Chapter 13: Absence and Ash

  S12-CUT 202.3.28397.36

  Resolute 0410 19.03.2244

  Regrets were made.

  My head felt like a crater that morning. Dry mouth, cotton behind the eyes, stomach threatening to turn inside-out with every step.

  I didn’t remember getting back to my quarters the night before—only the echo of laughter, the sting of drink, the clink of glass on glass—fragmented memories of dragging Eli to his quarters by his legs, myself and Rhai laughing.

  Whatever solitude I’d found in Bulkhead Nine last night had soured into a hangover that felt like capital punishment.

  But I remembered the defiance. I remembered the vow. No mouthguard. If she wanted to beat me, she’d have to do it properly. On my terms.

  That thought carried me down the corridor like armour I hadn’t earned. Clearing the headache.

  0418.

  I arrived on time. Just like always.

  My stomach twisted with nerves, but my mind was far clearer than it had been the day before.

  I wasn’t here to beat her.

  I was here to endure her.

  But on my terms.

  And that made all the difference.

  I sat on the exercise bench, elbows on knees, nursing my splitting skull with one hand and squinting at the wall chrono with one eye open.

  My jaw still ached. My ribs still burned. Bandages pulled under the edge of my training shirt.

  The room was clean — not sure who had done it. I was grateful not to see the blood again.

  The clock hit 0430.

  But Zeth didn’t show.

  That was strange.

  She was never late. Not once. Not in all the brutal, bone-breaking mornings we’d shared.

  Her absence felt wrong—not just unexpected, but unnatural. Like the floor had shifted under me and no one else noticed.

  The chrono ticked past 0435. Still nothing.

  Vanguard officers are never late. Not ever. And especially not Zeth. She was precision carved from steel, always present, always brutal, always on time.

  A flicker of something— Confusion? Disappointment? —tightened in my chest.

  Part of me had expected her to be waiting. Maybe even hoping she would be.

  After the night we had, I wanted something clear. Concrete. A hit to the ribs. A shouted order. Something grounding.

  But she wasn’t here…

  I sat for a while, staring at the wall, letting the nausea dull and the disappointment simmer.

  Then I stood. Pacing.

  Energy boiling under my skin.

  After all that—my arm, the blood, the tooth, the damn bed with my name on it—she didn’t show?

  At 0450, I left the gym.

  I found her just after 0900.

  Section 3, Deck 4. A side corridor outside Tactical Subsystems.

  It was a strange place to find her—halfway between public and private areas, outside the secure walls of her office and territory. Like she’d gone looking for solitude and couldn’t quite make it all the way there.

  She was seated at an old lab-desk tucked against a wall. From the distance, her large frame looked strangely small. Slumped. The corridor was poorly lit—had clearly not been used in years.

  She was sideways to me, looking down at her personal H-interface on the table—screen glowing, illuminating her face. But she wasn’t typing. Wasn’t reading. Just staring at it blankly, like she didn’t see it at all.

  Like whatever she was looking at wasn’t on the screen—it was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere far away.

  But after she missed our session, and after hours spent searching for her, I was seething. Bewildered and furious.

  I stopped a few meters back, face in a scowl.

  “Commander,”

  She didn’t move. Didn't blink.

  “Ka'Rina.”

  I said it flat. This was a sharp breach of etiquette—addressing a superior officer by name alone. For an Ensign to greet a commander like that? It was deliberate. Provocative. And I bloody well knew it.

  I frowned. The silence, the stillness—it wasn’t like her.

  It just made my blood boil.

  She was ignoring me! After all that?

  I didn’t stop to consider the glassy look in her eyes—flickering at the edge of something she couldn’t blink away—or how she hadn’t moved a muscle since I’d entered the corridor. Or the fact she was hardly breathing. Just staring at the H-interface.

  I didn’t see someone lost in thought. I just saw absence.

  Absence from her responsibilities.

  Absence from me.

  And all after what she did to me?

  My attitude stunk with the hangover—my headache was splitting—but in that moment:

  she really pissed me off.

  I walked right up to her, my footsteps purposefully loud in the quiet corridor.

  No hesitation.

  I stood just to the side of her desk, looming over her like I had the right to be there. But she didn't look up at me.

  My voice cut the air, sharp as a knife.

  “You missed our session.”

  After a moment, she turned to me—very slowly.

  Her eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them. Struggling to move in the sockets.

  Not from lack of sleep. From something else—

  like the kind of tired that lives in the soul, in the shadows behind your eyes.

  “You should be resting,” she said, voice quiet and distant—like she wasn’t speaking to me at all.

  I clenched my jaw. My fists.

  Something inside me coiled, hot and rigid.

  It had been simmering since the gym. Since she didn’t show.

  Since the blood and spit and the silent promise I’d made to show up ready to bleed for her.

  “You don’t get to tell me that, sir.” I said in a low voice, shaking my head.

  She blinked once. Slow.

  She looked at me—blankly. Infuriatingly so.

  “Varr, you don’t have what it takes. Go home.”

  Then she shook her head slowly, then looked back at the interface. Still once again.

  At first, I was dumbfounded.

  My jaw dropped.

  It wasn’t a taunt. It wasn’t rage. It was almost... hollow. Like she believed it.

  Like she was giving up on me.

  I didn’t have a home...

  And after what the Captain said yesterday…

  After all I had been through…

  It hit me like a slap across the face. And then it came.

  The words I’d been holding back boiled over. All of it.

  Anger. Confusion. Shame.

  It broke me. And I snapped.

  “You don’t get to fucking say that!” The words tore out of me, sharp and shaking. Uncontrolled.

  “After everything you’ve done to me—every bruise, every broken bone—you don’t get to quit on me now!”

  Her shoulders tensed. Slightly. Like she’d heard it before. Like she expected it.

  But I didn’t stop.

  “You put your faith in me. You are trying to build me. You don’t just walk away and abandon me because it’s hard. Because it’s too much.”

  At the word abandon, tears came to my eyes.

  And that did it.

  My voice rose, spilling louder with every word.

  I didn’t care who heard! I wanted them to hear!

  “You think you’re the only one with issues? The only one fighting something inside? I earned tomorrow! I bled for it! I don’t have a home to go to, Zeth! You don’t get to take that away from me!”

  She didn’t move.

  She didn't even look at me.

  People were looking now. Heads out from doors in the adjoining corridor. From Tactical. Even someone from Ops paused mid-step to stare. Eyes wide.

  Well, let them watch! Let them see what she made!

  “You’re a fucking coward Zeth!”

  Zeth moved.

  Faster than I could react.

  By this point I should have known better.

  Her hand ripped into my collar, lifted me clean off the ground, and pinned me to the corridor wall near the ceiling.

  The sheer force stunned me.

  But not just the strength—but the precision.

  The restraint just beneath the violence.

  I looked at her in horror—expecting the blows to come. Wincing.

  Then her voice came low.

  Quiet. Controlled. But on the edge of breaking.

  “Shut up.”

  The hallway froze.

  “Shut up. And rest.”

  I could feel her grip tremble. Just barely.

  But not with exertion. Not with anger.

  Her eyes—usually like molten metal—were empty.

  Not blazing, they were clouded…

  Something cracked beneath that hard shell.

  Something deep. Recent. Raw.

  I didn’t know it then, not in my state of self-centeredness. But something had shattered behind those eyes. Not from me. Not from anything I’d said—or could have said.

  It was something else—older, deeper. A weight she couldn’t shake. Not this time. Not for someone usually so strong and steady.

  She was trying to bury it. To cage it behind that armour of rage and routine.

  But for that instant, it cracked. Just enough to see the fracture line in her mask.

  And then I saw it.

  Her eyes—very slightly—began to tear…

  And they looked… black…

  Like I was looking into a void.

  Then—she let go.

  I slid to the ground with a thump, landing hard on my side, shoulders slamming into the deck knocking the wind out of me—but I barely noticed.

  I was looking up at her—in disbelief. Her eyes weren’t just distant: They were light-years away…

  Not distant with indifference—but with absence, like she wasn’t even there. It was unsettling.

  Like darkness had hollowed her out, leaving only the shell. A husk.

  And what was worse: she wasn’t even looking at me. She was still staring at the wall straight ahead—arm raised, claw open—not at me crumpled on the floor.

  She just stood frozen—absent, worryingly vacant. Her silence hit harder than any blow ever could.

  Slowly, she raised her other hand. And wiped under her eye. She looked at her fingers—at the tears—and slowly rubbed them together between the fingertips.

  Her mouth opened.

  And she looked… scared. Terrified.

  Then without warning she turned away. Without a word. Without a glance.

  And walked away.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Her steps were slow. Shoulders rigid. Like she was holding something inside that might fold inward if she moved too fast.

  She turned the corner.

  And was gone…

  Leaving only silence in her wake.

  I just looked on from the floor where I landed—mouth open and completely bewildered.

  Eyes followed me as I walked from the scene. Thankfully, no one said a word.

  They didn’t gamble it. I was still furious.

  After everything. After the days of brutal drills, the split lips, the bruised ribs—how dare she just disappear!

  How dare she sit there in silence, like none of it mattered. Like I hadn’t given something up for her every single day!

  How could she abandon me? Like, I hadn’t earned the right to understand!

  And for what anyway?

  She still refuses to tell us what we’re training for. Won’t say who—or what—we’re being prepared to face. She just breaks us down, then breaks us again, like it’s all some unspoken rite of passage!

  Every wound we carry is wrapped in silence.

  Every morning feels like punishment for sins no one will name!

  There’s no context. No reason, no rhyme. Only pain.

  And for the first time since I arrived on this ship, I considered leaving.

  Really leaving.

  Blast it! Filing the transfer. Calling it quits! I could walk away before this spiral took more of me. Before I became the thing I saw reflected in her eyes.

  But the idea hurt even worse than the bruises. Because leaving would mean she’d won. Accepting that I was a failure, broken.

  But I wasn’t broken. Not yet.

  And now, she vanishes—shuts down like a machine on standby, unreachable. Like she’s allowed to retreat into silence while the rest of us bleed and stumble forward blind and scared? Like we’re supposed to guess what’s wrong with her—all while she won’t even give us the truth?

  I wasn’t going to back down on this. This was bullshit.

  It made me furious.

  It made me dangerous.

  After what happened that morning, I didn’t want to see her face again—didn’t want to be in the same gravity well. But duty didn’t care about bruised egos.

  I threw on the uniform, grabbed my kit, and made my way to Deck 5 for shift rotation.

  But I didn’t see her. No one did.

  She didn’t show up to the bridge, or the security wing, or anywhere she was scheduled to be. Her name blinked off the logs like it had been swallowed.

  People whispered, but no one asked questions out loud.

  Not about Zeth. They didn't dare!

  That day for the first time, I was formally assigned to security detail—defence systems calibration and maintenance. Standard procedures, or so it was supposed to be.

  I needed a break from training. From her. Away from my more usual day job—recovering in Medbay.

  For me, it was a rare opportunity to see more of the ship. Just corridors, nodes, circuits. Familiar Vanguard steel and systems under unfamiliar light. It almost felt like breathing again.

  Routine on paper. But nothing about that day felt routine. The lighting was too sterile. The air, too still. My mind too shaken.

  Thankfully, I was paired with Eli—running diagnostics on the ship’s external defence relay shielding.

  The crawlspace outside the secondary array node on Deck 19 was dimly lit, the hum of subsystems vibrating faintly under our boots and above our heads.

  Toolkits were propped open around us, illuminated only by the sharp beam of my torch, and the smell of scorched circuitry lingered from a blown conduit someone forgot to log.

  The new upgrades were supposed to tighten security responses during attacks—hull damage sensors, weapons integration, field containment measures.

  These were the kinds of tasks the Helion Academy had prepared us for—dull, but essential. Diagnostics. Field readiness. Boring, meticulous work that kept the ship from flying apart under pressure. I knew what I was doing.

  And for once, it felt good to be competent at something that didn’t involve bleeding.

  But standing there, hands deep in dusty panels and cold wiring, it didn’t feel like preparation anymore. It felt like fortification.

  Like the Resolute wasn’t just getting ready for a fight—it was bracing for a war it already knew was coming.

  Eli didn’t say much at first. He just handed me a utility-scanner and started pulling access panels like he was on autopilot—moving too fast to think. Or feel.

  For such a talker, It really wasn’t like him.

  Normally, he’d be muttering jokes about Zeth or Rhai, or mocking the engineers who we found had routed electrical conduits through a ventilation shaft.

  But today—nothing.

  And his posture was off. Sluggish. Wrong.

  Khevarin didn’t even get real hangovers. They needed twice as much drink for that—even if we carried him to bed.

  The silence stretched between us, filled only by the soft ping of my H-interface and the low buzz of the wiring above.

  I kept expecting him to say something. A jab at me. A joke. Anything to cut the dead air.

  But there was nothing.

  Just the hum of subsystems that didn’t care how angry I was—or how wrong the ship felt in her absence.

  Then, halfway through the alignment sweep, he looked at me sideways—ears stiff, his whole body tense.

  And just from his look cast in the torchlight, I knew. Something was wrong.

  "…You hear about Zeth?" He said, quite plainly.

  I was almost surprised that he spoke—but the topic, that still annoyed me. I didn’t want to talk about this today. But anything was better than more silence…

  I grunted, begrudgingly. “Yeah, she didn’t show up to training this morning.”

  Eli gave me a look—concern flashing across his amber eyes.

  "I heard… And?"

  I didn’t answer right away. Just kept my eyes on the scanner, pretending the circuitry might offer an escape.

  But I could feel him watching—those sharp amber eyes, reading right through me, predacious and unflinching.

  “We got in an argument over it,” I said quickly. Irritated.

  His expression shifted. Eyebrows up now, ears back. Surprised, maybe even a little impressed.

  But then anger, tightening his jaw—teeth grimacing. And I knew why.

  In the Vanguard—or any commonwealth service—that wasn’t just insubordination. That was career suicide—the kind of thing they log in your permanent record. The kind of thing that follows you to tribunals.

  Eli shook his head, expression darkening—a complete absence of his usual toothy grin.

  "You need to be honourable, Varr. Not stupid. There's a difference."

  I didn’t answer. My jaw locked. My eyes stayed glued to the H-interface’s readout, pretending it didn't matter.

  I was still furious, still burning from the morning. But I tried to let it go.

  Finally, I shrugged.

  "She started it, Eli."

  Eli slowly rubbed his eyes with his claws, leaning back against the paneling, grimacing like I'd said something rotten.

  "Started it? With Zeth..." he muttered.

  "That's either the bravest or the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, Human."

  He didn’t say which one he meant. But the concern behind his eyes told me everything.

  Then something changed.

  Eli straightened, his ears snapping high, his expression hardening into something else—something sharper. Enough that I half-expected Zeth herself to be crouched just behind me. Ready to pounce.

  He hesitated, glancing down the corridor—eyes and ears scanning for anyone nearby.

  When he faced me again, I caught it. A look in his amber eyes—heavy, guarded.

  And then, for the first time, something I didn’t think Khevarin could feel.

  He looked scared.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this Varr,” he muttered, voice dropping to a low growl—softer, more cautious than I’d ever heard it before.

  “It’s not my place to tell, but you deserve context. And I think you need to hear it now—before it gets any worse.”

  He leaned closer, arms crossed tight against his chest, jaw locked.

  His eyes pinned me—unsettling, unblinking.

  “The reason Zeth's been... like that this morning—it’s not just stress, Varr.”

  My eyes narrowed.

  “It’s grief.”

  I looked at him, surprised.

  “Grief?”

  He gave a slow nod. Considering me deeply—his face stern and very serious, and highly unlike him. Probably, considering whether to continue.

  But after a pause, he did.

  “Varr…, she lost her best friend last night.”

  “K’arreth.”

  My mind went back to our times at Bulkhead Nine—Eli had mentioned him. But was very careful not to say anything further.

  I still didn’t know who he was, not really…

  He let the name hang there for a moment, watching my face.

  When I didn’t react, he nodded slightly—ears flicking in confirmation, that I really didn’t know.

  "K’arreth wasn’t just a colleague or a comrade—he was her other half in the field Varr. They fought together in the Viren War. Later in Vanguard Special Operations. They were inseparable."

  "And now he's been torn from her life. Ripped away. That kind of loss… it doesn’t just bruise, Varr. It reshapes you."

  My eyes narrowed. The weight of it settled over me like a moldy cloak—dark, grim and uncomfortable. Yet I stared at Eli with fixation, listening carefully.

  "They were close. All the way through the Academy. Practically raised each other through training. Same squad, same dorm. She used to spar with him every morning, back when it was still sport, not survival."

  My breath tightened as he spoke.

  It was starting to click now—the vacancy in her eyes, the way she stared through me earlier, not at me. Like her mind had slipped somewhere else entirely.

  "They fought together in the final skirmishes of the War," Eli said. "Frontline special operations. Hostile zone extractions. Missions where you watch people die right in front of you—and you kept moving anyway. Horrible shit."

  I pictured her in that war—younger, leaner maybe, but just as fierce. Maybe fiercer. And K’arreth beside her, laughing in the face of a Viren assault, daring death to try again. I could almost see it quite romantically—the two of them in worn battle armour, boots caked with ash, covering each other’s backs in the smoke and chaos. Not just soldiers. Kin. Brethren.

  But Eli just looked at me, darkly—shaking his head. Almost like he was reading my thoughts.

  "She even fought during the Battle for Gjallarhull—the reconquest of my home planet," Eli continued.

  "You know that from your history, right? I was too young to remember, a refugee to Earth. But the Viren—they enslaved my people. Killed thousands of us for our rare earths—the star-metals found only on Gjallarhull."

  He hesitated. His voice roughened, dropped lower—almost to a whisper.

  "Including my father."

  His ears folded back, a rare, stark expression settling on his face. Eyes quivering slightly as he looked away.

  And for the first time, I understood him—not just as a friend, but as someone who carried the same kind of wound I did. I thought of my own mother.

  And in that moment, the anger I'd been nursing cracked—just a little. I didn’t feel furious anymore. I just felt terrible for him. Why hadn’t he mentioned it before? But then I remembered—I never talked about this stuff either. I couldn’t. It was too painful.

  I drifted for a moment—then looked back at Eli, now steady once again.

  "Varr, I knew of Zeth’s service history before I enlisted. She was a damn hero at that battle. Both her and K'arreth. That’s why I honour her so much. Why I wanted to train under her. Ashur’na truly breathes within her. From the tales I was told, the look in her eyes, and how she trains—I believe it so."

  He looked away again for a moment, the words heavier than the gravity between us.

  "She helped give us our home back."

  I just looked at him. My own expression darkening.

  I knew the history. I'd studied the battles, memorised the sickening casualty figures, passed the tests. It was a hellscape.

  But hearing it here—with Eli standing in front of me, living proof of the cost—hit different. It cracked something open I hadn't realised was sealed.

  And somewhere deep inside, buried and shameful, I felt it:

  Guilt.

  Guilt for ever glorifying that war in my mind. Remorse for forgetting that behind every victory were mass graves with no names. Bones never found. Ashes blow in the wind. Families erased from history, except in the memories of those still damaged.

  I swallowed hard, and for once—sensibly said nothing.

  “But six months ago,” Eli said, speaking quicker now—like a confession, “they were split apart. K’arreth was given command of the A team. Zeth was ordered to stay behind and lead the B team—us.”

  My eyes widened. My blood went cold, like I’d been plunged straight into icy water.

  We’re the B team?

  B team. Not just the second wave. The expendable one.

  I didn’t interrupt. I just nodded—slowly—listening very carefully now. Trying not to show my panic.

  But Eli exhaled through his nose—sharp, almost animal.

  He could read me like a book, and probably held the same fears. We looked at each other in acknowledgement.

  But then his expression—if it was even possible—darkened further.

  “Vanguard Command forced the separation," Eli said. "Said it was necessary. Redundancy. Tactical efficiency. For the mission we’re being trained for now. They left just three weeks ago. Aboard the HCS Sargon—Interceptor-class ship, just like ours.”

  Three weeks.

  My stomach dropped like a stone.

  Three weeks wasn’t enough. Not for veterans. Not for a flagship like the Sargon—equipped, experienced, and crewed by veterans.

  I knew the service record. The Sargon was a flagship. Whatever hit them hadn’t just overwhelmed. It annihilated. Efficiently. Quietly.

  I didn’t even know the Fold travel times to their destination. Even that could take weeks…

  Three weeks.

  And he was dead.

  Eli shook his head slowly at the thought—his ears stiff as stone. He could see that I understood the gravity of this.

  His silhouette cast in the torchlight now looked exactly like an Egyptian monument, being uncovered from a tomb.

  "She was furious, Varr," he said, voice low. "Everyone knew it. Furious in the way only someone who’s fought and bled beside another can be. She never wanted to leave him.”

  "They weren’t just colleagues. They were bonded. Brother and sister. Twin blades forged in the same flame. Torn apart, not by failure. Not by drift. But by orders.”

  He met my eyes, flashing amber. His voice dropped to almost a growl.

  "Orders. That sent him to his death.”

  "Any idea how that must make her feel?”

  And it all made sense now.

  It hit me like a punch to the face. Sudden. Sharp. Searing.

  That look—it wasn’t distance. It was absence. Utter and hollow.

  She had been completely lost. Like a part of her had been ripped out and thrown into space.

  She was mourning. But not just the loss of a comrade. The loss of the one person who had always been there. Her anchor. Her mirror. Her blade-arm.

  And I... I had screamed at her.

  I called her a coward.

  I couldn’t look at myself—I felt so fucking foolish.

  I saw it all now, in my mind’s eye. The way she sat that morning, slumped in the corridor, staring at the screen like it didn’t even exist. Her once-golden eyes glazed. Pupils blown wide like they were swallowing the absence of it all.

  And then tears in her eyes—how she seemed to lose control.

  It hadn’t been anger. She was broken.

  A woman forged by war—and for the first time, unable to lift the blade that had kept her alive.

  And worse—She hadn’t even been there.

  Hadn’t been by K’arreth’s side when it counted.

  After years of fighting shoulder to shoulder—years of being each other’s shield in blood and fire—she’d been forced to stay behind.

  Trapped by duty. Shackled by orders.

  Preparing us while the person she trusted—held tight most—was sent to die without her.

  That hollow stillness I saw in her—it wasn’t strength.

  It was grief.

  But worse, it was guilt.

  The kind that crushes even the strongest, not with a blow, but with absence.

  She didn’t just lose a friend. She lost the chance to save him.

  And maybe, somewhere in her eyes—I was part of that loss. A waste of time, a replacement she never wanted, a soldier she didn’t believe in.

  That vacancy wasn’t distance. It was everything she couldn't save.

  And maybe, just maybe—Resentment.

  For being stuck with me.

  Eli continued, dragging me back from the haze—sharp, rough, demanding.

  "…that’s the kind of history they had," he said. "Forced apart. And now he’s gone."

  He shifted, sighing through gritted teeth with a chuff—ears back.

  "K’arreth’s team went first," he muttered.

  "And now they’re gone. All four of them. KIA."

  My eyes widened in horror: They all died.

  Eli’s voice roughened to almost a growl.

  "They weren’t just good, Varr. They were lethal. The best."

  The hum of the conduit deepened—vibrating inside my ribs.

  In the torchlight, Eli looked grave. I must have looked worse.

  "They were the first to engage whatever’s out there," Eli said, voice low, dangerous.

  He leaned in, amber eyes cold and unblinking. "Command’s panicking," he said. "Quietly. But badly. I saw the Captain earlier—he looked shaken. And McCarthy’s the most stoic human I know. Nothing rattles him. Not even Zeth."

  I stiffened—not just with fear, but something colder, deeper.

  I thought of Zeth's drills. The bruises. The blood. The way she stared through me like I wasn’t even there.

  And then the truth hit me.

  We weren’t just being trained. We were being prepared. Prepared to die trying.

  Eli’s voice dropped to a brutal whisper.

  "We’re the second wave, Varr. The only wave now. Zeth’s unit—the training, the brutality—it’s because of this. The specifics of it. I guess there’s nothing else left standing between what killed them... and us."

  Silence closed in—heavy. Suffocating.

  "And it’s coming soon," he said, voice like iron. "We were meant to have months of training ahead, but now—I'm not sure how much time we have."

  I sat with it, feeling it burn a hole straight through me.

  Then finally, voice raw, I managed to ask the real question.

  I didn’t want to ask. I needed to.

  "Eli," I said, barely above a whisper.