After another hour of information overload, just as my brain is about to crumble, Hayomo releases us for a quick break.

"You have got to be kidding me." Dean corners me as soon as we step outside into the Level 6 hallway. "Please tell me this is all a colossal joke."

"I signed and returned my agreement yesterday." I shrug my shoulders, pulling off my most valiant attempt at nonchalance while pouring water from a drum into a small tin cup. The cold, metallic taste tingles my tongue and shoots pins in my head.

I hear what he's saying. I simply don't let it bother me right now. I'm still trying to process it myself.

I'm in. There's nothing he can do about it now. There's nothing even I can do about it now, despite the looming terror from the information I've heard and not heard today.

Dean stands too rigid and stiff. His panic is transparent to me who has seen these subtle signs before. "Janika . . . you are on a suicide mission on the most dangerous ship of the fleet. This can't be real. You can't seriously be—"

"I'm fine with it, Dean. We knew we wouldn't get to choose when we first got into this."

"You're having our child."

"Not right now."

He shakes his head and stares at the floor in disbelief. By not acknowledging his emotions, I'm making him more mad. Good. I want him as angry as I am.

"Why are you trying to make this harder than it needs to be?"

He's inches from my body, so close he's blocking the harsh lights overhead from my eyes. I want to poke my finger in his chest, but images from the HHP surface like dirty dishes in a sink full of murky water.

"Oh, it's hard for you, Freyer?" I wave my arm in a wild arch between us. The water in the tin cup sloshes around like musical notes and flies in fat droplets on my arm. "Like this has been a walk around the Rotunda for me?"

He stares at me, his lips in a tight, grim line.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I continue, fueled by his silence. "So sorry this has been such a trial for you, Captain Freyer. Let me just make this better. I'll go over and tell Hayomo I can't actually be in the mission anymore, so sorry. It's too hard. Yeah, let me do that, and afterward, I'll find a cot made of cotton and lie in it for the next nine months, and to prevent muscular atrophy, I'll learn how to fucking knit. Will that make it easier for you? That's exactly what's going to make this better, right?"

As my voice escalates, more heads turn in our direction. I have no idea where I'm going with this anymore.

Dean clenches his jaw, like he's done a million times before when he wants to say something.

"Maybe you should just tell Hayomo I'm still experiencing trauma. Maybe you should tell her I'm still having dreams and falling into battle when I close my eyes. Maybe you should tell her I'm not healed yet because then you'll get what you want. Just like last time."

Kai emerges from the combat room and leans against the wall, sliding his hands into his pockets.

Unwilling to retreat, I glare at Dean, daring him to say anything. He is not my lover or even my partner on an ARC. Part of me even wonders if there is any room left to call him my friend anymore.

Dean doesn't say a word. He doesn't look at anyone except me. And it's with the same forceful desperation as before. It's the same one from last night, and the same one from years ago when he begged for us to be the way we were. I told him then I couldn't forgive him, and now we're pummeling down that fiery trajectory.

Instead of responding to this stupid conversation, he pivots on his heel and walks away. Back to the combat room. Back to business. Back to being Dean the Stoic Soldier.

Kai rests his hand on my shoulder and mouths words to butter me up, but they're lost in the shuffling of my mind.

Compartmentalize, remove weakling sentiments crushing my resolute desire to see this mission through. But as steamed as I am, his words are not entirely lost on me. There is a human growing inside me that is half me and half Dean, but I can't let myself stop to ponder these things because I've got two thousand other people to consider. I'll let him worry about this one for the both of us.

The others return. Hayomo stands next to my table, the file folder for ARC10 open in front of her. Even though she is looking at the screen, her gaze reaches far beyond whatever is on the tablet. On my approach, she closes the document quickly. It's the same folder, nothing new or improved. Still empty. Still terrifying.

Most of the day passes with informational sessions. It is a chance to get more details about the path we would take with each ARC, the purpose of the mission, the planet NOHA, and our roles on each ship.

Kai strolls over as I study the holographic planet spinning above my desk. Its stormy, violet atmosphere rolls around the surface of the globe. I pinch parts of the hologram to spin the little planet around. It's the same on all sides.

"It will be weird to be so blocked from the night sky," I say as I sense him approach. "That's my favorite part of being Topside—getting to check out the stars. And I hate clouds."

Kai murmurs as we stare at the ball. I tap on one of the moons and zoom in. A list of the six tiny satellites of NOHA appear. The moon's stats appear in front of the planet. I pull them down to study the globe again.

"Playing around with the hologram won't make it any less weird. I tried." Kai crouches down. "Try pulling in."

I pinch and expand on a single point of the planet. We zoom into a world of darkness. Lightning strikes the thick canopy covering the ground. The electric current bounces from tree to tree until it returns to the sky.

I scowl at the hellscape. "That looks awful."

"Try zooming again."

"Why aren't you exploring the world with your partner?"

"Jealous?"

I sputter out a laugh before zooming in past the wall of black-bark trees. "She's a free agent, and you're a pain in the ass. I figured you two would be perfect—"

We both lose our words when the hologram loads. Under the violent sky, past the suffocating tree layer, a lush wilderness in plum and lavender emerges. Vibrant shades of blue sparkle in the water flowing between black-trunk trees. Teal drops slide down stones that glimmer like split amethysts.

My mouth dries. I wet my lips as a breeze catches the long, black leaves of a nearby tree. The landscape untouched by metal or machinery sucks my focus until Combat Room 4, Dean, Kai, Hayomo, and the URE fall away. I stand in the middle of the lush scene, curling my toes, absorbing the fresh water in my skin.

Kai tugs the end of my hair, lurching me out of my dream. He twists a finger around the ponytail. "Come back to me, Lorn. You disappeared for a second." His glorious lips slide into a smirk before he departs, abandoning me with my holographic paradise.

Dean is avoiding us, his eyes narrowed, his fists clenched, and his posture hunched and tense. His partner, Big-Shot-Whatshisname, whispers to him in low tones, pointing at items on their tablet.

Kai abandoned me for Cambell. Dean ignores me for his partner. The reminder that I am second-hand to the creepiest woman alive quiets my joy.

Hayomo clears her throat. We close our rotating planets and focus ahead. She drones on about the atmosphere of the planet, spitting facts and numbers I lose the second they slip over my mind. But one bit of information dives to my core. "The boarding process will commence in one year."

My breath hitches and releases.

"At oh-six-hundred hours on December tenth, embarkment initiates by level. Please open embarkment orders in the subfolder in your file. Each ARC will be assigned a unit of special forces to ensure those aboard your ARC will make it to see another day. The artifacts in our vaults have already been cataloged and distributed among the ten ships along with plans for animals and horticulture. Duties will be equally distributed for the journey."

A year. I told him I could do this. My stomach twists and leaps with excitement.

"This mission has been in the making for ten years." Hayomo pivots to face the back of the room. "And this is the last portion of the plan. Now it is up to us to retain the order and peace among our people so we can make it safely to our new home after the five-year journey."

We gasp. This has been happening under our noses for a decade, and none of us had a clue. In a place this small, I always thought it would be impossible to hide anything from the people or to keep any secrets from any of us. Whenever there is something worthy of discussion, it spreads faster than mold.

Dean drifts off with a strange expression crossing his face. Something is brewing in his head. I've seen this churning look on him many times before, but when I always ask, he comes back with the same wistful response. He's thinking.

It's that same blank stare with his jaw clenched and his eyebrows slacked. It breaks the clouds of my loathing to let a single slip of light cut through. What are you worried about, Dean? What's going on in there?

He catches my eye and brings me back to my overcasting abhorrence.

In reflex, I sneer and distort my eyes and lips to make a stupid face that I regret instantly. He faces the front again.

So freaking childish. What is wrong with me?

Hayomo dismisses us.