Chapter 25 Aria
ARIA
In the apartment, silence is a thin shape around me. Garma’s cry rips through it.
Wild. Uncontainable.
I dash to the nursery. The door slams open. The smell of baby-powder and warm tears, the concrete underfoot cold, the blanket twisted half-off the crib rail.
Garma’s tears glint in the lamp-light. He reaches out.
I hold him. His sobs press into my chest. My arms shake. I taste salt on his cheek.
“Shh…” I murmur. “It’s okay.”
My comm device sparks. The little red light flickers. My Meld band lies on the desk. A tiny crack spirals through the casing. I pick it up. Cold. Dead.
In the lab adjacent I race the corridor. The air smells of burnt circuitry. The node on the console is shattered. Blue glass and sparking wires pooled around the base.
My hands move without me. I shut down systems. I breathe.
The link is broken.
The Meld is gone.
And so maybe is everything else.
Later, I sit on the couch clutching Garma. The city outside presses in through the rain-streaked window. I press my cheek against his hair. I think about the lie I told. About the weight I carried. About how I told him he didn’t need to ask—and then asked anyway.
Naull walks in later. Door closes. I don’t look up.
He stands a second and says:
“Tell me.”
I exhale.
“I’m sorry.”
He nods once, quietly. Doesn’t kneel. Doesn’t forgive.
He just stands there.
And I know.
The bridge is not just cracked.
It might be gone.
The recall order arrives mid-morning. Just a cold string of characters blinking on my comm: REDEPLOYMENT TO RHAVADAZ — IMMEDIATE. No pleasantries. No room to argue.
I hold Garma tighter when I read it. The boy’s warm in my arms, still sticky from breakfast, his fingers curled around the collar of my sleep shirt.
He’s making those little humming noises he does when he’s drifting back toward sleep.
I want to freeze this moment. But the universe doesn’t give a damn what I want.
My feet move before I think—habit now. The bag. His shoes. The emergency capsule key I keep in the drawer. I pack without speaking. No tears. Just precision. Just the rhythm of someone trained to move when the call comes. Even when everything inside me is unraveling.
The door across the courtyard is dark. Naull’s room. Quiet. Empty. I know he’s gone before I check. But I check anyway.
A single piece of paper sits on his console. No envelope. Just thick stock, folded once.
“I need to breathe.”
That's it.
Three words. He left three words and nothing else. No goodbye. No explanation. Just silence, like he’s slipped into a void and sealed the hatch behind him. Coward.
I grip the note until the edge cuts my palm. The pain sharpens me. Clears the ache from my throat.
Garma stirs. I force my voice calm.
Come on, little one. Time to move.
We walk the corridors like ghosts. I see other officers, old instructors, students with half-formed opinions and full eyes. They whisper.
“She’s going back?”
“With a child?”
“She was Naull’s partner, right?”
I ignore them. Every step echoes in the sterile white hallways. The weight of the war hasn’t lifted—it’s just taken new shape.
At the logistics hub, I sign the release forms. My fingers tremble just once when I enter Garma’s name into the off-world dependent list. I see the officer on the other side of the desk glance up.
You sure you want to do this?
Yes.
You know what’s happening on Rhavadaz, right? Spectra’s involved.
I know.
He’s just a baby.
He’s mine.
The words snap sharper than I intend. But he doesn’t push. Just hands me the datachip and looks away.
Back at the apartment, Garma plays with a nesting drone core—deactivated, but still humming from his touch. I crouch beside him and trace a thumb over his cheek.
You okay if I mess everything up?
He babbles, slaps the floor with his palms. Innocent. Powerful. Whole.
I pack his tiny boots. His sleep blanket. The teether he refuses to let go of even when he sleeps. I fold each one with care. I sit by his crib while he naps and stare out the window.
The sky is clouded. Gray and sharp like old bruises.
Naull is out there somewhere. Walking his way through whatever grief, whatever guilt, whatever storm his soul can’t silence.
He didn’t even ask about Garma.
Did he already know? Could he feel it?
I close my eyes. I feel that phantom thread in my chest where the Meld used to be. Faint now. Nearly gone. Like a wound still bleeding on the inside, but scabbed over on the surface.
I wanted to tell him. I did.
But I was too afraid. Of what it would mean. Of what he’d say. Of what it would break.
And now? It’s already broken.
Evening falls slow.
The lights in the corridor buzz and dim. Garma is asleep in my arms again, twitching from a dream I’ll never understand. I stroke his back, press my cheek to his hair.
I can’t do this alone.
But I will.
Because that’s what mothers do. That’s what soldiers do. That’s what I’ve always done.
And if Naull never comes back?
We’ll survive.
If I see him again?
We’ll see.
But tomorrow, I go back to the stars.
I go back to war.
With or without him.
And I carry this child—this truth—not as a secret anymore, but as fire.