The UIC Tabitha felt different. The smooth rhythmic hum of the engines had been replaced by a low, dissonant tone. The Tabitha's bones were old; she was one of the Terran Protectorate LRP Cruisers that had been refitted and upgraded to UIC standards.
Her damaged bulkheads groaned under the stress of acceleration, which wasn't helping Mayvheen's anxiety as she walked through the deserted corridors, heading towards the bridge.
Her thoughts were with Veera. She had risked her life to save Mayvheen. If it hadn't been for Veera... Mayvhen shuddered. She felt anxious. She wasn't afraid of the idea of dying. Everyone died eventually, and so would she. Her fear was rooted in the fact that it could happen right now, at any moment, without warning.
She tried a breathing excercise as she walked, the one Dr Amaya had taught her. It usually worked, but as Mayvheen turned a corner and noticed a bloodstained wall and floor where someone had been flung against the metal from the impact earlier, she realised the breathing excercise wasn't going to work today. The blood was dry. A cleanup crew hadn't had time to remove it yet, but there was so much of it. It must've been a pretty serious headwound. She didn't see a body, but that didn't reassure her.
Any one of us can die for any reason, at any time.
Mayvheen swallowed. When she was younger, she had lost her best friend to a sudden aneurysm. She had barely turned twenty, and she was gone in an instant. There hadn't been any warning, and the Doctors told her afterwards it wasn't anyone's fault. It can happen to any of us, at any time. Ever since then, whenever she began to spiral, she would remember the mental list of things she dreaded. Sudden aneurysms and prion disease. An unexpected, newly developed severe allergic reaction. Undiagnosed cancer. Strokes. Choking on a meal. Tripping and hitting your head just right...
The ship groaned again, and Mayvheen considered adding 'death due to rapid, unexpected decompression' to her list. The human body was truly a fragile vessel.
---
The door to the bridge opened, and her eyes immediately settled on Lochem, who stood on the CiC platform, raised above the bridge.
She swallowed hard. She wanted to run to him and hug him, but she knew she shouldn't. The Ahaffa family did things the proper way.
She walked through the bridge and up the stairs towards the CiC. She wasn't supposed to be here right now, but no one tried to stop her. Instead, they nodded or smiled weakly at her as she passed.
"I'm glad you're OK," Lochem said without looking up from his display. He was studying structural readouts while making notes.
"I'm fine, yeah. Thanks to Veera." Her voice sounded so small.
Lochem's hand paused in his note-taking, and he looked up at his sister. "I heard. I'm grateful she was there when the debris hit."
"Me too."
Though under pressure to keep working, Lochem stood and embraced Mayvheen.
"How is Veera doing?"
Mayvheen looked towards the door. "She's still with Dr Amaya. It's too soon to say." She buried her face into his chest, her arms hanging limp in her brother's embrace.
"She'll pull through May. She's a fighter."
Mayvheen nodded into his chest.
The two siblings stood in silence until Mayvheen withdrew and looked up at Lochem. "Thanks for..." Her voice trailed off, and her brother nodded in acknowledgement.
He turned to the command railing over the bridge, and Mayvheen joined him, scanning the faces below lit by emergency screens.
The ship creaked again, sharp and metallic. Mayvheen flinched, her breath catching, heart pounding against her ribs.
"Lochem..." She whispered. "The ship, it won't just... buckle, will it?"
He smiled, shaking his head. "I wouldn't worry about it. The Tabitha's bulkheads are reinforced from the old Terran Protectorate era. They were designed to withstand this kind of pressure."
"I know," Mayvheen countered, and her voice rose with a frantic edge. "But the ship is in a terrible shape. All it would take is for one frame to bend outside the designed parameters– One dented bulkhead, or a piece of shrapnel lodged somewhere we didn't see. The pressure could be loosening it as we speak, leading to a catastrophic–"
Lochem placed his hand on Mayvheen's hand to reassure her.
"–Mayvheen! Breathe!"
"But–"
"May, look at me. Breathe."
Lochem faced her, put his hands on her shoulders, then gently cupped her face, meeting her eyes. He spoke softly, grounding her.
"Will worrying add even a single hour to your life?"
Mayvheen's breathing hitched; she closed her eyes. The panic began to recede. "No."
"So breathe. It's going to be alright."
"You're right," she sighed. "I'm sorry. My anxiety... it gets to be too much sometimes."
Lochem smiled, a genuine, warm smile. "I'm your brother. I'm well aware."
"Just... give me a moment to catch my breath."
"Like old times when we were kids?" Lochem teased.
Mayvheen frowned. "I don't–"
"The tickle fights," Lochem said, his eyes bright with the memory. "You would start hyperventilating and beg me for a chance to catch your breath. You'd laugh until there were tears in your eyes, but you never gave up. You always came back for more the second I stopped."
Mayvheen's lips curled into a smile. "Really? I don't remember that."
"You were persistent. Mom would have to scold you to make you stop, but you always wore me down in the end."
Mayvheen let out a long, slow breath. "Thanks, Lochem."
"For what?"
"For distracting me. Helping me calm down."
"It's what older brothers do," he said, stepping back and folding his arms behind his back.
Mayvheen's expression turned serious again as she looked at the display he had been working on. "Lochem, what do you think caused the Christopher's destruction?"
"Not what," Lochem said, his voice hardening. "Who?"
"Our analysis showed it wasn't an accident," he continued. "They were attacked from behind. A high-energy blast. It's what propelled the shrapnel forward... and straight into us."
Mayvheen's eyes widened. "The Christpher– Those were frontier refugees. Nearly a thousand family units all wiped out..."
Lochem's voice was calm, "It was instantaneous. They didn't suffer."
Instantaneous. Unexpected. Unavoidable, she thought.
Mayvheen was silent until her eyes welled with tears, and she quickly looked away toward the wall behind them. "We've lost so much, Lochem. I sometimes wonder if it was all worth it."
"It was," Lochem said, though he sounded as if he were trying to convince himself as much as her. "It has to be, or else what are we even doing here?"