Goddess, oh Goddess. I look at my Auntie, who looks at me, her gaze softening as she meets my eyes. My knees give out beneath me, and I clutch Ringer for aid. He holds me up, his hands burning through my dress. “First Sister,” he mutters in a tone better suited to a child.
“Bring the traitor up here.” Captain Saito motions to someone offstage.
I fear for a moment that they will come for me, that somehow, impossibly, Captain Saito has discovered I am to spy on her for the Mother. But no one grabs me. No one’s face even turns in my direction, and instead all watch as two soldiers march onto the stage with Second Sister held between them.
Second Sister, her black hair a tangle about her pretty face. Her cheeks pink and puffy, blotchy with tears. Her amber eyes ringed in purple shadows.
Third Sister makes a pained noise low in her throat. No, not a noise—it can’t be a noise—just some sort of exhalation against her shock.
“Observe,” Captain Saito says, “the Icarii spy.”
I release a shuddering breath. My traitor’s heart swells with relief. Captain Saito does not yet know about my assignment, then.
The two soldiers position Second Sister in the middle of the stage and release her. She does not move. Though she hunches into herself, she does not even try to escape. She’s surrounded by soldiers with railguns on their backs. She knows her fate.
“Though she was once a respected member of this crew, Second Sister was caught trying to smuggle information to a third party later identified as Icarii sympathizers,” Captain Saito says, and Third Sister presses her hand to her mouth, stifling a soundless cry. Our fellow Sisters’ eyes shine with tears like stars.
Was she? I wonder, and try to catch my Auntie’s attention. Is it true? I furrow my brows, but Aunt Marshae dips her chin to hide her expression. Her words echo in my head. I feel it necessary to say that if you are caught, it will be you who takes the blame, not the Sisterhood.
A tear slips down my cheek, as cold as my heart.
Second Sister was the kindest of the Sisters to me. I remember her words in the elevator when we believed I was leaving with Arturo. Much luck in your future. She had wished the best for me, regardless of what I had stolen from her.
“Second Sister, you are no longer a member of the Juno.” Captain Saito’s voice finally takes on the sinister quality I have been listening for. Her tone matches the anger of her words. Second Sister’s face silently contorts into another round of tears, but Captain Saito ignores her, as if it is all theatrics.
Everything about our captain shouts a warning: Do not fuck with Saito Ren.
“Is there anything you would like to add, Aunt Marshae?” Captain Saito gestures to our Auntie with her prosthetic hand.
Aunt Marshae looks every bit the authority she is as she stares down Second Sister. Her sculpted auburn hair curling at her chin; her ironed gray dress, its scarf sweeping elegantly around her shoulders; her eyes, tearful but not overly so—all speak to a woman who cares for us Sisters, but also one who has hardened her heart to do what must be done. “I mourn what has happened beneath my very gaze, sorrowful that a girl could be so swayed as to court the enemy.” But there, her expression falters; the edges of her lips lift ever so slightly into a smirk, her eyes hardening like gemstones, and I feel, for but a moment, I have glimpsed the true face of my Auntie. “But the rules are clear. Strip her.”
Second Sister’s legs give out, but two soldiers pull her upright, holding the weight of her body between them as Ringer does mine. Then they grab her dress and pull, and the thin silk parts, the sound of ripping filling the air as they bare her for all the Juno to see.
I do not look away. I cannot, for this shameful fate could also be mine.
The soldiers release her, each holding a portion of her tattered dress, but Second Sister does not fall again. She does not hide herself behind her hands. She cries, but she also lets them look. Lets them see her as she is before the Goddess, without adornment. Men shake their heads in scorn, judging the body they so happily prayed to not a day ago. But she keeps her shoulders squared, even if the rapid rise and fall of her breasts reveals how scared she is.
Captain Saito doesn’t give the order. It’s Aunt Marshae who waves the soldiers forward. They snatch Second Sister’s arms hard enough to leave bruises and half lead, half drag her—she tries to walk with them, stumbling to keep up—not toward the exit of the docking bay, but to the deep-blue hermium shield, the shimmering wall that protects us from the vacuum of space.
Goddess, they’re going to do it here. Now. In front of all of us. My breathing comes quicker, and I press a hand to my diaphragm. I count my inhales, as if I can control the terror this way.
“ ‘For those who sow betrayal shall reap death.’ ” Aunt Marshae quotes the Canon from memory. But she does not cite the second half of the verse from the book of Works: But those who confess in the name of the Goddess shall be forgiven. She ignores that part.
There will be no forgiveness today.
The soldiers throw Second Sister against the hermium shield, and she lands with her hands pressed against it, instinctively catching herself on the energy wall made up of microscopic bots. Their programming specifies what they allow to pass through their barrier, though now, glowing dark blue, the wall is solid. But Second Sister only has time to turn her face toward us—red, tear-streaked, defiant—before one of the soldiers presses a button and the shield lightens, signaling that everything but essential gases like oxygen can pass through the wall.
Second Sister straightens. As the soldiers step toward her, she knows what they mean to do. Instead, she looks to her Sisters and raises her arms like wings. As if to take flight. She opens her mouth, but of course, no sound comes. Instead, she makes a hand gesture that only we Sisters would understand.
Trapped, she signs. Trapped.
“Seize her—” Aunt Marshae starts.
With her face twisted in a silent scream, Second Sister jumps.
She breaks through the barrier like it is thin ice over cold water, slipping into the black void beyond.
My mind fills with a detailed awareness of what is happening to her now, all remembered from the mundane safety demonstrations on every ship I’ve served on. Instead of counting my breaths, I count her seconds.
One, two, three…
She exhales immediately. At least her lungs will not burst, but it is a hollow comfort when it will give her only a few more seconds to live.
Four, five, six…
Her mouth is caught in a scream, her blue eyes wide with horror, and the moisture on them boils in the deep freeze.
Seven, eight, nine…
Her skin swells and blooms with bruises as the liquid inside evaporates.
Ten, eleven, twelve…
Her body violently jerks with convulsions, her hair floating around her like spilled ink.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…
She stops moving. Hangs limp in the lack of atmosphere.
But she’s not dead. Not yet. No, she’s just blacked out.
Now she will turn blue with a lack of oxygen and her blood will boil, though she won’t be awake to feel it. But I wonder, is that more merciful?
Her body follows its initial motion, floating farther and farther away from the ship. The Juno has stopped so that we can all witness this, and Second Sister keeps going, nothing to halt her. All hopes of saving her disappear as I make it to two minutes.