Warlord Vaughn at the Ascension of Mother Isabel III
Nothing has changed in my personal quarters. The floor is waxed to a shine; the sheets are tucked tightly into the corners beneath the mattress; the livecam screen shimmers with the starlight beyond. Yet everything feels different.
It is mine, just as I left it an hour ago, but there is a spirit of wrongness in the air of the room; I am the ghost who haunts it.
When I finally find my strength, I drop the bag of underclothes onto the mattress. It would take no time at all to unpack, but I cannot bring myself to do it. Do Captain Saito and Aunt Marshae expect me in the chapel today? I remember the captain’s words, commanding everyone to work. There will be no handouts here.
But no… I have no strength of will to perform any duty expected of me today.
Where am I to go from here? Perhaps it is like Aunt Marshae says, and this is the Goddess’s punishment for being so willing to abandon my life among the stars. I had hopes of being anchored to one captain. Naively thought of myself like Sister Marian, the first Mother, and her lover in the Canon. But now that Arturo has abandoned me, I am unmoored, a Sister with no captain at all.
I’m sorry, I pray, hoping the Goddess will listen when she has turned a deaf ear to my prayers for so long. If you wish for me to stay on the Juno, then that is where I will take root. I gather each and every wish to leave the Sisterhood, place it in a box deep inside me, and lock it away with my other childish dreams: for a family, for a trade, for a life of my own choosing.
Your will be done, I tell Her.
I focus on the new: Saito Ren is the captain. I do not want to lose my rank as First Sister. I must regain the white armband, symbol of the captain’s claim, so that the entire crew does not expect services from me.
Goddess, I do not want to be forced to warm hundreds of beds. Please don’t take this rank from me, I pray in desperation. But I know, even as I ask, that the Goddess does not bargain; I cannot say “Let me do Thy will, but only if it is as First Sister.”
No, for that I must work…
I give myself another minute to cry before I wipe the tears away. After a quick look in the mirror, I pinch my cheeks to give my blanched skin spots of rosy color. I dressed well in the pale gray sheath of a Sister when I prepared for my supposed departure; it will suit me when I visit the captain.
I must make up for my behavior this morning. I need Captain Saito to think that I am happy here on the Juno, that I am ready to serve her as I served Arturo. I must be careful with every glance and twitch of my lips. If I am careless, she will see through me for sure, and I will be demoted before I can even try to remedy the situation.
But how much am I willing to commit to her? I gave Arturo everything, believing him to be my way out. But all my giving, all my support and long nights spent at his side, were for nothing. He spat on my dedication and left me behind. Cast me aside when he was done using me. Will Captain Saito do the same?
It feels as if the Goddess Herself answers me: Does it even matter?
No. Even if Captain Saito gave me the captain’s armband and I kept it for a mere year, it would be better than living without, an open target of any soldier’s desire.
I have but one choice: I must do anything I can to keep my place and impress Saito Ren.
* * *
“PLEASE, TAKE A seat.” Saito Ren motions to a chair across from her expensive, real wooden desk. The seat is not quite as plush as the one she sits in, but all who visit the captain must know their place.
I smooth my skirt beneath me as I settle, doing my best to ignore the rest of the captain’s quarters. The room is a blank canvas compared to when Arturo inhabited it, devoid of all personal touches, a screaming testament to his departure. I remain as the sole evidence of his lie.
There is no concept of night in space, but the Juno runs on a clock synchronized with Earth and Mars, and Captain Saito is clearly off duty, her navy Gean uniform fully unbuttoned so I can take in small details of her—the rise of her breasts, the sharp carvings of her collarbones, the faint scarring toward her left shoulder. She’s handsome for a woman, her jaw square and eyebrows thick in an unfeminine way that somehow suits her. But her lips are soft and smile freely, and her black eyes shimmer in the overhead lights with a hint of mischief.
She’s young for a ranked soldier; there is an insipid hopefulness in her gaze that has yet to be sucked dry by age and experience. But she’s very young for a captain. She must have done something brave to receive this honored posting. If we Sisters were not tucked away on starships, hidden away from the rest of the cosmos, I’m sure I would know of her exploits already.
I’m considering how to ingratiate myself to her when Captain Saito steeples her fingers, and my eyes flutter to her hands.
One hand is flesh-colored, the other the stark white of tech.
So she lost something to become captain of the Juno. I hadn’t even noticed the prosthetic earlier that day because of my distress over Arturo.
“How are you faring, First Sister?” Captain Saito gestures at me with her flesh-and-blood hand. I tear my eyes away from the robotic one and meet her gaze. “You seemed quite distressed earlier today. I worried over you.”
Words. All words. Captain Saito’s tone is dispassionate, uninterested. Her eyes roll over her desk instead of me. I doubt she gave me another thought after this morning.
I show her my best smile and look up at her through my lashes, like a shy young girl. Perhaps she will forgive my rudeness this morning, or forget it completely, if I make a good impression on her now.
“I want to meet with as many of the Sisters on the Juno as I can,” Captain Saito says, looking at a slim compad. Most likely Aunt Marshae has already provided her with a list of eligible Sisters, their current ranks, and pictures of them. “I’d like to learn more about you before I make any decisions.” She finally meets my gaze. “What are your goals here on the Juno?”
I smile to keep from grimacing and let my eyes wander to the wall behind her as if considering the question. I want to prove my usefulness to her. If I can’t, I could be not only on my way back to the cramped living conditions the other Sisters have but right off the Juno. I could be sent to another starship, one of Gean make with poor artificial gravity, and start as the lowest Sister, where I would know no one and have no allies. And at twenty, in my prime years for working my way up the ranks, I cannot start over.
But Captain Saito is a soldier, and soldiers are all the same; they ask us questions as if they really care about the answers, then talk big about helping us poor, hopeless Sisters, promising they’ll give us whatever we want so that we will pray to the Goddess on their behalf. And at night, they press hot kisses to our thighs and pray to us instead. They don’t care a single credit for what we really want.
Because what I want is not to have to do this.
I slip from my chair and lean my hip against the desk. It is the exact same desk that Arturo used, bare of a single personal item, and I know exactly how to slide onto the slick surface and pivot so that I turn and find myself face-to-face with Captain Saito, my legs on either side of her chair. When I take her in, she’s straight-backed and stiff.
“Stop that,” she protests, voice barely above a whisper.
My deft hands reach for and release the first three buttons of my dress, baring my neck, my collarbones, my breasts. I’m reaching for the next button when Captain Saito slams a fist on the desk.