Chapter 24
NOVA
Swan’s ship breaks atmosphere with the kind of grace that feels cruel.
I watch from the observation deck, alone, arms crossed so tight my ribs ache. The tower is quiet, thick with that eerie stillness that comes before something awful.
The console lights flicker across my face, casting blue shadows. Outside, the sky is soft pink, the kind of color that pretends innocence. But I know better.
Swan doesn’t know I cried last night.
Doesn’t know I whispered prayers to stars I stopped believing in years ago.
Doesn’t know I filed a complaint that ripped a man out of his future and called it salvation.
Kaz should’ve been the one up there.
That thought keeps clawing at my spine.
Kaz should’ve flown that mission.
But he didn’t.
Because I opened my mouth.
The ship disappears into the stratosphere. A silver streak swallowed by the clouds. Swan’s gone.
Kaz is already gone.
And all I’ve got left are ghosts.
I don’t remember walking back to my quarters.
Just the harsh beep of my door lock, the swish of the seal breaking, and the sterile chill of the room greeting me like an old enemy.
A single notification pulses on my terminal.
I don’t want to open it.
I already know.
But I do.
RE: Reassignment Approval – KAZIMIR, D.
Status: Confirmed. Departure: Immediate. No forwarding contact.
My stomach flips.
And then I run.
Not to the comms. Not to the base map. To the sink.
I vomit everything—rage, grief, guilt, bile.
My arms tremble as I brace myself against the counter. My forehead presses to the cold metal. My hair’s damp with sweat. My throat’s raw.
Everything inside me feels broken. Except the one part that isn’t.
Because it’s still there.
The quiet flutter.
The constant, nauseating, anchoring truth.
I press a hand low on my abdomen.
Life.
Kaz’s.
Ours.
I haven’t told him.
I was waiting. I thought… after the trials. After the mess. After we figured out who we were outside of uniforms and missions.
Now he’s gone.
He left with no words.
And Swan…
Swan won’t come back.
I don’t need a prediction model to tell me the odds of survival on that kind of op.
The med wing is empty when I arrive.
Private clearance has its privileges. I sit in the sterile hush, feet swinging off the edge of the exam table, staring at the faint shimmer of the vitals screen.
The nurse is gentle. Kind. Says all the right things.
Healthy gestation.
Early still, but stable.
“You’ll want to consider your options soon,” she says quietly. “Command doesn’t—”
“I know.”
She hesitates. “Do you want to notify the father?”
I don’t answer.
Just shake my head.
Because I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Back home, I pull up the flight sim archives.
His profile pops up first.
KAZIMIR, D. — Ranked Logs (17)
I click.
And then I just sit there, watching the footage. Not the scores. Not the maneuvers.
Just him.
The way his hands moved on the controls. The way his mouth quirked before a difficult run. The intense focus that made the room seem too small to hold him.
I let it play for too long.
Then I start deleting.
One by one.
Not because I want to forget.
But because I can’t keep pretending he’s still here.
His voice. His grin. His damn dumb jokes. His stupid nicknames. The way he held me that night like I was more than just bone and duty.
Gone.
I delete the files.
Then I delete his profile from the wall display—the one I used to keep open during drills, tracking progress. Watching him climb the ranks like a storm rising.
The screen flickers back to standard rotation.
Empty.
Clean.
Cold.
I want to scream.
But I don’t.
I walk to my closet. Pull out the old locket.
It’s tarnished now. Scratched. But it still opens.
Inside, folded so small it’s nearly unreadable, is the note he left after that first night.
No regrets. Just truth.
I read it three times before tucking it inside the locket again.
This time, it stays.
Right next to my skin.
Where it belongs.