Liu Yang woke up in a cold sweat. The hotel’s sheets felt itchy and ill-fitting for his skin, sensitized by decades of stasis. The pillow was like a stone that dug into his neck. His bones had weakened slightly over decades of zero-g, despite the barrage of drugs injected into his body over the course of stasis. In the past, the terror of combat and the activity of duty had distracted him from these aches and pains, but now there was only numbness. Yet the numbness was merely physical. His memories continued to haunt him. Instead of a restful slumber, his first night’s sleep on the station was fitful and filled with indistinct nightmares.

  He climbed out of the bed and looked at himself in the mirror. Despite Liu’s physical age and combat experience, metabolic stasis drugs slowed his biological aging to a crawl and had even restored a bit of his youth. It had been so long since he had looked at his own reflection, he had not noticed the subtle disappearance of his wrinkles. What the drugs couldn’t reverse was the aging of his hair, now a peppery mix of gray and black. Soon I’ll be like Sanchez and Grayson, he thought with a shudder. A middle aged face combined with fully gray or balding hair was the signature of lifers in the Interstellar Fleet.

  There was no way to return to sleep now. He paced back and forth uncomfortably. The viewscreen was set to a spectacular view of the red giant star, shining with a blazing orange and subtly illuminating its own stellar wind as a hazy halo. He shut the viewscreen off and sat at the edge of the bed again, looking quietly at the floor before putting on a light civilian outfit. The doors slid open to a silent hallway with dimmed LED lights and the regular flashes of the surveillance camera indicator lights.

  >Time: 0235.

  It was even deeper into the artificial night than when he had gone to sleep. The quiet of the deserted promenade was just as deafening as the wall of noise at Delta Draconis. Almost all shops were closed, with chain link fences shut tightly over their entrances. Civilian workers at the few shops that were open waited boredly at their stations, while contractors moved with little sense of urgency despite an entire task force having docked just hours before. He headed to the only place that was still open to him: the military club.

  Unlike the noisy military bar at the promenade on Delta Draconis station, this one was a quiet place for reflection. Warm artificial light filtered down to the bar from overhead lamps gently tugged straight by the centripetal forces of the station torus. Fewer soldiers were around and even fewer officers than their last trip. The server synths behind the counter seemed a bit old and worn out, much like the rest of the station. Liu sat down at the bar alone in a hidden corner, with nobody besides him but his brooding thoughts.

  >Liquor, he commanded.

  >Specify type, the synth replied in a cool, synthetic voice

  >Any, Liu replied tersely. There’s little difference in the taste, he mused. It was all just an aqueous alcoholic solution with various flavorants.

  As soon as the words left his mind, he instantly regretted it. The clear synthetic liquid that came out of the synth’s dispense ports smelled of a pungent mix of aromatic chemicals and bitter flavors that Liu scarcely recognized as any sort of real liquor. Complex streams of different transparent liquids mixed in small vortices in the glass before fully dissolving into one another. Liu scowled at the complex concoction as some sort of cruel joke.

  He lifted his eyes and glanced around him. An unfamiliar soldier sat at the far end of the bar, staring into his glass with hollow eyes. It was impossible to remember everyone’s face or name as a senior officer, Liu thought. There were simply too many people under your command. So many people who had faded only into a blur of memories or a simple profile. That was how he had remembered Lin before their chance encounter at Delta Draconis station. Just another profile in the long list of stasis crew. Liu swirled the transparent liquid around in his glass before drinking some of it down. The taste of the synthetic alcohol burnt in his throat.

  Memories of Delta Draconis returned. The automated message from his ex-wife. The transparent message from his daughter. He had never acknowledged it. What good would it do now, he sighed.

  Someone sat beside him with a quiet thud on the barstool. Liu turned his head. It was Lin, wearing the same haircut that he had come to both fear and despise, as well as the crisp shirt and skirt of her dress uniform. It made her seem almost... womanly, in a way. He rubbed his eyes.

  "Captain," he muttered.

  "Good... whatever time this is, Lieutenant Colonel," Lin greeted him with no hint of pretense or reservation. She turned her head towards the server synth and wordlessly ordered a beer. The synth spit out a stream of straw-colored liquid into a cup and handed it to her.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Liu asked.

  Lin shook her head.

  "Somehow, I am not surprised to find you here," she said with a gentle laugh.

  "You are here too, are you not?" Liu shot back. He chuckled weakly. What was even the point of this? A small buzzing went to his head as the alcohol began to diffuse into his brain.

  "I'm here because I wanted to socialize with someone. Maybe I misjudged," she said, feigning to leave.

  "Perhaps. I'm not very good company though," Liu said. He sighed with slumping shoulders, making no move to stop her.

  She looked over at him for a second before glancing away.

  "You are genuine. That is rare," she stated with a quiet melancholy.

  Genuine. A funny little word, he pondered. Liu smiled weakly. But it was true at some level. There were no outright lies in his head, only omissions and alternative framings of the same tragic events. Lin looked at him quietly before taking a gulp of her drink.

  "Still no conclusive data on the missiles from the ambush," Liu remarked.

  Lin tentatively placed her hand on his shoulders. Liu Yang raised an eyebrow at this unusual show of friendliness, but didn’t refuse it. It was oddly comforting to feel the gentle warmth of her hands through his uniform shirt.

  "Only so much you can do in that instant and against command."

  Liu swirled his glass some more.

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  Against command. He had never expected to be a rebel of any sort. He had always seen himself as simply a traveler on the long river of history, mostly asleep for the journey and only waking up at the junctures of terror. Every act was one of survival, not ambition. At least, that's how he justified it to himself.

  “Should’ve known it was a lost cause with Grayson and Sanchez in charge,” Liu mumbled.

  "We all have regrets and lost causes," she replied.

  “What’s yours?” Liu asked curiously.

  Lin paused, as if she was trying to think of the most socially acceptable regret.

  “Leaving my family,” she said dryly.

  Liu nodded. He realized that whatever the reason, it must have been very private to her. Everyone in the interstellar fleet had lost their family by default. The question was always one of why and whether it was the sole regret that they had. He did not want to press further. There was no reason to. All the reasons in the old life had been left behind long ago.

  Suddenly, Liu heard some boisterous laughter come from behind him. He glanced over his head towards the entrance of the bar. Vice Marshal Sanchez and Vice Marshal Nguyen were laughing together in full dress uniform, smiling, talking about something. Their faces were flushed red.

  Liu guessed from Sanchez's habits that their meeting was not a mere social event, but something concerning the fate of their entire force, possibly entire planets, yet few others would be privy to their discussions. It was an absolute display of unaccountable power.

  The duo disappeared into a private room with a noisy slap on each other’s shoulders. A few seconds later, some other officers in full dress uniform that Liu didn’t recognize, accompanying some women in high heels and skimpy outfits, discreetly followed into the same room. Their door shut with a bang. Ever so slightly, Liu could hear muffled cheers from the inside.

  Lin glared at the door before turning her head back to the bar with a sigh.

  "Like I said, you’re genuine.”

  "Genuine is a matter of comparison," Liu said with a sad smile.

  "Well, anything is better than... that," Lin replied while shaking her head towards the direction of the private room.

  "To honesty then," Liu said with a hint of irony in his voice, raising his glass. Lin clinked her glass against his gently.

  "To honesty."

  They each drank in silence. No more words were spoken nor needed. The promenade became even more empty as the artificial day-night cycle drifted towards an artificial midnight. Liu and Lin sat at the bar, slowly drinking and allowing their minds to become blurred. More and more alcohol poured from the taps. The other soldiers had left, leaving only the sliding of glasses on the bar and their heavy breaths as the sole remaining sound.

  "I need to get some rest," Liu said with a yawn. By this time, his head buzzed like a hive of hornets had taken up residence inside. His vision became blurred and his eyelids heavy, but with great effort there were still some moments of lucidity.

  "Me too," Lin replied with a lightness in her voice.

  He didn't ask if she wanted to walk with him. She just did. They stumbled together in a drunken stupor, leaning on each other occasionally. There was no one to watch them except the automated surveillance. As they stepped near the hotel, within the potential line of sight of the cameras, they instinctively walked straighter and separated ever so little.

  On the edge of civilization, he felt strangely more at ease than at its core. With a subconscious arm on Lin’s back, he gently guided her past a bend in the hall, casually evading the camera’s sight. She flinched a little despite her drunken state, perhaps solely due to surprise at his boldness, but quickly acquiesced to his guidance. By the time they arrived at the surveillance blindspot in front of Liu’s room, they were leaning on each other in a shabby attempt to not collapse. Liu looked at Lin through his vision. Her eyes were half closed. She attempted to stand up straight, but could only lean against the door frame.

  The door opened automatically, revealing the cramped hotel room. He turned to look at Lin and breathed wordlessly as he staggered forward into the solitary chamber. The door was opened just a moment too long. Lin stumbled inside too. Safety interlocks immediately stopped the door from closing further. He heard the unexpected sound and turned around.

  “Mind if I join you?” Lin asked with a pretended casualness, but Liu could tell that she was flush with anxiety. Her face showed a dim blush, possibly a mix of shyness and alcohol. He could feel that his own face was also feverish.

  He looked away, examining the room again. Display screen. Desk. Chair. Bed. Pile of clothes. Without waiting for his answer, Lin walked in. The room’s simulated viewport was off, with only the reflective sheen of a pitch black screen visible.

  Lin walked up behind him, her reflection distorted into a shapely figure by the slight imperfections of the display screen. His own reflection was also visible, also twisted. She gave him a tentative hug from behind, gently resting her cheek against his back.

  “We are all married,” Liu said, the last of his old life surfacing from the murky ocean of his subconscious before being drowned again by the relentless pounding of alcohol.

  “We… were all married,” Lin corrected gently. Her face was flush.

  Thoughts raced through Liu’s head. He had thought of himself as a family man for so long that it had become second nature to him. But that was centuries ago. The marriage had been annulled with no contest. He didn’t have a wife for over a century at this point. His ex-wife was now either frozen or a ghost. His daughter, the same. He was socially dead. What was wrong about a relationship between ghosts? He sighed, feeling his shoulders gently push against Lin’s warm forehead.

  “There is a… chain of command,” he muttered.

  “Are you… ordering me out then… Lieutenant Colonel?” Lin asked, half playfully and half asleep.

  Liu laughed bitterly in a sudden burst of lucidity.

  “Who am I to do that?”

  This was the first human connection he had felt in lifetimes. This was the one time, in so long, that he had felt anything other than dread, terror or anger. It was as if an embankment had washed away.

  A sense of coziness replaced the earlier feeling of emptiness. Lin stood up and silently placed her dress uniform jacket on a chair. Liu followed. They each began to wordlessly undo the buttons on their clothes. For a fraction of a second, he nervously looked at her hair. It was already unkempt.

  >Dim lights, 10%. Color temperature, 3500 K.

  Lin giggled softly at nothing, the first feminine sound Liu Yang had heard from any woman for centuries. He placed his hands on her back to draw her in. Her skin was supple, punctuated only by the scratchy fabric of her bra. That was an unnecessary article of clothing at this point.

  He was not an inexperienced man. His fingers found the bra’s clasp instinctively, even through the drunken haze. His lips fell first on her cheeks, then joined her lips. There was little thinking to do at this point. The rest was pure instinct.

  When Liu woke up, he found Lin snoozing gently in his arms, her mouth drooling a small stretch of saliva onto his naked shoulders. His own head had lost the buzzing confusion of drunkenness, replaced by both lucidity and an immense headache.

  She’s cute, he thought, in a way that almost felt like he was a young man again. He had forgotten what it was like to be with a woman who actually wanted him for who he was, not a loveless marriage of convenience. It was then that he realized that every moment with Luo Yue had been perfunctory. That woman was dead, he thought to himself. And so was that Liu Yang.

  A sudden Neuronet notification forced him from his thoughts.

  >Task Force Sigma commanding officers and XOs, report to Conference Room 5 for pre-mission briefing within t = 30 min.

  Shit, he cursed to himself. Weren’t they supposed to be on leave?

  Liu slowly extricated his arm from underneath Lin’s head. She muttered a bit and flipped over under the blanket, scarcely hiding her surprisingly full figure. Her hair was in loose disarray. He smiled grimly as he pushed his legs through his pants. There was nothing for him now, but the future.