"And what do you propose we do with her Lieutenant?"

"I don't know, but we can't just leave her here!"

"That's exactly what we have to do. She's a ward of the state now, and it's the state's responsibility to take care of her. Not mine, and certainly not yours."

"I know. It's just…"

"Spit it out."

"The only one. She's the only one that survived. Don't you think that means something?"

"It means she's lucky."

"It means she's strong."

"Strong or not, this isn't our decision to make. She's not old enough to be conscripted. She's a child. Let her be a child!"

Anderson, whose eyes had been downcast for the majority of their conversation, looked up, his arms straight by his sides, and stood a little taller. "And what sort of childhood do you expect she'll have now? Foisted from home to home on some station in a galaxy she's never known? Maybe she'll get lucky. Maybe she'll be the one child in this whole god-forsaken universe that finds a real home. But even then, she's got her memories. The Batarians took whatever childhood she might have had left along with her family."

The Commander seemed to soften, understanding setting into her cheeks and the heft of her shoulders. "Anderson," she said, putting a hand on the young man's shoulder. "You haven't been out here for very long. There will be more. Many more like this who have seen far worse, far younger. It's a part of the world we live in now. It's just the way it is."

"I know that, sir. I really do. I just wish there was something more I could do. You know? I just…"

The Commander shook her head. "As do I. But we can't stop everything for every lost little girl we find. The universe is a cruel place, and most people are lost to some extent. We can't save everyone all the time."

"Isn't that the point, though? Of all this? We're the good guys. Isn't that our job?"

"Not anymore."

The Lieutenant looked back at the floor. The universe was not as empty as they had once thought, and not nearly as kind. First contact had changed everything.

Humanity had long accepted that other beings might exist in the universe, but only in a distant, off-handed way. The way agnostics accepted a god, or fate. It may exist, but it mattered not. The universe was too large and with too much empty space in between. The likelihood of meeting such creatures was next to nothing. And after all the efforts of SETI and NASA to make any kind of contact came up short for so long, the hope of alien contact had been abandoned for a different goal: expansion. After the success of colonization projects within their own solar system, humans had expanded, quickly. Faster than light travel had enabled humans to crisscross the galaxy in seconds, barreling from star-system to star-system like the explorers of ancient history. And just as recklessly.

But the trick with exploration is that the more of something you explore, the less of it there is to discover. The smaller the world becomes. And there were others exploring as well.

Humanity had far greater concerns now. The renaissance was over, war had come, and here he was fiddling as everything burned.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you," Anderson said. The Commander was quiet, listening to something in her inner-ear comm, and nodded as Anderson walked by.

Then, as if remembering something, she looked up. "Anderson, stop." She peered at the young Lieutenant, taking in the serious cut of his jaw, and the weight of his brow. "Do you truly believe in this girl?"

Anderson had only known her a few minutes. Over the comm she'd been a wreck. Difficult to understand, difficult to hear, and difficult to differentiate from all the other people they plucked up from the remnants of their ravaged homeworlds. But on deck she'd been stoic. Her eyes dry and her movements stiff. Someone had wrapped a blanket across her shoulders, but she hadn't seemed to notice. He'd been almost afraid to approach her. His dealings with children were few and awkward.

"Are you okay?" He'd finally asked her.

She'd turned to look him square in the eyes, and shook her head. "No. No, I don't think I am."

"Oh," he'd said, hesitant to re-assure her. What did one say to someone who'd lost everything? Instead of saying anything he pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, resting his head in his hands.

"You know," she said, breaking his silence. "There's no edge to the universe."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." The side of her mouth had curled up into a half-smile. "Nothing. Just big black space, and everything in between."

The thought pained him. "The odds of finding your family are…"

"I know," she said, cutting him off. "But there's no edge. Infinity. Everything."

"Hope." He nodded. Everything and nothing.

Anderson looked back at the Commander. "I do. I believe in her."

"Well then. I think we have a solution."