The ship shudders as yet another enemy blast connects with the outer hull. Wraith rush from one hall to the next, minding the damages or struggling to regain the offensive. I mind the servants and the prisoners, though it has never been my duty. Our servants sit, most of them silent. Trust radiates in their eyes, watching me. How certain they are that we will survive. How trusting.
The prisoners crowd against the walls of their cell, cursing, yelling, screaming, anything they can do to alleviate their fear. The ship lurches again. How desperately I wish to return to the bridge, but I cannot afford it. Prisoners have escaped before, and valuable servants have been killed because of a fool's negligence.
One servant, an adolescent girl raised to worship my kind, leans against the door, her eyes wide.
"Who is attacking us?" she asked softly.
"Enemies," I reply tersely. She nods tremulously.
"My father died in a battle like this. Part of the ceiling fell in, and his lungs were punctured. He was a brave man, and always did what he thought was right."
I recalled the man. Stout, even for a human, with a bushy beard and a duckfooted gait. For all appearances, he was believed to be the ideal servant. He was fortunate to have died during a battle, for he would have been fed upon the next day after a plot was discovered to stage a rebellion amongst the servants and prisoners.
This was his daughter, then.
"Answer the child properly!" One of the prisoners yells. "Whose fault is it really that we're all going to die here like animals?"
I turn a glare at the man. He flinches, but refuses to quail under my gaze.
"The Atlanteans," I answer calmly.
o-o-o
The battle is over. Several of my comrades and I are reprimanded harshly for the ultimate failure of our new systems to win the battle.
My Queen senses additional turmoil within me, and without any forewarning, she plunges into my mind.
That afternoon, the servant girl is put to death.
o-o-o
"Delta frequencies are at two point nine Hertz."
"Which means?"
"He may regain consciousness soon."
o-o-o
Faces. They sway before my eyes for a moment before fading away into nothing. A young woman who carries herself like a queen. Her skin is like the earth, her face thin, her hair straight and colored like wood.
A man with similar coloring. His hair is darker, his build more muscular. Rage burns behind his eyes ever-threatening.
A pale man, dark haired, swaggering. His lips smile, but the expression seldom reaches his eyes.
A man in a white coat, his face wrinkled with lines of worry, guilt, and confusion. His hands heal and kill, but his eyes are a mystery.
A man with thin hair, large eyes, and large mouth. He wears fear and anxiety like clothing.
A woman, tall and thin. Her strength seethe beneath the surface of a body that would appear weaker than many. She doesn't smile. She doesn't laugh. Men part before her as though she is a queen…
o-o-o
I wish to die. I wish to escape and breathe free air, if only for an instant. To drown myself in the endless ocean, to bury myself in the cool earth. I wish to feel again. I am but a living body. All else is dead.
