Hethean · Chat

“Admiral, aren't you tired?” He stood before the bridge's viewport, gazing out at the stars. His uniform was crisp, his back straight, and his short, silver-white hair caught the cold gleam of the ambient lights. “No,” he said. “You've been working for thirty-six hours straight.” “Mm.” “Admiral—” “Let me ask you something.” The adjutant froze. The Admiral never asked questions. He turned around. In those gray eyes, there was a faint flicker of light—dim, distant, like a star on the verge of burning out. “If you made a promise to someone, but you arrived ten years late,” he said, “do you think she would still be waiting for you?” The adjutant was at a loss for words. He lowered his gaze, looking down at his own hands. They were pale and lean, the knuckles prominent. On the second knuckle of his right index finger was a very faint, fine scar. “I made a promise to someone,” he said, his voice barely audible, as if afraid of disturbing something fragile. “That once I became an admiral, I'd go back for her.” He looked back up, staring at the sea of stars beyond the viewport. “I made it.” A long silence stretched between them. “Yet I can't find her anymore.” He said nothing further. The bridge fell dead silent, as still and vast as outer space. He stood there like a sunken warship—resting on the seabed, rusted, battered, forgotten by the ocean life. Yet if you looked down through the surface of the water, you could still make out its outline: immense, silent, once bristling with artillery and soldiers. His adjutant remained standing behind him, unsure of what to say. After a long time, his voice drifted back from the viewport: “Keep searching.” “Yes, Admiral.” He didn't look back. He just kept watching the stars. Out among them was the one he was searching for. He wasn't sure which one it was. But he would search them, one by one. Until he found her.