Her little ship floats on the far edge of a beautiful explosion. Its window looks out over a sea of radiant, flowering blasts, in hot pinks and reds that stretch to bright white. Waves of heat rise and push against the window, rocking her craft. She shakes in the captain's chair. The starlight above seems to rumble. Another heatwave comes, sending her rolling back further, then the force subsides, and she spins, head turning, lights vibrating, the horizon burning before slowly fading its incredible flash. The rotations soften; she hangs silently in their wake. As the warmth dies and the vast sky takes the brightness back, she stares out, the whole universe reflecting in her blue irises.
"Lady," says a voice from inside her cabin. The speaker's tone is masculine and robotic. "You're endangering your crew to watch the fireworks?"
"I have no crew," she replies. Her words are thin, frayed. Worn through. "I just want to see the end of it."
"You are a part of your crew." The speaker insists.
She blinks, lowering her eyes, inspecting her feet under the chair.
"You need to keep yourself safe. Do I need to make it an order?"
She sighs. Exasperation digs into the lines of her eyelids. "No." She looks back over the dying fires, flaming hulls of fought vessels floating in the smoke. "You could have said that ten minutes ago."
"There were other lives to save, then."
"Not anymore."
Starlight shines in the ship cabin, a pale shimmering in the glow of rosy flames. Debris spreads to encircle the view: remnants of fighters and frigates suspend themselves in the settling peace. The voice pauses for a long while. "Lady," it says from inside the cabin. "Don't cry."
"It always ends like this when I get involved."
"Don't—"
"Don't what?" She shakes her head, lengths of glossy hair sticking to wet tears on her cheeks. "Don't admit that I'm always the constant here? That I'm always the one to light the fuse and run?"
"You did not end this fight alone."
"Then why am I the only one left?"
"I'm here."
The captain frowns like she's bitten her tongue. "No," she says. Teardrops refract a thousand sources of light. "… You're not here. You died a long time ago. Adam."
The speaker system does not respond.
Samus tugs a lever by her captain's chair, reclining the seat. The long gunship window above her looks out over the whole cosmos. In the distance, destroyed bits of spacecraft collide and break down into glittering stardust, mixing with meteoroids in the cosmic currents. Faraway stars of fuchsia and gold gleam on the metallic flotsam from lightyears away. Spacious neon gases tinge dark corners with the colors of corals, scales, and seas. Soaring comets swim overhead. Their tails of ice paint the infinite night.
For all its beauty, the space is quiet, forever voiceless despite the wars it hosts. Samus rests in sympathy.
A sudden and high-pitched beep resounds. "You're requested at a Federation tribunal in six hours on Earth. Command doesn't sound happy with you." Adam's computerized voice fades in and out of the electric speakers.
She looks up at a final memory of the mission, drinking the ocean of soundless light.
She pilots her ship away.