Quoted By:
You decide to sleep during the last four months of your journey. After assessing the growth of your crew-clades one final time, you climb inside your hibernation casket. Amniotic hemolymph fills your mouth before pooling inside your lungs – clearer than water, far colder than blood. You lose consciousness to the gentle rhythm of your slowing heartbeat.
<span class="mu-i">This time, you do not dream of crescent-edged blades or ray-edged thrones. You do not see lunar seas running molten beneath the treasonous assault of your own squadrons and gun batteries.</span>
<span class="mu-i">Instead, you remember the captain – on the eve of your first deployment. You had judged him poorly then, considered him sorely lacking in the cardinal traits expected from a fleet commander. As he climbed inside his hibernation casket with reluctant, tarrying steps, you had tasted the distinctive tang of grief upon his skin.</span>
<span class="mu-i">“Time is a tyrant,” he had said. “We may escape her, but our loved ones will not.”</span>
<span class="mu-i">The meaning was lost on you then.</span>
