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Mission No. 53

Cerinia
CSS Justice

"Disassociation"

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The Justice's rendezvous with the Orbital Gate was short-lived. For a few hours the tiny sliver of the gate held open, revealing a familiar blue marble to homesick soldiers. It was a small taste, but enough to whet their appetites and infusion their mission with new vigor.

Under Bill's command, the ship retraced its path to the desert. In a few hours they reached the site of their battle with Ariki and Hime. The captain took a rescue party down to the surface, figuring no other Cerinians would be nearby, given the wasteland was likely only big enough for two gods at one time, and even then only under contention. He brought many of his soldiers, a medical crew, and Lieutenant Fay, along with Dr. Makepeace and her scientists to help in the search and rescue. That left the Justice nearly half empty.

It was under these circumstances that Cerinian 19 found herself alone in the cargo bay.

The vixen sat on her bed in the cell of mirrors, clutching a pillow to her chest. She didn't know why she did it, but for some reason she felt the need to hug the soft object, as if it was instinctual. She replayed the events of the last few days in her mind: how she'd failed to find any trace of Cerinian 28 until it was too late; how her fellow Cerinian had taken control of the ship; and how there was nothing she could do to save her caretakers. Finally, she recalled how Bill had nearly sacrificed his life for her…

Her thoughts kept circling back to her failures: mainly, her inability to locate 28 and reawaken her own powers. Currently those were her two purposes in life, and she'd fallen short on both. If she had held onto her powers, perhaps there wouldn't be a need for the dangerous chase after her lost sister, and that fact twisted like a knife in her gut.

She glanced around the room, trying to find pleasure in the way she kept it. After visiting Bill's room, and seeing how nice and orderly he maintained everything, she aspired to be just as cleanly. There wasn't much for her to organize and straighten, but she made do with what she had: her bed was always well-kept, her sparse furniture shined and sat properly aligned with each other, her food tray cleaned and rested by the door, her spare clothes folded by her bed, and her holozines neatly stacked and categorized after she viewed them.

Her eyes lifted to the mirrors forming her cell. Hundreds of versions of herself stared back, no matter which way she turned; the further back they sat, the darker and more distorted they appeared, till their forms were nearly unrecognizable. She knew they were merely reflections, but something about them seemed… different. Unnatural. She studied each of their faces in turn—most of all the ones in back.

There! It was just for a brief second, but she caught the hint of an up-turned corner of a mouth. In contrast, her own face was set in a defeated frown.

She looked at the others. They tried to remain neutral, but they couldn't hide their expressions for long. They were… smirking. Grinning at her. Some were smiling unabashedly, as if at something amusing.

She heard a whisper. Not from any particular direction, just from the back of the audience of Cerinians. Then she heard it again. They were talking to one another in hushed voices. Shoulders began to shake. Breaths exhaled quickly. Then snorts and quiet wheezes. Finally the reflections couldn't hold back any longer; they burst out laughing.

Wide-eyed, 19 twisted her head back-and-forth, but everywhere she looked she found herself staring back, laughing. Laughing at how pathetic she was; at her powerlessness; at how she'd let everyone down.

19 buried her head in her pillow, but she still imagined she could hear the sound of their mirth. She flung the cushion from her bed and jumped down, racing across the room to where she knew the door in the mirrors hid. While the crowd continued to laugh, she located the thin dark slit in the otherwise perfectly-placed wall and dug her claws into it. Just when she thought her nails would snap, she managed to pry the door open an inch. With renewed abandon she forced her fingers through the gap and tore it open the rest of the way, then darted outside. She grabbed the handle on the other side and slammed it shut, breathing heavily.

The voices ceased, the laughter snuffed out like a thousand candles. When she peered back through the transparent door, the room was empty. No more reflections of herself staring back; just the room repeated into infinite.

As if she'd killed them all.

The cargo bay was completely silent as well. She raised an ear, but could hear no one else in the room with her—only the sounds of machinery humming and faint equipment beeping in the shadows. Odd, she thought. They'd never left her alone before…

19 stood by the door to her cell, looking out at the large storage room. She brushed her hair back and rubbed her wrists, trapped in her own indecision. She couldn't stay in her cell doing nothing any longer; she couldn't even stand the sight of herself. She needed to make things right. She needed to make up for her failures.

Her pulse quickened, blood drumming in her ears while she worked up the courage to do what came next.

She set out on her own, creeping through the bay. She passed the unmonitored equipment hooked up to her cube-shaped cell, and the one next to it. The second box was similar in shape, but unlike hers with its walls of glass and mirrors, its panels were black and opaque. No light shone from within, and the white, fluorescent lights of her own cell barely reached its partitions.

The box had been there as long as her own, as far as she knew. She'd always been curious about its contents. From conversations she'd overheard, she knew it was intended for 28 once they captured her—but for some reason the scientists continued to monitor it as often as they did her own…

She passed the black-colored box and hurried to a desk along the adjacent wall. She opened drawer after drawer, flinching when they shrieked or slammed too hard back in place. Finally she found what she was looking for: several muddy-orange bottles that rattled. The white labels read "Krystal lysergic acid".

Shoving as many of the bottles as she could into the neck of her blouse, she tiptoed to the entrance of the maximum-security hold. The bright light from the hallways shone through the open door. In the threshold she stood and listened, but only heard the voices of two soldiers patrolling the hallway outside. They soon disappeared around a corner and out of earshot, leaving the hallway clear.

19 poked her head out and looked up and down the outside corridor, but it remained empty. She crept outside and made her way through the ship, hallway after hallway, pausing at each corner and listening intently before turning it.

In this manner she reached the storage closet undetected: the same one where she'd hidden with Bill and Makepeace while Ariki gloated in the ship's bridge. She ducked inside and began scouring the floor, desperately searching.

Then, she found it: her broken collar lay on the ground behind a crate. The lock was mangled and useless, leaving the two halves dangling loosely open.

With shaking hands she stooped and grabbed the collar. Her paws trembled all the way till she'd placed the device around her neck again. She released a sigh, and the shaking stopped. The collar felt comforting around her neck, grounding her in a world that was chaotic and unpredictable.

But when she let go, the two halves sagged apart, threatening to fall from her shoulders. Quickly she reached up and held the ends together, but it was no use; the collar was broken beyond her ability to repair.

Growing scared again, 19 clamped the pieces together and rushed back out of the closet. She didn't relax till she'd traversed the rest of the ship and made it to Bill's quarters. Once inside she flipped the lights on and shut the door behind her, feeling safe from any patrolling soldiers, but still not quite safe from herself.

She ran to the shelf where Bill kept his gear. Sure enough, his tactical knife was there; he'd retrieved it from the closet floor, but no one had bothered with her broken collar.

She unsheathed the knife and studied the blade; the dull, black steel reflected little of the light, but she knew it was still sharp.

The Cerinian brought the knife into Bill's bathroom and set it down on the counter beside the sink. She reached into the neck of her restrictive gown and fished out each of the brown bottles, lining them up on the other side of the sink like Bill's soldiers. She snatched one up and popped the cap before dumping several pills into her palm. Without drinking between doses, she downed two, then two more; four was the last number that Makepeace had given her, and she dared not give her more. She hesitated for a moment, staring at the handful of pills. For good measure she placed one more on her tongue and swallowed. She didn't give herself time to think or hesitate; it was already done.

19 chased the pills down with a plastic cup of water, then gripped the sides of the sink and stared intently at the knife. For a few seconds she felt nothing but anxiety. Then the pills hit, as if her stomach had dropped like a sack of bricks from the Justice. The vixen swayed in place, but steadied herself on the sink. When she recovered, she returned to glaring at the knife.

Her mind began to seep out of her pores. She felt beyond her fingers: the spotless surface of the sink, the plastic, cylindrical shapes of the pill bottles, the firm hilt of the knife, and the razor-thin edge of the blade.

She grasped at the handle with her mind, trying to feel every corner and indentation, every line and plane that composed its physical shape. When she felt confident enough, she sucked in a breath and tried lifting it with all the might her thoughts could muster.

The knife didn't budge.

Frustrated, she scooped several more pills off the counter and tossed them in her mouth. Then she returned to trying to move the knife.

It didn't so much as twitch.

She repeated the process, taking more and more doses each time before trying to lift the knife like Bill had asked her. Rinse and repeat.

Over time she lost track of how many pills she'd swallowed. The first bottle was empty, so she moved on to the second one. Whenever she moved, it felt like her stomach rattled as much as the bottles did.

She gnashed her teeth, sweat forming on her brow and dripping down her face. Her knuckles turned white while gripping the sink. Her head trembled. Her veins bulged.

Yet the blade just lay there, taunting her without moving.

Why wasn't it working? It had been so much easier before—so effortless! And when she broke free so many weeks ago, in the dark labs beneath the sunless planet, it was harder to stop using her powers. Now she couldn't even lift an object as small as her fist…

She looked up into the mirror and was greeted by another reflection of her pitiful face. For a minute she stared intently into the other vixen's eyes, as if trying to read her own thoughts. But an odd sensation came over her; it felt like she was the reflection, staring back at herself and watching her body move from afar. In fact, she wasn't sure she was the same vixen she saw in the mirror anymore. She was no longer in her body, but outside of it. She couldn't feel anything through her fingers and skin. She watched herself move as if from the eyes of a stranger, microscopically-focused on her every failure and incompetence.

19 was confronted with the fact that she'd never be helpful again. She would never be able to please Bill: his desire for perfection, how he kept his quarters orderly, and how he kept his entire ship run. She was the one thing holding him back—the speck in his mirror. She was his cage.

Then, another thought came to her, and her pulse spiked even through the sedation. She looked down at the knife. If HE were still alive, she knew how he'd reward her failure. For there was only one way to absolve herself…

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After a night's rest, Miyu insisted on returning to her ship in case Bill came to look for her. With the strange Cerinian's help, she set out from his little cave and began the short trek across the desert. What she hadn't counted on, however, was for a sandstorm to billow up in their path.

The lynx shuffled forward, footstep by footstep. Her boots sank several inches into the blue-black grains, and with every second they remained to hold her footing, the storm seemed to pile more sand atop until it nearly buried them.

Anake stayed by her side every step of the way, supporting her. He lent her his strong shoulder over each difficult dune, and when the storm began to kick up, he shielded her face with his cloak.

"Is it always like this here?!" she shouted above the howling wind.

'Not all the time,' his thoughts answered back. 'Normally the desert is an uneventful place. But I feel that these aren't normal times as of late. Here, let me try something…'

The Cerinian furrowed his brow beneath his hood, and a path opened before them in the broiling clouds of sapphire sand. Like the waters parting around the keel of an invisible ship, the dust split off in two directions, bypassing them on either side.

"How did you do that?" Miyu gawked.

'The same way everyone else here does…'

Struggling up the next dune, Miyu shook her head. "Cerinians never cease to amaze me. Before I came to your planet, I was skeptical of your powers and the rumors I'd heard. Then, in the span of a couple days, I've witnessed a pair of your species take on squadrons of trained fighters, my wounds magically healed, and a storm parted right before my eyes."

'You seem very interested in Cerinians. Tell me, before we reach your people… what is your mission here? I understand if it must be kept secret, and I don't mean to pry, but it's not every day I meet an alien like you.'

"Can't you just read my mind?"

'I could, but I won't do you like that!'

Miyu panted for a minute, fighting to crest the top of the next dune. Once she stood at the top, their path turned downhill, and it was easier to trudge forward and think.

"I guess I owe you that much. In fact, perhaps you could help. We're looking for a girl of your species; she's a research subject we saved from a mad dictator. We uncovered many of his projects, and one of them involved experiments with your people. All I know is the girl's a powerful Cerinian—maybe just like you, or even more so. But unlike the others, she's… more stable, they say. Apparently that's rare among the rest of the subjects. I'm sorry I can't explain anymore; I just know she's important. You see, I'm only a lieutenant—they don't tell me everything."

'What of the girl's parents?' Anake's thoughts came. 'Can't you take her back to them?'

"Her parents?" Miyu repeated dumbly. "I never thought about that… I think she's an orphan. In fact, I think all the others left in Lylat are, too."

'All of us are orphans of this planet, more or less,' he thought dourly. 'And what awaits her back in Lylat?' he pressed. Unlike Miyu's ragged breathing, his thoughts were unhindered by their steep climb. 'What are their lives like as… "research subjects"?'

Miyu frowned, thinking it over. All she had to base her assumptions off was what she'd seen of 19, and what little she'd overheard from the scientists.

"I'm afraid I don't know. They seem… lost. Each is kept under constant guard or sedated so they can't hurt anyone with their powers."

'The lives of the Cerinians in Lylat seem pitiful.'

"Maybe, but it's not by our choice; it's necessary. And there may be no need to keep them captive any longer. They used to be weapons of the enemy, but I'm confident that once we… return Cerinian 28 to Lylat, the others can be released. Maybe even rehabilitated."

'Hmm… Well, I wish the best for my brothers and sisters across the stars. Perhaps their coming to Lylat was a blessing in disguise, if it lets them escape the wastelands of their home. I hope they find happiness in the new world.'

Miyu's ears raised as she had an idea. "You could come with us!"

'Heh, what?'

"Lylat's a beautiful system," she explained. "There's Corneria with her shining cities and green gardens, Aquas with her sparkling seas, and Katina's rolling fields of wheat—that's where I was born."

He smiled, for Miyu's warm thoughts were contagious. 'Those seem like wonderful places. I sense you're homesick?'

"…Maybe you're right. When I was younger, I thought those places were boring; I took them for granted. But after nearly losing them in the war, and after coming here, I appreciate them more than I used to. I bet you'd appreciate them as well if you saw them. So why not come back with us?"

'Well… I'll consider it. It's no small decision, leaving one's home behind—even if it's burned to the ground.'

"Then at least meet my captain and the head of the scientists with me; I'm sure they'd love talking with you!"

Anake smiled sadly. 'We'll see. But, on the matter of the missing girl…' His eyes darted over a cloud-covered mountain range in the distance, barely visible through the storm.

'…Tell your captain he's wasting his time. He's better off looking elsewhere. I've been over these sands and mountains a hundred times; there's no one here but me.'

The going was slow thanks to Miyu's injury and the shifting sand beneath their feet. The Cerinian seemed interested in all the advancements in technology that separated Lylat from his world, but he inquired no further about her mission. Then, in half an hour's time, they met a particularly-steep dune littered with fragments of molten sand hardened into crystal.

'The battle took place just ahead,' Anake informed her. 'The storm seems to end on the other side of this dune. You should have a clear view of the plain from the top.'

When they neared the crest he slipped Miyu's arm from around his shoulder and held her hand to keep her steady. 'Are you strong enough to walk on your own?'

"I think I can…" Miyu took two steps towards the dune's peak, finding to her amazement that she indeed had the strength. Balancing precariously on her own, she peered at the sky past the dune. "You're right; the storm does end up ahead. Come on! I hope they didn't already return and leave without me…"

With renewed hope, Miyu half-stumbled, half-crawled up the rest of the dune, the ground leveling off and the walls of dust thinning around her as she went. She shielded her eyes with an arm, but bright sunlight began to seep through; the eddies of sand had subsided. When the ground began to lower again, and the sand quit pelting her front, Miyu's arm faltered and dropped away.

On the other side of the dune, the storm was non-existent. She could see clearly down onto the plane where the Justice had been ambushed. Very little of the towering crystals remained; most had fallen and shattered across the desert, returning to the tiny granules of sand from which they were formed.

Miyu's heart leapt for joy; there above the middle of the desert hovered the Justice, unharmed save for some scratches on the underside of the keel. Shuttles had already descended to the planet's surface, and tiny figures milled about the wreckage of the other ships destroyed in the battle. Hers was the closest fighter to where she now stood—close enough to make out the people standing around it.

"Bill! Fay!" she shouted, cupping her hands over her mouth.

The figures looked up to survey the landscape. Fay noticed her first and pointed. Miyu could hear her squeal of joy all the way from the top of the dune. They sprinted up to her, with Fay leading the charge and Bill close on her heels. When she drew close enough, the spaniel threw her arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly, as if afraid she'd disappear again if she let go.

"Miyu! I can't believe you're alive!" she cried.

"I'm a little surprised myself," Miyu admitted while laughing with relief. She winced and clutched her side where the debris had impaled her.

"You're hurt!" Fay pulled back and brushed Miyu's hand aside, wincing when she saw the bloodied bandages underneath. "That looks terrible! I'll call for a medic!"

"Are you alright?!" Bill panted when he reached her side.

"All things considered! I got this during the crash, but I don't remember if it was from the explosion or the impact of my ship."

Bill hung his head in shame. "I'm so sorry—I shouldn't have fired that missile! I should've known the Cerinians would turn it back on us!"

Miyu shook her head. "No, it's not your fault Bill; how could you have predicted that?"

He sighed. "I don't know… but I still wish I'd been more careful. I should've prepared us better."

Fay knelt by Miyu's side to examine her wound. "Looks like something pierced you! Was it a piece of shrapnel?"

"Yeah, but it's not in the wound anymore, and it's clean for the most part."

"How did you manage that?" Fay gasped.

"Now that you mention it," Bill continued, "I'd like to know as well. Even after the accident, you somehow managed to pull yourself from your ship, crawl away from the battlefield, patch yourself up, and hobble back all by yourself. That's just… that's amazing!"

Miyu smiled, blushing at his praise. "Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. You see—"

She turned around to introduce them to Anake—but when she looked back, she was surprised to find the storm had completely vanished. The dust lay settled on the ground with only a distant haze signaling the squall had existed to begin with. But most confusing of all…

Anake was nowhere to be found.

Several miles of rolling dunes stretched out behind her, all the way to the rocky ridges in the distance where the Cerinian had housed her. There was no sign of him; even their footprints were gone, erased by the storm.

"Miyu?"

"What's wrong?" Fay asked.

By now the last of their trio, Dr. Makepeace, had caught up. Unlike Bill and Fay, she maintained a calm, steady pace up the dune. She stopped a few paces off and looked at Miyu curiously, awaiting her answer like everyone else.

Miyu began to feel dizzy. Her head dipped, and she held it in her hands. "That's funny, I could swear…"

Then it clicked. Anake didn't want to meet them. He didn't want to leave the planet, no matter how battered and bruised it was. But perhaps most of all, he didn't want his life to become like the other Cerinians in their charge. Like 19…

"I… I'm sorry," she stumbled. "My memory's kinda hazy. I don't feel completely there right now."

"But you couldn't have done all that by yourself, could you?" Fay pressed.

It was finally Makepeace who came to her rescue. "Lieutenant Lynx is tired after her harrowing experience. She has likely suffered trauma as a result of the crash and needs rest. We should question her no further now."

Before the others could object, a couple of paramedics climbed the dune and laid a stretcher out for Miyu. Bill and Fay took her arms in theirs and helped lower her onto it. The paramedics lifted her up and began carrying her off down the dune, careful not to slip on the shifting sand.

Brow furrowing in confusion, Miyu craned her neck to see behind her, but could catch no sight of Anake on the quickly-disappearing wastes; not before she descended further down the hill and the dune rose to block her view. But before she looked back, her eyes locked with Dr. Makepeace's. In them, a mysterious fire twinkled back at her.

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With Miyu in tow, and the bodies of the downed fighters recovered, the shuttles returned to the Justice. Bill stayed with Miyu all the way to the med bay, ensuring the surgeons got right to work patching up her wound, though when he left it seemed like they had little work to do. Through some miracle, the lynx's wound had already sealed itself. Miyu was better at first aid than she ever let on, Bill thought.

With his lieutenant rescued, the bodies of his men reclaimed, and minimal likelihood of other dangerous Cerinians being in the area, Bill finally let his crew rest. He planned to set out the next day and pick up the fallen strand of 19's lead.

But on his way back to his cabin, Bill got a call on his wrist unit. It was Makepeace's voice, and she sounded worried.

"Captain, Cerinian 19 is not in her cell."

Bill slowed to a halt, stopping in the middle of the hallway. "You mean you've lost her?"

"I mean there was a lapse in security. Someone left her unsupervised and now she's missing from the cargo hold."

Bill sighed and craned his neck back. Just when it seemed like he could finally catch a breath…

"Then we'll have to search the entire ship. She'll turn up eventually—that is, as long as she didn't stow away on one of the shuttles to the surface."

"It's possible, yet unlikely; someone would have noticed if she flew down with them. I'm convinced she's still aboard the ship."

"Alright. Have your scientists comb the areas around the cargo hold. I'll have my men search the rest of the ship." He paused to think for a moment. "Check the closet where we hid from Ariki. I'll check my quarters; those are the only two places that come to mind."

Bill ended the connection and paged Lieutenant Baines, who stood at the ready in the bridge. He quickly explained the situation, and before long the beagle put out a general call for the crew to stay on the look-out.

By the time Bill reached his cabin, the rest of the ship bustled with activity. Relieved to have a moment alone in his room, he shut the door behind himself and leaned back against it. He exhaled deeply, already feeling the stress of the past few days evaporating—but he only allowed himself a few moments of respite before pushing off the door again.

That's when he noticed something strange; he heard water running in his bathroom, and his quarters felt humid. He noticed a pale layer of condensation forming over the glass in the room: exposed display screens, photograph covers, and medal cases. The bathroom door stood ajar and the light was on inside, with soft steam seeping through the crack. Was someone… using his shower?

"19?" he called, but his voice was drowned out by the running water.

Checking again to make sure the cabin door was closed behind him, Bill pushed the bathroom door gently open and stepped inside. He felt a bit apprehensive about what he might find.

Sure enough, his Cerinian charge stood in the shower stall, the water turned on full blast. Her straightjacket-like outfit lay discarded on the floor, leaving her only clothed in a set of modest underwear—and still her collar, of all things to keep.

At first Bill gawked, taken with her beautiful, mysterious appearance once again—but shame quickly took hold and he averted his eyes. Why did she have to use his shower? He knew she had her own facility, and her caretakers regularly saw to her hygiene.

"You shouldn't be in there," Bill said, raising his voice. He averted his eyes again when they began to wander back, but noticed a collection of medication bottles and white pills scattered on his sink. He frowned. Was she supposed to take those?

He turned back to the vixen and noticed she was trembling; her hand gripping the temperature knob. If the water was cold, what had made all the steam?

Throwing modesty to the wind, Bill approached her. "19, are you alright?"

But behind the wall of mist, she ignored him.

Swallowing, and feeling quite awkward, Bill worked up the courage to lay a hand on her shoulder.

To his surprise, the water felt cold: excessively so. The spray of the shower stabbed into his hand like icicles—but the longer he held his paw beneath the stream, the more he realized it wasn't cold at all. Quite the opposite was true, for the water was scalding hot and started to burn his hand.

Bill recoiled and pulled his paw back. It came away bloody—was that his?

He gawked at 19, wondering how she ever could withstand the heat, and especially for this long. He glanced down at the temperature knob, which the vixen had turned all the way to the extreme end: as hot as it would go. And yet her knuckles still turned white as she clenched the knob, obstinately trying to turn it more.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted. He shoved her to the far side of the shower, out of the cone of the burning water. Hurriedly he wheeled the knob off, his hands smearing something red and sticky on the surface—but to his shock 19 growled and flung herself back at the knob, trying to twist it on again.

This time Bill had to wrestle with her, forcing her back against the shower wall and pinning her arms in place with his hands.

"Are you out of your mind?! You're burning yourself!"

"Burn…" she repeated, as if recognizing the word; for in the weeks she'd spent aboard the Justice, she'd constantly picked up more Cornerian. "Burn… burn all away. All she's done. Burn all of her. It feels good. It feels."

The remaining steam lifted like a curtain, allowing Bill to see her clearly. The steel shower basin around her feet was covered in tie-dye-shaped streaks of blood leading into the drain. His tactical knife lay discarded at the bottom as well, similarly-stained. When he studied 19 more closely, he noticed spots of red etched into the skin beneath her fur.

Filled with dread, Bill slowly let go of her wrists and spread apart the fur on her chest, getting a better look at one of the collections of streaks. There, just beneath the surface, was a crude Venomian word carved into her skin. It was upside-down from his perspective, but would read easily if 19 looked down at it. The blood was fresh and stained his fingertips red.

Horrified, Bill spread apart more tufts of her fur, revealing other Venomian words she'd chiseled into her flesh. They were hard to make out, and he had little knowledge of the language, but he had seen enough graffiti during the war and learned enough cathartic expletives of that harsh tongue to understand their meaning. They were derogatory pejoratives: every one.

"It washes away…" she murmured.

The image of the red streaking down her purple fur reminded Bill of when he'd rinsed the blood from her coat in the laboratory showers, somewhere beneath the ruined planet's surface. She was trying to do the same again, this time on her own. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't wash away the first coat that had forever dyed her fur purple.

Jaw lolling open, Bill looked up into her eyes, but they stared right past him, pupils glazed over and vacuous, focusing on nothing at all.

He released her, and she sank aimlessly to the floor, not even caring to stand. Suddenly it all clicked in Bill's head. The straightjacket. The soft, padded cell. The one-way mirrors and constant surveillance. The scientists weren't worried 19 would break out and hurt them with her powers…

They were worried she would hurt herself; that their creation would attempt its own destruction.

Their little lapse in security had nearly cost 19 her life. Her skin was scalded with first degree burns and would soon begin to peel beneath her fur. On top of that she seemed to be physically numb, perhaps mentally too from her empty expression.

Finally Bill recovered from his shock. He spun the shower knob back on, but kept the water on icy cold to soothe 19's damaged skin. He didn't even care that the water doused his uniform as well.

For a few minutes Bill stood there, letting the water cool 19 down. He braced himself against the shower wall with his arms, staring down at her pitiably. He was feeling the weight of the past few days crushing his shoulders again: his frustration with finding 28, the battle with the Cerinians, matching wits with Ariki, and now dealing with 19. He hadn't slept for the past 24 hours, and before that he had little shuteye either.

He felt drained.

Bill turned the water off and reached for his towel. The last rivulets of water dripped from 19's fur down the drain, washing much of the blood with it. He stooped and offered her his hand. When she didn't accept or even acknowledge it, he took her arm anyway and lifted her up. She made no move to receive his towel either; just kept her head hung low and her empty vision towards the floor. So instead Bill set to work drying her himself. For the most part her wounds had sealed, the blood coagulating beneath the surface. The white towel came away with blotches of red, and any water it soaked up from her fur stained it pink. While he worked, 19 just stood there, accepting it.

When he finished, he bundled her in the towel and led her to his bed. He sat her down at the foot, then sat some distance away so he could look at her. He thought about notifying Makepeace and calling for medics, but he wanted to be alone with her before he did. She had come to his room to escape her handlers. She had come to him. At least, that's what Bill thought; what he worried the truth was. But he had to know, before the others arrived to watch them.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, voice softer this time.

The vixen stared across the room towards the door for a few seconds, though her eyes looked as if they were focused on something past it. She stayed silent for a few seconds, which then dragged on to minutes.

"Why?" Bill repeated.

She began rocking backward and forward, ever so slightly.

"It's her," she finally said.

"Her?"

"Her fault. This is her fault. She deserves this."

She? As far as Bill knew, confusing grammatical persons wasn't a translation quirk—not for Venomians, anyways.

"Why does she deserve this?" he asked.

19 continued to speak in a monotone voice; so quiet it was nearly below her breath. She had difficulty forming the words with her limited knowledge of Cornerian, often lapsing into Venomian, but Bill did his best to parse what he heard.

"She deserves this. She failed. She couldn't find 28. She led you to your enemies. She couldn't kill them. She couldn't use her powers to save you. You nearly died. So she is worthless. She is meinsau."

Without looking, she paused to trace one of the words she'd etched in her skin—it lay beneath the towel, out of sight, but she felt it.

"She tries being perfect. Perfect like you. Your room. Your clothes. Your cleaning. You are always cleaning." She rubbed a paw down her purple-furred arm. "But 19 is never clean. That is her punishment. She deserves this."

As she spoke, her eyes became glassy until they watered. Tears broke forth, and for a while she silently cried, yet without a hint of a sob or tremor in her shoulders; only tears and eyes that looked beyond the cabin door to somewhere in the past.

For a time Bill watched her, frozen. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what was appropriate, or how to show affection. He wasn't taught things like that in the Academy, or officer's training. His father, in whose footsteps he'd joined the military, had always been distant. He never had serious discussions with him, and his parental figure during training had been whoever his commanding officer was. His birth father, his flight instructor, his captain, and now the general; they were all interchangeable. He'd never known love from them; only discipline and perhaps pride, but pride in their own work for how they had molded him.

He thought about saying something, but there was nothing he could. His words would never reach her, cutting through miles of time to wherever her mind lived now—especially if his words came through the synthetic voice of a translator. Nor could he directly broadcast his thoughts like Ariki had.

Bill cursed the fact that they were nothing alike. 19 was a complete alien to him; a being he didn't understand, and he was sure he seemed an alien to her as well. They were left with no means of communication or interface. They looked different. They spoke different and thought different. Their memories and experiences were nothing alike. They couldn't relate. He was the captain; she the prisoner. Hundreds of such walls stood between them like an infinitely-recursive prism, or a trick of a hall of mirrors. There seemed to be no way through.

When Bill had exhausted all other lines of thought, there was only one thing left for him to do, even if he'd never had practice.

He scooted across the bed and took her in his arms, holding her.

It felt awkward. It felt stiff. It felt wrong. He didn't know what he was doing. It had worked for everyone else he'd witnessed do the same—but 19 showed no signs of acknowledgement: no reaction. She just loosely sat in his arms, not fighting it, yet not reciprocating it, either. He could no longer see her face with his head above her shoulder, but for all he knew, her hollow, distant eyes still gazed somewhere far away.

She didn't feel like she was there with him, so he hugged her tighter, willing her to come back and return to him. It seemed as if her soul held onto her body by a mere few strings, and was at risk of breaking away entirely, robbing her of all identity till she really was just a number.

And then, the moment he felt like giving up hope, she changed. Her body weakened and sagged in his arms, and she leaned into him for support, chin coming to rest on his shoulder.

Gingerly she tried to put her own arms around him; and that's when it became clear to Bill that she was just as alien to hugs and just as starved for intimacy as he. She'd rarely embraced someone before or been embraced herself. She didn't know what to make of it, how to receive it, or how to return it.

But she tried.

Swallowing the stone in his throat, Bill commanded in the same tone he might use with his troops, "You are not to hurt yourself again… understand?"

A soft sob wracked her body. "Yes."

"You are not to blame for anything that happened. There was nothing you could do. You are… you are perfect the way you are. Do you understand?"

This time she didn't answer, and Bill realized changing her view of herself wouldn't be so simple as a few firm words.

He wet his lips. "At least promise me this: the next time you feel this way, have Dr. Makepeace or someone take you to me. I'll be here for you. Will you do that?"

She sniffed. "Yes."

Bill sighed and relaxed a little, a bit of his weariness from the past few days seemingly lifted off his shoulders.

He allowed 19 a few more moments alone with him before he called her handlers. For the time being she had returned, and seemed whole again—or as whole as she could be. While his presence comforted her, Bill's thoughts grew troubled; for this was the legacy Andross had left them, the torch Corneria had seen fit to carry on even after his death. Not only was it a dangerous game they played, as he had witnessed firsthand with the other corrupted Cerinians; it was also an unscrupulous one. To condemn a girl like her to a life of misery for a nebulous project meant to restore the system's former prosperity… Was it worth it?

Bill's blood ran cold. Lightyears away from Lylat, his commander, and the people he served, he was beginning to question why he'd come here. When Pepper had explained it to him, it made so much sense, like it was the only possible way forward. But now that the girl he had to sacrifice was in his arms and bleeding, and the idea of a project to save all of Lylat seemed but a distant dream, he felt doubt creeping in.

And doubt, they told him, was a cancer.

Now Bill had the unshakable feeling that the litany of sacrifices he had to make was only just beginning.