That Epilogue I Promised You

Epilogue

Ennis Rezál, The Third Daughter

[Shields at forty percent.]

Are you happy, Nez? Are you happy now that everyone’s dead?

You, a self-proclaimed saboteur, are nothing but a martyr, and martyrs by their nature must die— a design flaw of sorts. You thought it noble. I find it stupid and wasteful. All empires fall. It’s only natural. But name an empire, Nez, whose head, when severed, did not spawn two more in its place. A brief study of history would remind you that empire and rebellion come as crests and troughs. What do you think my Mother’s dying empire will spawn? What new horrors will emerge from the grave?

We won’t have to wait for long to find out, now, will we? The hangar echoes with dull rumbling. No people here to muffle the noise, no, you made sure of that. Your last fuck you hasn’t gone unnoticed by me—an outgoing call to all Breakaways in the quadrant to target my ship. I should have had it jammed, but then again, I should have slit your throat much earlier as well. I should have kept you off my ship and rotting away in your dump of an apartment. But you have a way about you, Nez, you’re good at poking people, getting them riled up.

Were.

You were good at it.

And now it’s just me, and the smell of decomposing bodies around me, and your awful blood, your familiar blood, soaking at my dress uniform. Frankly, this is not the first time I find myself sitting amongst the dead, but it’s certainly the first time it will mean anything in the grand plan of it all, so, congratulations.

There’s only one place I can stand to be right now and it’s certainly not the deck. Your wide-open eyes stare at the ceiling of the hangar. I should kick you in your too-clever head, but instead I only slide you from my lap. Was there a single time you didn’t look up at me with veiled contempt? Even now, irises glassy and hollow, your eyes judge me. I’ll leave them open, so you can gaze upon your handiwork.

Rest here. Bask in it.

This is the last time I’ll see you. They, nameless they, will collect your body, scrape what they can from your mind, spin you out, extract what relevant information there is. What’s left will be nothing but code, numbers upon numbers on a glowing screen. Organized. Neat. They’ll never know the mess of a person that was you, the spite that animated every single decision. They’ll never know how you moaned into my mouth as you came. No, that’s just for me to know. Another secret I take with me to my grave, which should come sooner rather than later if luck smiles down on me. I think they, those same they, mess with our brains when they print us, the Daughters, so that we don’t fear death. Not that I need it.

Onwards. Through the emptying corridors, drenched in red lights and echoes of the klaxon.

Onwards, to find a place to loiter a minute or two before I’m made to face eternal rest. I look forward to not hurting. I’m sure you did too.

From the very first moment I became aware of being myself I sensed there was a rot at my core. You’d say that all the Rule’s Daughters are rotten, how else would they so willingly smite entire systems whose only wish was to be independent, but you’d be wrong. We’re not some murder machines, Nez. You felt this. You knew this. We are capable of affection and gentleness, of fear and regret. Neither you nor Kaya could fully comprehend that all three of us were not so different. All three of us had murder in our veins. You praised yourself for being righteous, but how capable would you have been of sabotage if only your uniform was a little nicer, your bed a little softer, your food a little fresher? Kaya’s moral qualms were settled with reassurances that she’d be taken care of in retirement. What would you sell your morals for?

No, don’t answer that.

I’d rather think better of you.

I’d rather sit here and watch the stars go by.

This room still smells like you, like us, like a brief reprieve from this ugliness. The floor rumbles beneath me. Another hit. Our shields should hold for quite a while, but even they have their limits. Even I have my limit.

I used to tell myself a beautiful lie that Kaya and I could build a different life if we could survive this one. There would be an old house with a red door somewhere in the countryside. There’d be a barn and animals, and a vegetable garden. Can you imagine that? Me, in a vegetable garden? Can you imagine this different life? You could stay with us in this imaginary homestead. We’d make breakfast with fresh eggs and get jealous of one another every other day of the week.

Another hit.

[Shields at thirty percent.]

—and falling. Or should I cut them now and spare us the suspense?

What happens then? The ship is blown to bits and gone is the pride of the Rule. Gone is the Third Daughter. Gone is the hope for victory. What remains in its place? What legacy do I leave for textbooks and docu-media? I become another face in a line-up of lookalike faces. I become the same scraped memories, shoved into the next iteration of me. To fight for something long gone. It’s her problem now, whoever she is. I’ve done my part.

[Shields at twenty percent.]

Everything hurts, from my bones to the tendons. It’s all given far more than it was supposed to. I think this body was waiting for you to get here, to end it. How I grow romantic in these moments. A younger me would scoff. Still, I wish we could be awful to one another again, even just once more.

I’m tired, Nez. I’m just going to rest my eyes for a moment.

When I wake up, it will be because Kaya forgot to feed the chickens again and they’re causing a ruckus. You’re rummaging around the kitchen, getting the coffee started. You’ve misplaced the sugar again. You can never remember where you leave things. There are no warships on the horizon. I’m not the Third Daughter. I’m just me.

[Shields at ten percent.]

There it is, the creeping darkness.

[Shields at five percent.]

Still, this was fun.

[Shields failing.]

Let’s do it again sometime.

END

….or is it?

A small ask…

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Cheers!