Nick woke from a nightmare, cold with sweat. His hands shook, and his muscles were sore from tensing in his sleep. He felt worse than when he went to sleep.

  Images or maybe memories, Nick couldn't call it a nightmare even if he was dreaming. More like a product of his scrambled brain processing memories, nightmares that were real, that had happened.

  His burning hand, shattering glass, moments in the wrong place and time. His canopy didn't shatter, and his hand. Was or wasn't it burned long before he had to eject? The 20th-story window shattered that day. That was the broken glass memory. He had trouble remembering the canopy ejecting away whole instead of the imagined shattering from his ejecting through it. His hands weren't burned. They had healed months before that day he burned his hands on the metal. It was so long ago, but he could smell smoke and hear screams as if he were there experiencing it for the first time. The experience was compounded by the searing smell of smoke and flesh. His stomach tightened, pushing bitter bile into his mouth. The seared flesh hadn't been just his. He tried to shove the imagery away.

  Three hellish moments compounded, too much to think about all at once. How was he supposed to sort through anything? It was progress that he could sort through some memories that were fueling his dream. It was getting easier to cope, and it wasn't half a dozen or more memories or traumas all at once anymore. Trauma, he wasn't traumatized, to Canine, that implied he was dysfunctional, unable to perform. He clung to that lie like so many others. He just needed to get back into work, be busy. The nightmares and his spacing out during flashbacks only started being a problem when he had nothing to do for months of travel. He didn't have time to be broken, and to be seen as such would only get in his way. He had too much riding on him to be sidelined.

  A few minutes passed sitting with his legs floating over the edge. He still hadn't registered that he was still weightless, too engrossed in working through his nightmares. Subconsciously, he registered that Grimoire wasn't under thrust yet. Either only a few hours had passed while he was asleep, or Grimoire was delayed in its departure. He checked the time, breaking his mind from his habitual process of sorting through his nightmares. Trying to grasp an image, smell, or snippet to link to a source memory. Then remember the associated memory as if looking at it in his hand before letting it go. He was still often unsuccessful and felt like a waste of effort. He didn't want to let go or remember. He wanted to forget, but some part of him couldn't let any of it go.

  The dream faded to a blur as he fully woke up. Nick didn't bother writing his thoughts down this time. He just wanted to go back to sleep, even if it took hours to ramp himself down. His pillow was drenched in sweat, and even the Service Automaton's black and white spotted fur was tinged with his sweat. Canine realized the goat like robot hung onto his shoulder. It must have climbed onto him while he was asleep. The base model of the SA was supposed to sit, push, or cling to its patient during nightmares. Canine witnessed firsthand its ability to predict other issues like flashbacks or panic attacks. Much like some service animals were trained hundreds of years ago on far-gone Earth, Nick was thankful he didn't suffer the extreme kind of severe flashbacks like in old Earth movies. At worst, he would just zone out and feel three different kinds of exhausted afterward, like when he was talking to Maria on the shuttle. He hadn't experienced any flashbacks since he got to Grimoire, but doubted the SA would function at its factory setting if the chaotic streak when he arrived was anything to go off of. Who was he kidding? He knew it wasn't going to behave right.

  Canine thought about the short time on Grimoire as he toweled his sweat off himself and the goat. His arm was still sore from his prolonged salute to Captain Abrams. He smiled at the nostalgic memory of being chewed out by instructors. One in particular came to mind. Back during academy days, when Obelisk made him stand at attention and stare at a wall. He had been outside of academy area and so hadn't expected to be dressed down in public. Canine could remember what he had done to ire the wrath of Obelisk, only that he never did it again. From the corner of his eye, Canine could make out Sara smiling at his expense, from shock or genuine enjoyment at seeing an instructor dressing down a cadet like that for the first time. Her stupid, bratty long pig tails jiggled from her giggles. It was months after his surgery, and he thought he would have gotten it more easily as a result, but in hindsight, Obelisk just became more strict and paid extra attention to Canine. Enough to bust him down near the regular school, far from any academy decks.

  “Don't move, don't even blink until I get back,” Obelisk screamed in his face, waving his hand menacingly.

  At the time, the man scared him. To some extent, the man's uncanny nature still did, even if, as an adult, most of the fear had been replaced by respect and appreciation for his former flight instructor. Although word of his promotion into admiralty gave him pause to reevaluate how much Obelisk could affect his life beyond the academy now.

  That time, Canine stayed at attention even after Obelisk had rounded a corner out of sight. Sara had walked up and started to tease him. The moment the very instance that he shifted his gaze to look at her, there was a roar from far off around the corner.

  “I heard your eyeballs move!” Obelisk had no line of sight, no cameras nearby, no way he could have known, but Obelisk knew, and he was charged around that corner to chew Canine a new ass hole.

  Canine smiled at the memory, finding it odd how frustrated and annoyed he was at the time, but how he could laugh at it now. He finished dressing by putting on his shoes, then made to leave his room.

  Sara

  Sara moved lethargically through the hall. She had finished her shift in maintenance, and although she was free for a while, she wasn't eager to get to her room and change like usual. Her mind was churning even after getting the answer out of the flight officer who had escorted her away from Dr. Glenn and Jacket's scam of an evaluation. She still couldn't wrap her mind around all the implications or motives for them to do something so illegal and invasive like that. She found herself wishing that there was a higher power on board the Grimoire that could check the abuse of power. That jacket deserves to be jailed.

  Up ahead, a tall man with short brown hair and a muscular build was exiting his room. He looked around as if he was confused before heading down the hall the same way she was going. Probably a new guy who doesn't know his way around yet. Sara found it hard to stop looking at him, her mind letting go of the frustrating Jacket. The man's skin was the same as hers, but his skin was noticeably more a more lighter, sandy color and vibrant, like he had gone out of his way to get enough sun. Sara was pale from lack of light, like most people, but still similar to the man in terms of melanin. The pale sun-deprived effect wasn't as noticeable as it was on human ancestors' skin colors, like caucasian and asians. Hundreds of years of breeding with a fraction of the old Earth's population had genetically mixed the gene pool to a point that it was hard to even compare Sara and other humans to any old Earth skin tones now. Generations of humans before Sara had the same spectrum of golden, pale caramel skin with smaller variations of light and dark.

  Still, Sara couldn't stop looking at the man a few feet in front of her. Something about his eyes when he had been looking around, Blue iris was more common than it used to be, but everything about the generic-looking man screamed familiarity.

  “Excuse me?” Sara blurted out, a wave of embarrassment coming over her. She spoke without thinking. When the man didn't respond, relief started to push the anxiety away. She was just passing the room the man exited from and looked at the door to see if there was a name put her subconscious at ease. If she weren't floating through zero g, she would have frozen where she stood. Her rigid muscles were tense and unmoving. The door did have a name newly applied with a flight country emblem next to the name Canine Jerik.

  Canine

  Canine was thankful that he didn't have a headache, but still felt groggy and desperate for something to eat. Admittedly, he was still groggy from waking up and didn't register a woman calling out someone's name. Cafeteria, chow hall, food court, or whatever it's called on this ship, I need to find somebody and give me directions.

  “Hey, wax for brains!” The woman yelled. Some part of Canine recognized the way she was yelling the insult. Familiar and melancholy.

  “I said, Nick! Turn around, or are you going to keep ignoring me?” Sara screamed, her voice echoing down the hall like a tidal wave over Canine. He turned around to see a girl, no, a woman with short black hair that floated around her head like a pixie. One look at her face and he could imagine the long pigtails that used to hang past her shoulders. Shaken by the realization and the exclamation still ringing past him down the hall, he failed to speak properly. Happiness and dread at seeing her at war inside him.

  “Sara,” he said, mentally kicking himself for how dull he sounded, lacking any of the warmth he felt at seeing her.

  “You ignoring me, or did you just forget your damn name!” Sara said, her face flushed with anger. Months, Nick, you have ignored everything I said unless it had to do with me going to my parents, or getting off Grimoire.” Sara yelled at him more quietly this time, but just as sharply. Still, people were starting to stop and stare, or debate on taking a detour around them.

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  “I was worried. I didn't want you in harm's way. I’m sorry a lot happened, and I didn't think. I’m sorry.” Canine said. He felt his insides twist. He couldn't explain anything.

  “You didn't even respond when I told you Brian died, Pyre, in case you forget his name too! Weeks before you responded, but again about me leaving Grimoire, nothing about what I wrote you.” Sara spat her words as accusations rather than a question. Her anger boiled like a fog, making her tears well up around her eyes, escape her notice. Canine, or Nick as she knew him, wanted to stop, or run, explain everything, damn his orders, but he felt paralyzed, her accusations like javelins pinning him to a wall.

  “Damit Nick, do you know what it has been like! Nobody could track down any of Pyre's personal effects, not even a body for his family. I needed you. You knew him better than me or Dribble. Did he even matter to you, like what I wanted didn’t matter!” Sara screamed, her tears breaking from her face like little spheres of hurt floating around her.

  Nick was stunned, the numbness replaced by the sights, sounds, and smells. Pyre's body wasn't found because there was no body. The ringing in Nick's ear that had grown louder the more Sara yelled faded. Everything faded. He could feel the jitter in his control stick, the rough crackle of the radio, and the flashing warning lights on his console. He couldn't hear himself speaking. Good, he didn't need to remember what he said. Eject, get out, hold on. His original words translated like over-pressured feelings crushing him from all directions. Pyres prontroma shot up worse than Canines, both limping home almost in visual range of the HDF frigate. Almost home safe.

  Pyre's last words as he struggled with his malfunctioning eject capsule were “Maybe if I ‘jus–” Cut off by the radio's screaming feedback as the bullet-riddled prontroma sparked and ignited an ammo rack. Whatever Pyre had about to say was swallowed by an inferno. His last words pitched into a screeching feedback loop that split Canine's ears before the automated computer shut off the radio instantly. Just as instantly, the fireball that ate through Pyre was snuffed out by the vacuum of space. Nothing left but wreckage flying off in all directions, some pinging off of Canines prontroma.

  Nick was aware of Sara, the spectators, and the cold of Grimoire's hallway. In a way he still didn't know how to describe, he moved towards Sara, navigating the zero g of the hallway, simultaneously feeling the thrust from his ship and shrapnel from Pyre's death. The warmth of his vacuum suit contrasts with the cool of Grimoire's interior. The sound of Sara’s voice was unintelligible, even if he couldn’t process her words. He could still function. He wasn't impaired, he told himself. He could never let himself be. He still made himself work even as his heart tore apart at seeing another friend die. As if he was experiencing it for the first time again.

  Sara stared at Canine with more clarity and awareness than he could muster. He felt like he was observing himself from the outside, a dissociative effect he had experienced more than a handful of times. His body went from a rigid posture to a hollow look. The anger and fight in him burned him out. His eyes looked through her, the light dimming in his eyes. He started to move towards her, and as he looked away from her, it seemed that no matter where he gazed, he was looking hundreds of kilometers out in space at something not even Grimorie’s sensors could detect. He felt like he was disconnected from the moment, as if he really was hundreds of kilometers away. She reached for him, her hostility burned out. Her hand almost closed on him, but he drifted by, just out of reach. She could make out fragments of his mumbling.

  “I didn’t know,” and “It’s my fault,” He whispered before disappearing into his room. The hallway was still for a moment before the traffic of people going to and from resumed. Nick's door stayed open, dark and foreboding. Sara drifted closer to it, about to look in when he reemerged holding folded paper. An envelope wasn't something Sara had seen in person many times. A digital world that wasn't much use for paper. Nick looked a little more lucid, meeting her eyes with the Haggard look on his face that made his dark circles under his eyes more noticeable.

  “Pyre’s last correspondence to you. I have others since Command wouldn't let us send them digitally, and they have so many gag orders in my mouth I feel like I can't breathe sometimes. Still, I could have said something, anything. I’m sorr–” Nick was about to apologize again when Sara snatched the letter from his hand to make way. She hugged him so tight she knocked the air out of him.

  “It's good to see you again. I’m sorry too.” Sara said. Her hug knocked them back into his doorway out of the increasing traffic from the shift change. Nick felt the lingering confusion from his flashback evaporate in her embrace. He hugged her back on instinct despite his initially confused hesitation from her sudden change of demeanor towards him.

  “I still don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, it's been so long. How have you been? I should have written to you more. That's my fault, I should have… I should have done better. I’m sorry. I failed, it’s all my fault.” Nick babbled, and as he floundered at trying to talk in person to her for the first time in years. She couldn’t shake the uncanny feeling that he wasn't apologizing to her, or for anything to do with them. Just as soon as she noticed the odd tone in his apologies, he stopped. Moving her to arm's length, he brushed his fingers through his hair. Sheepishly looking at her. Blush tinted ears from embarrassment. “It's just really good to see you despite me.” He said.

  “You owe me still for all of that. You're going to make it up to me,” Sara said. Her anger was gone, but her tone was unyielding.

  “Can I start by buying lunch, or dinner, whatever time it is on the ship. I don't know where to eat yet. You could show me.” Nick said, touching his stomach.

  “Oh, yeah, I can show you, but you are buying me food for that. You still have to pay me back with more than a simple meal.” Sara said.

  “What if I shorten my payment using your old I owe you?”

  “Go fuck yourself! All those years back when I was still going to school? No, that expired a year ago when you stopped writing.”

  “I was out of communication with everyone then,” Nick said.

  “Still doesn't count, I have you dead to rights. I’ll let you know as soon as I think of something you can do to chip away at your new debt to me.” Sara said. Nick countered her, and they argued on the way to eat. Nick felt a foreign flavor of contentment as he bantered with his childhood friend for the first time in years. Even though they were floating with their feet off the ground. Canine felt more grounded than he had in a very long time.

  15 minutes later, Grimoire Midship Cafeteria, Sara

  Sara sat with Nick in mild disbelief to be eating dinner again for the first time in years. He didn't say anything, but not just because he was focused on his food. There wasn't as much variety due to the zero gravity, but he seemed more methodical in his consumption than in seeking any kind of enjoyment. It was just him and her at the table, and the quiet was nice. It felt like when they would sit together in silence, a quiet company that was better than a group of talking friends sometimes. Nick was always so social and excitable, or at least he was. If anything had changed, it was not his softer temperament he always had for her quieter extroverted needs. At least when it was just the two of them.

  Sitting here like old times, Sara realized she missed him far more than she had thought. She was still angry and bitter at him, and had every intention of chewing him out for ghosting her texts, harping on her to leave her home, and a petty list of smaller things. She would be sure to leave Brian's death out of any of her future bitch fits. The way Nick looked and acted earlier was unnatural. Not just comparative to his normal behavior, but in general. She had never seen anyone act that way. To say it made her worried was an understatement. Confused, concerned, angry? Although she knew her anger was one hundred percent on her, not anything to do with whatever was going on with him during her halfway confrontation.

  “How’s the normal food here?” Nick said before taking another mouthful of sweet potato mash from a squeezable food packet.

  “Better than Mondays at Sardonyx’s Cafeteria.” Sara smiled. Nick gave her a surprised, disbelieving glance. “Ask Dribble, he will say the same thing.” She said, her grin widening.

  “You'd better pray you're right or bribe the cooks. If you're wrong, I'm going to flog both of you for sacrilege.” Nick said, Sara was sure he was joking, but first time since she was born, she was second-guessing her read on him.

  “Okay, well, the pizzas do leave something to be desired,” Sara said, just in case.

  “Do you think pizza slices are still as good as when we were kids?” Nick asked wistfully, “I heard Chef Kimble passed away while I was…back in '69.” Nick trailed off. Sara hadn't missed his near mention of something more, but she swore she could see it in his dimming eyes, the furrow of his brow, the way his nostalgic mood darkened.

  Nick chewed on the solid straw, more as a fidget than sipping water from the break-resistant bulb. His teeth clinked against the straw, sounding like glass between his teeth. His prominent canine teeth still pointed. She wondered if he had ever started the bad habit of grinding his teeth again. That habit had made his alveolar genetic dental trait more prominent. Maybe that smile he had was why he got the new callsign. Better than Mutt. He hated that name almost as much as she did. He must like his new callsign, as he seemed to have followed through with his absurd promise to bury his old life with whatever first wing callsign he was given. Sara was paraphrasing. She knew he didn't want to bury his old life, but he did leave it. Dribble, Brian, Nick. They had all left her.

  “You look like you're sucking in a citron. What's bothering you?” Nick asked, shaking Sara out of her jaded, sour thoughts. She clapped her palms against her cheeks, trying to fix her scrunched-up face.

  “Just wishing I had a taste of better pizza,” Sara said, the way Nick’s eyes narrowed, and the dark blue of his irises glinted as he stared at her. The way he studied her at least meant she could still tell when he knew she was lying. He blinked, breaking the soul-searching examination that made her feel exposed. He looked away, nostalgia returning to his face.

  “I know a few places that had pizza better than any we ever had on Sardonyx. I hope it's still there.” He said, a fragile fear undermining his nostalgia. Sara put a hand on his shoulder, not just to comfort him, but almost as if to grasp the happiness being choked out by some sort of trepidation.

  “Maybe you can bring me a slice, or better yet, somehow you could take me there? Although if it's not better than any of Chef Kimble’s pies, I'm not the only one who will flog you for sacrilege.” Sara said, squeezing his shoulder playfully. A glimmer of mirth twinkled in his eyes, a hopeful twitch played at his lips, but not enough to make his lips curl into a smile. He nodded in agreement. Sara smiled at him encouragingly, but a sense of concern kept growing into something more defined and worried. She barely recognized the dulled, detached man her childhood friend had turned into.