Page 41 of Bred

Chapter Twelve

Days pass by into weeks, and there is no reviving Lyra. I visit her in the medical bay for the final time, and look down at her beautiful body, lying so uncharacteristically still and quiet.

She sacrificed herself to save us. She gave the core of herself to the darkness and I think it might have swallowed her whole. Her bravery is beyond compare. My crew and I owe our lives, our entire existences to her.

I can’t do anything for her now. But maybe I can do the one thing I should have done in the first place.

I carry her insensate form with me to the bridge, and I sit down in my captain’s chair, facing the screens. There is a hush on the bridge, an awed silence perhaps tinged with horror. By now, everybody knows what Lyra did for us, and what price she paid. I will not hide her away in the medical bay, leave her alone on a cold bed. I will hold her as she deserves to be held, and protect her in a way I could not.

“Set a course for Earth,” I instruct the helmsman. “We’re taking her home.”

* * *

Ihave never felt asense of loss like this. It is a heavy weight of sadness that weighs every part of me down. Lyra gave herself for us, and we are not giving her a fraction of what she deserves. All she ever wanted was to go home, so that is what we will do.

It only takes a few days to return to orbit around her planet. Those days are awful. Every moment I am with her, I want her to open her eyes, but she does not. Though I never leave her side, there is no indication that she knows I am here. She is gone so far away she may never come back. Her body remains, and I will grant that part of her, her final wish.

The crew is assembled with me as I lower her into the transportation chamber, and we lock on to a populated portion of the human city she hails from. I do not know what they will make of her arrival, but I know she should be with the species she so adores.

“Goodbye, my love,” I murmur softly. “We will find each other in the next life.”

Shank stands beside me, his expression stoic as he reaches out wordlessly and touches her lightly upon the forehead. We have never known a woman like this one, and we will never see her like again.

Grief tears at me as we close the transportation chamber. A flash of light heralds her path home.

Chapter Thirteen

Quite some time later...

---