174 days. Almost six months straight of the same God awful rumbling. I stood on my balcony, overlooking the small grassy courtyard below, the only green I could see against the gray of metal. The artificial sunlight buzzed unpleasantly above as civilians milled about aboard the SS Euphorion.

  A little over 4176 hours of non-stop drilling, and we were finally almost there. I had barely gotten the hang of walking before the colony ship had launched. Months ago, I had been cranky, exhausted, moody, and far too pregnant. Things had only gotten worse. It was a miracle I had stayed sane this long.

  But everything would be different soon, Tobias had promised.

  Yet I was growing increasingly frustrated, left to my own devices. I knew he was busy, but it had been days now since I had seen him.

  Baron Tobias Barrick was a busy man. He was in charge of this whole expedition. But surely he could find time somewhere in there for his wife. Despite everything, it felt like I hardly knew the man.

  My stomach rumbled. I was practically always hungry, though such things were expected and routine when literally growing a person.

  I shuffled back inside my room and threw on a bathrobe. I only half heartedly attempted to untangle my hair. I wasn’t remotely presentable as I slipped from my cabin and into the elevator. But I was hardly attending court, and my current state gave me some leeway.

  I scanned my ID and hit the button for the officer’s lounge.

  Shifting my weight back and forth uncomfortably, I waited as the elevator ascended. When the doors opened, I was met with familiar carpeted flooring.

  Various people bustled about in uniform. Some served themselves at a buffet. Others chatted animatedly. A few even gave me a simple salute as I walked by towards the buffet.

  I liked that. I liked feeling important. I didn’t know any of these people beyond recognition, yet I was the Baron’s wife, and thus I was respected. It made me feel… powerful, at least by proxy. An otherwise alien feeling.

  Not that that mattered. That wasn’t my purpose. It was just a little treat.

  I grabbed a plate and began to serve myself.

  “Lady Barrick,” a voice interrupted hurriedly. I looked up with a smile. Stephan, a friendly officer whom I occasionally chatted with, hurried over. “Sit, sit,” he encouraged. “I’ll get you a plate. You needn’t stress yourself.”

  Despite being perfectly capable of feeding myself, I let him usher me over to a couch before scurrying off to get me food. No, I didn’t mind being Lady Barrick at all.

  “Here you are, extra pickles,” Stephan winked as he returned, handing me my plate and sitting across from me with his own.

  “Thank you,” I smiled, skewering a pickled turnip. “How are you doing this fine day?”

  “Oh, busy as usual,” he replied good-naturedly. “It’s all hands on deck now that we’re preparing for arrival.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I’m certainly looking forward to it. The incessant drilling is driving me mad. I hardly get a wink of sleep without earplugs.”

  Stephan smiled. “I understand. Even after years of working on starships, you never quite get used to it.”

  “And yet you remain steadfast,” I laughed politely.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Lady Barrick,” Stephan beamed. “Have I told you that I always wanted to be a pilot for the Imperium ever since I was a little boy?”

  “Only every time we share a meal,” I smiled.

  “Ah, well, one can’t tell a good story too many times,” he huffed, waving me off. “Being a pilot was my dream ever since I was a little boy,” he began dramatically.

  “You’re incorrigible,” I rolled my eyes.

  “My father travelled extensively for work, and sometimes he would bring me along. This was decades ago, before the separatists started causing problems, and you practically had free rein as a passenger,” he sighed wistfully.

  “Stephan, please don’t make me sit through another reenactment," I chuckled with a pleading groan.

  “Oh, very well,” he pouted. “But only if you tell me where your favourite place you’ve ever visited is. I swear, conversations with you are like pulling teeth sometimes.”

  I did my best to hide my grimace behind another pickle. “I’m sorry, my husband so values his privacy.”

  Stephan frowned a little. “Yes, but when do I ever ask anything about him? I mean, you have a right to your privacy, of course, Lady Barrick,” he hurried to add.

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  I sighed. It wasn’t privacy I valued. It was trying to cover up my own pitiable life. But I had few friends and even fewer who knew the truth. It wasn’t as though I was sworn to secrecy, but people always looked at me differently once they knew.

  Not that I blamed people. I wouldn’t know how to react either. No childhood, no family, not even a full citizen. I technically wasn’t even a year old yet. I never knew what to say. But lying gave me the freedom to be whoever I wanted, whatever past I wanted Lady Barrick to have.

  “Well… it’s hard to say for sure. You might be surprised to find I’ve never been much one for travel,” I began.

  Stephan nodded along around a bite of chicken.

  “I think perhaps visiting the core worlds for the first time, oddly enough, it’s so very busy and bustling.” I forced a laugh. “I’m from a small frontier planet originally, if you can believe it.”

  Stephan nodded dramatically as if everything now made sense. “You’ll be right at home then once we finally get to N7.”

  I chuckled. “Well, not quite that frontier. It is certainly uncharted territory for me personally. But I am strangely looking forward to the adventure of it all. And being off this horrid ship.”

  “Amen to that,” Stephan laughed, raising his coffee to toast me.

  We smiled and ate. Yet part of me couldn’t help but wonder how he would have reacted if I had told him the truth.

  “I heard you were waltzing around the lounge in a state of undress, Elizabeth.”

  I tried not to flinch as Tobias barged into my room. He wasn’t angry, but his disapproval was clear.

  “I’m sorry,” I smiled reflexively. “I was hungry and not thinking clearly. The baby and all that.”

  His eyes trailed down my body and settled on my stomach. He finally nodded with a sigh. Sitting on my bed.

  “I apologize, I should not be so harsh,” he said gently. “Some days I simply feel as though I am surrounded by fools incapable of following orders.”

  I nodded, trying to look understanding, though I had no idea what he was talking about. He never talked about his work with me. “That sounds frustrating. I can’t imagine how hard it is being responsible for so many people.”

  Tobias nodded, looking down at his hands as he fiddled with the ring on his finger.

  I swallowed and waddled over. “Are you done for the night then?”

  “I need to be back in court in a few hours,” he sighed. “Should we… watch a film or something. I know I have been absent as of late,” he smiled apologetically.

  “That would be lovely,” I nodded, as I climbed into the bed beside him.

  At least he was handsome. He might have been graying, but it suited him, all sharp features and wrinkles from his usual stern glare. Even the minuscule reading classes he had possessed a certain charm.

  Tobias pulled out the remote from his pocket and hit a button, sliding a screen out from the wall. He began to flick through films.

  I tried to get comfortable but begrudgingly realized I had to make a quick trip to the bathroom. I didn’t know my body well, but every day it felt more and more… uninhabitable.

  When I returned, Tobias had picked out a film. He offered me a smile as I climbed onto the bed, tucking my feet under the blanket to keep them warm.

  We watched in silence. I had many questions, but I knew he hated it when one spoke during a film. So I stayed quiet. The drill continued to rumble in the background. I fiddled with my feet under the blanket, honestly, a little… bored.

  I didn’t know anything about the Terran Imperium’s fourth galactic war. Nor the alien species we had been at war with. Even Tobias wasn’t old enough to have lived through it.

  I appreciated the glimpse at the world behind the Euphorion, but it was all a blur of information I didn’t know enough to understand.

  Tobias looked over at me with a smile. At least he was enjoying himself. He was supposed to enjoy my company. This, at least, I had been prepared for. I snuggled up to him, doing a thing with my eyes that was supposed to draw attention. But he just turned back to the film.

  I let out a quiet sigh.

  Soon enough, the baby was putting pressure on my bladder again. I rolled onto my back to try and shift things around.

  I wished I had more pickles.

  “I need to be going,” Tobias said with a groan as he stood, the blue of the end credits trailing across the screen. “But that was… nice.”

  I nodded absently, my throat closing up at the prospect of saying otherwise. “I do hope you’ll be back soon,” I managed. “It’s all rather lonely by myself,” I added with a wink.

  Perhaps I could entice his attention in other ways.

  But Tobias frowned. “You’re not alone. You have my son to raise. I read somewhere that he can hear you even now. Perhaps try reading to him? I’m sure children’s books can be procured.”

  A strange, frowny energy bubbled up that was quickly nullified. I hated it when that happened, being corrected by the implant. And I was fairly sure even that resentment was an abnormality.

  “I don’t know how to read,” I managed flatly.

  Tobias pursed his lips. “Right. Well… invent something, Elizabeth. I don’t imagine Tobias Jr. needs anything too complex at this point,” he chuckled.

  And with that, he was gone. Lethargic numbness calmed me before I could begin to understand what I was feeling. I placed a hand on my stomach and felt him move.

  How I would have liked to read to him. Not for the baby’s sake but for my own. But I wasn’t allowed to watch television unsupervised, and I doubted I would ever learn to read.

  Dejected, I ran myself a bath. I had nothing else to do. 174 days, soon to be 175.

  Tobias had promised things would change once we settled on N7. I could only desperately hope that would be true.

  The drill continued to rumble indecently, the water vibrating ever so slightly as I disrobed and climbed in. The warm water soothed the agitation I was only partially capable of feeling.

  I couldn’t feel the anger, but I could feel the cause. The hollow wandering feeling. The void that let me stare into one place for hours and simply float adrift.

  Perhaps there was a reason I was to be incinerated. I was clearly faulty.

  Pleasant numbness flooded me once again. I let my eyes drift closed.