong. And while doing so, I found myself doing another thing as well, thinking. And thinking, as it turned out, was a terrible idea.
When I signed up with the Mercenaries Association back on B-147, I had done it mostly because it allowed easier processing and collection of bounties. Their benefits were also quite solid, giving me legal protection, access to the bounty boards, and a fancy ID that made station security less likely to hassle me for my oversized railguns. I wasn't trying to sign up to become some grizzled gun-for-hire, even when I took the escort job. I did it out of desperation, the need to somehow come up with enough credits to start something legitimate in the core of the empire. Maybe open my own repair shop, a salvage business, hell, maybe even a quiet freight company while I developed some cool shit with the augmented brain I now possessed.
It was a decision that was meant to make my future plans simple, feasible, and uncomplicated. However, Lyra was a complication. She was also the consequence of my very first formal job.
The guilt of what I'd done that day sat in my chest like a chunk of lead. I kept trying to rationalize it, trying to force myself to agree with what everyone had told me. I was fighting off pirates. She was simply collateral damage. It's something that comes with combat. I thought of many ways to put off the blame, but none of them stuck. However, the reality of what I was faced with when wanting to collect my "prize" had been sneaking into my bed and sleeping on my left shoulder for the past week, still ignorant of the fact that I'd killed her mom.
When I found her, I was confused, thinking she was just in shock. But when I learned that she was not only blind, but deaf as well, I felt my worldview and my own image shatter. She was just this little girl, somehow surviving for a week all alone in a derelict ship. The way those chairs worked in the medbay was something that was not short of miraculous.
I utilized the things under my control to give her the gift of sight, to allow her to hear sounds for the first time in her life. It was the only way I could think to try to balance the scales. Now that she could see the universe, I had become her constant, the one stable thing in a reality that had just expanded from silent darkness to overwhelming noise and light. And here I was contemplating where I should drop her off.
That was the problem.
---
I was in the cafeteria, chopping up some synthesized vegetables for a broth. It was mindless work, which was exactly what I needed to do right now.
Lyra sat on the floor with her three-eyed purple alien plushie tucked under one arm. She wasn't watching the cartoon Marcos had queued up on a holographic screen. Instead, she was staring out at the display I had pulled up with a live feed of the streaking stars during our current jump. Her head tilted like she was trying to figure out how they worked.
"Big," she said softly.
I paused mid-chop and looked down at her. "Yeah, kiddo. Space is pretty big. It's actually infinite, but you haven't learned the meaning of that word yet."
She pointed at the display and made a shivering motion. "Cold."
"Out there? Yeah, it's freezing. But we're warm in here. See?" I gestured around the cafeteria. "This is your warm ship."
The words came out before I could stop them, and I immediately regretted it. "Your" ship. Like she belonged here. Like this was a permanent arrangement.
I went back to chopping, trying to ignore the knot forming in my stomach.
"Mark," Marcos called out softly, his holographic form materializing across the counter from me, leaning casually against the wall. "I've been running the numbers on your caregiving behavior, and I have to say, the results are downright fascinating."
"Marcos," I said in a low voice, giving the pesky AI a glare that I hoped was able to translate into whatever the hell a threat was for an AI.
"Your proximity time with Lyra now exceeds the statistical threshold for casual guardianship by approximately 450%," he continued to my dismay, falt out ignoring my gaze. "You're also demonstrating classic signs of emotional imprinting, including but not limited to: voluntary physical contact, preemptive snack preparation, and the spontaneous use of possessive pronouns when referring to the ship."
I stopped cutting and my hand, the knife fitting comfortably in between my fingers. I then proceeded to point the knife at him. "I'm feeding a kid. That's it. And when we get to Nova Celeste, she's going to a proper facility where people with actual abilities in childcare will be taking care of her. People who know what they're doing."
"Ah, yes, the famous human orphanages," Marcos said, his tone dripping with an insincere amount of sympathy. "The mythical land of 'someone else's problem.' Tell me, Mark, how do you think she'll remember the man who gave her the ability to see and hear? The man who was there for the first few days after regaining senses she didn't know existed. Do you think that's what she will remember? Or will she just ingrain in her mind the day that one of the people she trusted most simply dropped her off, turned around, and walked away from her, never to be seen again? How do you think she will feel when she realizes that the only father figure she had come to know in her life just abandoned her the same way her actual father did?"
I slammed the knife down on the counter. My enhanced strength mixed with he strength of the counter resulted in a broken knife that was sent crashing to the ground. "That's not fucking fair."
Marcos' holographic form stared at me, his gaze slowly shifting down towards a frightened Lyra, who was now pressing her hands to her ears and looking at me with fright.
"Hey, it's okay," I said as I quickly moved to comfort her, picking her up and holding her against my chest. "No need to be scared."
"Huh," Marcos chuckled. "It may not be fair, but neither is pretending you're doing this out of obligation when we both see how you act when something concerns her."
I didn't have a response to that, so I just finished calming Lyra down, grabbed another knife, and went back to making the broth.
---
As we drew closer to the final jump point to reach the Excelsior system, I began to listen in on the comms chatter on the open channels. I listened to haulers coordinating cargo transfers, Navy patrols running ID checks, and more things that I just watered down to gobbledygook from bored ships. In a sense, all of the talking reminded me of the CB radios from those trucker videos I would watch on social media in my previous life.
Although I found the talking between ships to be a little interesting, especially when it came to gaining information about the current atmosphere of the Empire, Lyra, who was sitting next to me, wasn't handling it all too well.
She'd been fine with the quiet hum of the Shepherd's engines, the little banter and regular conversations between Marcos and me, the sounds of the cartoons, but the constant comms chatter of so many voices, some just talking over each other, and the beeping of proximity alerts were too much for her. She climbed off the co-pilot seat and pressed herself over my legs, hands tightly held over her ears.
"Too much," she whimpered.
I considered telling her to toughen up, to just get used to it. However, I remembered our walk through the Florera station, how she wanted to look at everything with awe, but instead kept on digging her head in between my arms and chest. Those memories, along with her adorable expression as she looked at me for help, made me do something else.
I picked her up and sat her on my lap, wrapping one arm around her. She immediately proceeded to snuggle up to me while maintaining her hands pressed on her ears. "I know, kiddo. It's loud, but you don't have to worry about it. We're okay, and it's just you, me, and my dumb assistant Marcos. We are safe in the ship."
"I heard that," Marcos quipped over the intercom.
I chuckled and lowered the sounds coming in from the radio chatter. The noise faded to a manageable hum, and Lyra relaxed against me, clutching her little alien plushie, and I tried very hard not to think of the irony of my words and my current actions. How I was bending to the whims of a child I had sworn to drop off and forget.
The face of Marcos's avatar appeared floating in the holographic screen directly in front of me, giving me a look that was accompanied by a shit-eating grin that screamed, "I told you so."
"Not a word," I muttered.
"I haven't said a thing," he replied, as his grin broadened even more.
"You don't have to say something to convey a message," I said. "I could tell you were thinking it."
"I'm a sentient AI, I'm always thinking it," he said, the smugness reeking off his words. "Isn't that what you humans say, 'I think, therefore I am.'"
The rest of that day passed in a boring blur that was only drowned out by the soft giggles from Lyra as she watched her cartoons after returning to her co-pilot's chair.
"Her co-pilot chair...." I repeated out loud. "Fuck."
The next day came rather quickly, and with it came what I can only describe as controlled chaos. I could only think of how sheltered I had grown up in this universe to witness, for the first time outside of the Navy, what appeared to be hundreds of ships spread across the viewport's display.
In the middle of all this chaos sat a Gate. It was a massive black ring with a hue of green, easily a thousand kilometers across, just hanging there like some ancient monument. It wasn't glowing or dramatic like I had thought it would be. It was just there, featureless and unimaginably huge. And around it, hundreds of ships queued up in neat, orderly lanes, waiting their turn like shoppers at a checkout line.
This was the first time I had personally seen a gate, since most of my service in the Navy had consisted of running small operations that rarely consisted of long travel times, and when they did, it was done solely through the jumps of backwater systems and galaxies. However, there was something that I now knew that nobody else did.
If I remembered correctly, Anahrin had mentioned them in passing. This gate, and the others humanity had discovered like it, were the final standing monuments of humanity's paternal race: the Strathari.
"Alright, Marcos, turn on our IFF and get us in line," I said, already dreading the wait.
"Already beat you on that," He replied. "We're registered as Strathos' Shepherd, Vessel number 93708, Heavy Frigate.... Top Priority....? Huh?"
I blinked at his confused words and found myself just as confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm metaphorically scratching my head," he said, "but it appears as if we have been given priority for situations like this. My best guess is that Admiral Ren Varis might have added a note to our ship.... and elevated our clearance levels?"
"Huh," I said softly. "Interesting..."
I keyed the comms and followed what I knew to be protocol when entering a highly populated area. Out here, you didn't just show up at the lobby and start waiting for your name to be called. You had to walk to the front desk and declare yourself first.
"Excelsior Traffic Control, this is the Strathos' Shepherd, Vessel number 93708, entering queue, Lane Beta-Four," I declared. "Intent is Gate Transit to Novellus System, destination Nova Celeste. Acknowledging all regulations."
The response came almost immediately from traffic control.
"93708, XTC has confirmed registration. Proceed to Lane Beta-Seven. Maintain a twenty-seven thousand kilometers separation from Vessel..." The female traffic controller trailed off as if learning something. "Scratch that. Strathos' Shepherd, Sir, you have been cleared for expedited transit. Please proceed through the Gate at standard transit speed. Control out."
I nodded and couldn't help but smile. "Thank you, control, adjusting course to approach the gate."
I manually controlled the Shepherd, sliding into the new designated lane with exaggerated care.
"Tch, I guess it pays to have friends in high places," Marcos quipped.
"In our case, it's interested parties I'd rather not have the attention of," I replied.
Lyra was awake now, staring wide-eyed at the swarm of ships outside.
"Look at all those ships, kiddo," I said, shifting my tone of voice and pointing at a massive passenger liner as we drifted past it. "That's a ship people use to travel. Whole families, just floating through space."
She stood up from the co-pilot's chair and ran to the display screens of the vieport, pressing her hands against the smooth surface, her breath fogging it up a little. "Flying stars."
Flying stars.
The phrase hit me harder than it should have. She had been making rapid progress in her speech these past few days and was starting to name things now. Building a vocabulary for the universe I'd given her access to.
The universe I was about to leave her in.
I blinked and forced myself to focus on the console, running diagnostics I didn't need to run, checking fuel levels that I knew were more than optimal, doing anything to avoid thinking about what would come next.
'You'll drop her off. You'll file the paperwork. You'll start your business. This is the logical choice. The right choice.' I thought to myself.
My logic was more than sound.
However, the image of Lyra pressing her face to the glass, marveling at the "flying stars," was not.
As we approached the Gate, the open channel was filled with chatter and complaints about us.
"Why is that ship cutting the line?"
"The fuck is up with this preferential treatment?"
"Hey, back of the line, you cunt."
But amongst all the chatter, there was a single comment that seemed to have some level of common sense.
"Whooo-weee, are you lot retarted or something?" The hoarse voice of a man called out, sending the chatter into a momentary silence. "I mean, just look at the size of those railguns. That ain't your run of the mill ship. Most likely a classified experimental ship with a civilian-style paint scheme to not draw any more unwanted attention."
The people in the channel slowly started to agree, and the insults and callouts to us came to an end. Just as we were almost done with our approach to the Gate, we were hailed by the Excelsior Traffic Control.
"Shepherd, you'll have to decrease your speed a bit. You're going too fast. Safe travels."
I immediately started to slow down and replied to the traffic controller. "My apologies, control. Just can't wait to get the fuck out of this place."
"I hear you on that," the traffic controller chuckled and terminated our connection.
"Lyra, come take a seat," I called out.
Lyra promptly turned around with a bright smile and skipped to the co-pilot's chair, strapping herself in without the need of my assistance.
We entered the Gate at what was considered safe speeds, and I noticed how it was completely different from a jump. There was no tunnel of light, nor was there any stretching of the stars. One moment, we were looking at the chaos of Excelsior, and the next, everything went gray.
It was like being inside a fog bank made of nothing. No stars, no reference points, just uniform gray in every single direction. The Shepherd's instruments indicated that we were moving, but it didn't feel like we were moving.
"I estimate our transit time to last about an hour," Marcos announced.
Lyra spent that hour watching her cartoons, and I spent it watching shows I hadn't finished from back on Earth. It appears that the old statement of "once on the internet, nothing can be erased" was true. I watched a show that was about drugs, snow falling, if you will, in an attempt to distract myself from what I was going to do once I reached Nova Celeste.
The time passed rather quickly, as the show did entertain me. But we were reaching the end of the hour mark.
"We'll be stepping out of the gate in approximately two minutes," Marcos warned.
When those two minutes passed, the Shepherd emerged from the Gate in its full glory and into a wall of light and noise.
The Novellus system wasn't simply a system. Rather, it was something akin to a statement and a declaration of the Empire's strength and monetary prowess. It was founded after the civil war that broke the Empire in half, giving birth to the CIV, the Volnar Intergalactic Coalition. So, of course, this place was entirely developed by and for the rich and controlling corporations, serving as a second home to them all outside of Celestine Prime.
Before us were thousands of ships that filled the space around Nova Celeste, moving in layers so dense it looked like a three-dimensional highway interchange designed by a lunatic. And at the center of it all was the second, prized jewel of the Empire, the planet itself: a blue-and-white mass of land and oceans that was wrapped in two massive orbital rings.
The rings alone were the size of small moons, studded with hab-sections, factories, and power stations. Dotted along them and in close orbit were the twelve great stations: Elyse, Olympus, Artemis, Aegis, Rebus, Crescent, Crest, Paragon, Specter, Radiance, Horus, and Mechanicus.
It was a no-brainer to say that we were now in the core of the Empire. Over seventy billion people lived here, spread out across the two habitable worlds in this system. And presiding over all of it was the IUC Navy.
They weren't subtle about it, either. Hundreds of warships held position in perfect formation throughout the system. There were cruisers, destroyers, carriers, and four dreadnoughts that made my ship pale in comparison.
Lyra stirred awake, rubbing her big little eyes, and gasped, her eyes going wide as she took in the sheer density of civilization outside. She undid her straps and ran to the viewport display, reaching her hand toward the nearest orbital ring as if she could grasp it.
"Marcos, patch me through to the Novellus Traffic Control," I ordered.
A few moments of waiting later, and I had been connected to the traffic control.
"Novellus Control, this is the Strathos' Shepherd, Vessel 93708. We are requesting docking vectors for Station Mechanicus. There are two souls on board, me and one dependent passenger."
The response took almost a full minute, which told me that the controller was doing a much lengthier background check on me than had been done in the Excelsior system before taking the Gate.
"Copy that, Shepherd. I need you to confirm the identity of the registered owner of your vessel."
After a little back and forth of identity checks and information exchange, the traffic controller finally gave me clearance.
"Alright, Shepherd. I have assigned you a vector to the Mechanicus Station. Maintain a Delta-Nine approach. Just a friendly reminder that the civilian dock usage at Mechanicus is 2,000 credits per twenty-four-hour cycle. The information I have pulled up on your banking account informs me that you have the funds. However, we require verbal confirmation before you can proceed."
I winced at the price, but hey, business is business, and considering how busy this system was, it was an understandable rate. "I confirm. 2,000 credits per cycle. Proceeding to Delta-Nine. Hey, one quick question. Do you know how much it would cost to rent out a dock for a certain amount of time? Or to outright buy a dock?"
The traffic controller chuckled a bit at my question. "To outright buy a dock for private use would run you millions of credits. I think renting one would be more feasible, to the point that it would be cheaper than paying the daily rate. However, that's not information I can advise you on. It's something you would have to personally take up with the station master and their owner."
I sighed. "Alright, well, thanks for the information."
"Understood, sir. Please enjoy your time in the Novellus system."
I ended the connection and allowed Marcos to take over the approach, threading us through the traffic with the kind of precision that made me glad I had an AI co-pilot. Mechanicus station loomed ahead, a rather nice-looking yet highly industrial place. It had a maze of repair bays, cargo docks, and utility modules, and a handful of shipyards.
It was the perfect place for a guy starting a ship repair business.
"Docking successful," Marcos announced.
I grabbed Lyra, who was still staring out the viewport display in quiet awe. "Alright, kiddo. Time to go."
---
The air inside Mechanicus was surprisingly clean. There was still the faint smell of hot metal, ozone, and recycled atmosphere, but it wasn't as bad as it had been on Eidolon Reach. The noise, on the other hand, was constant. All around, there were plasma cutters, heavy machinery, and the clang of cargo containers being moved by automated loaders.
I helped Lyra into a bright yellow jacket I had bought her, and changed my clothing into the same I was wearing back on Florera. I took her hand, and she gripped mine without hesitation, her trust so absolute it made my chest hurt.
We walked through the station for a while, the entire ordeal feeling like a death March. I had Marcos giving me directions in my earpiece, sending me through multiple areas until we reached the residential section. I moved like I was on a mission, because deep inside me I knew that if I slowed down, I'd stop. And if I stopped, I wouldn't start again.
'You're abandoning her. You gave her the ability to see this place, and now you're leaving her here.' My own thoughts were torturing me as we walked, but I just shoved them down.
The orphanage was on Residential Deck 5, and the door, surprisingly, was made of 100% pure and real fucking wood. A material I had come to know as extremely rare and extremely valuable. If not for its values, the orphanage felt like an absurdly humble place in comparison to the other homes around us. Somehow, humanity had managed the ability to create high-rises that were over 30 floors tall inside a floating hunk of metal in outer space.
I stopped before the orphanage stopped, took a deep breath, and knelt down to Lyra's level.
"We're going to talk to a nice person inside, okay? They're going to help you find a good home. With other kids. A safe place."
Lyra looked at me, then at the door, her little brow furrowing. "Ship?"
"No, not the ship. The ship is for working, and this.... this is for living."
I tried to smile, but it felt terribly wrong.
I could see it in her eyes... the fact that she understood my intentions. However, she didn't argue. Instead, she did something that was much worse: she just wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me, hard.
I felt a piece of my soul vanish at that simple act, but I stood up and hit the release plate before I could change my mind. The door slid open, and inside was a small room that smelled like incense and fresh bread. A woman in a gray habit looked up from her desk, a brass nameplate on her left shoulder that read "Sister Elara." Her face was kind, but sharp. She looked like someone who'd seen every excuse in the book.
I stepped inside, and Lyra followed behind me, immediately hiding behind my leg.
"Hello. I'm Mark Shephard. I'm here to hand over a child." The words came out clipped and formal. "Her name is Lyra. I pulled her off a pirate frigate in the Outer Rim. Her mother died during the fighting, an unfortunate result of my disabling shot."
I leaned and handed over a chip Marcos had crafted with Lyra's information on it. "She appeared to have been born blind and deaf. But I used the devices I had available and allowed her to access those senses she never knew she had. There's nothing wrong with her, but I don't think I can keep her. I've got things to do, and I'm trying to start a business. She needs stability that I cannot promise I will be able to provide. I'm just here to drop off the paperwork and to make a donation."
Sister Elara didn't take the chip. She looked at Lyra, then at me, her gaze uncomfortably perceptive.
"Mark, child," she said gently. "You're here because you feel guilty."
"I mean..." I shifted uncomfortably. "I did accidentally kill her mom. And then her father, a pirate scum, just left her to die on the ship."
"And now you're here... thinking you are able to fix that by handing her off to someone else," she said, narrowing her gaze.
"I'm trying to give her a stable life," I said, my voice tight. "I don't think I can do that. I don't know how to be a parent. Hell, I'm learning everything I'm doing in this universe as I'm going."
She leaned forward and gave me an empathetic smile. "You gave a blind, deaf child the ability to see and hear. I guess you have no idea how impossible it is to do that without outright replacing the damaged organs with either new ones or mechanical ones. What you are doing is not atonement. Rather, you've created a miracle..."
She stopped talking for a second and leaned back in her chair. "You not only created a miracle, but you've also brought her to one of the most expensive systems in the IUC, paid 2,000 credits a day in docking fees, and walked her personally to the best orphanage on the station."
I didn't have a response to that.
Sister Elara fidgeted with something while she continued talking to me. "You know, if you truly didn't care for her, if you weren't fit enough to care for her, if you weren't in a stable position to have such an adorable child in your care, then you could've dropped her anywhere. But you didn't... You came here."
She stopped talking and pulled something up on the console in front of her, turning its screen to face me. I immediately recognized what she had pulled up, and I didn't know whether I wanted to kill or thank Marcos for sending it over. On the screen was Lyra's drawing from a few days ago. A stick figure surrounded by a big circle.
"That little child you are planning to hand over to us doesn't see a man with blood on his hands," Sister Elara said. "She sees a person who keeps her warm."
She looked at Lyra, who was still hiding behind my leg. "Lyra, honey, who's the big man you're hiding behind?"
Lyra peeked out from behind my leg, looked at Sister Elara, and then at me with those clear, trusting eyes.
"Papa," she said. "Mark-Papa."
The word hit me harder than a punch to the liver.
Papa.
The dam I'd been building, constructed by logic, practicality, and guilt, cracked and shattered. I felt my hands begin to shake and felt as if the air around me wasn't enough to keep me breathing.
Sister Elara pushed the data chip back toward me. "Mark, you're clearly a good man... one of serious character. If I'm being truthful, there aren't many people who would do what you have done. You clearly care for the child, much more than you realize.... Much more than you are forcing yourself to think and feel."
The still silence in the room weighed on my mind like an elephant on an ant. It was crushing.
"We are an orphanage, a refuge for those who've been dealt one of the worst hands... for those who have nothing left," Sister Elara said with a sad smile. "We pride ourselves in sheltering those who have lost it all, and I promise you that if you hand her over to us, and walk out that door, you'll destroy the one thing she has left."
I looked at the chip. At the station outside. At Lyra.
And then I knelt down and pulled her into a hug, burying my face in her auburn hair. "To think I was going to do such a heartless act for my own benefit." I felt my voice begin to crack. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I guess I'll be your Papa from now on."
I guess my beard rubbed itself on her face, because she responded with soft giggles and excitedly repeated, "Papa, Mark-Papa, Mark-Papa!"
My heart warmed, and I stood up, pulled her jacket straight, and turned back to Sister Elara.
"I have no idea how to begin, where this will lead, or how it will play out, but I guess I'll figure it out as I go," I told her. "So tell me, what do I have to do to adopt her? What's the first step?"
She smiled, a genuine, sweet smile, and reached for something under her desk.
"Well, I can now address you with the respect I believe you deserve, Mr. Shephard," She said. "Now, the first step... is about three hundred pages of IUC bureaucracy."
I took the tablet, and although it weighed less than paper in my hands, it felt impossibly heavy. I looked at Lyra, who was grinning now, and placed the tablet on her head like a hat.
"Maybe being a father won't be so bad."
End of Book 1
---
Thank you to every single one of you who has read this far!
This novel will be put on a two-week Hiatus.
Mark's journey will resume with Book 2 on January 16th, 2026.
Patreon will continue to receive active updates during this Hiatus, so for those who just can't wait, head on over to my Patreon. Crimson_Reapr is the name, and writing Sci-fi is the way.