CODA

      [word count: 2969]

  

The face of his coin is but an outline now thanks to my incessant rolling of it between my fingers over the years. I sit on the edge of the sleeping capsule as I wait for the effects of the drug to subside. One hundred and ninety-seven days the computer informs me I have been induced for.

I shower firstly, then I drink a flask of protein before finally suiting up at the control desk.

I authorise the computer to slide back the iron shutters of the windows, to which I see the Earth residing below me once again, thick in a white cloud covering. The Smartglass circles for me the general location of the distress beacon on the planet and advices upon landing at least twenty miles away from the area as not to distress the natives in the vicinity.

The memories resurface of that day aboard the fleet carrier: they resurface in the goose bumps that rise on my skin. I remember passing by Quarantine and waving quickly inside to the stolen children behind the protective glass, most of whom were still weeping into their grey issued hoodies or screaming against the panelling to be let out. One kid waved - little Zoyia of course - with her wide chubby smile and bright green eyes.

She told me back then - using her own tongue - that she was three, and that her guardians had left her while they hunted the alien-men that drop from the sky. And instead of Silas, she called me Skyless, which was funny. She is Zoe these days, turning six soon with already ambitions on becoming a specialist like me.

That day was classified as a 'success', if you would call tearing 10,000 innocent children from their parents while stealing this planet of its food and fuel resources. That day I watched the troops intoxicate themselves and celebrate one another's pride. And that was the day I was told squadron D had perished in a savage bloodbath against a native human colony.

They had to cage me a few times. I remember I gave the Sergeant a black eye for, as he put it, 'overreacting' to the death of Private Glover. I was stripped of my duties for six months upon returning back home, until they saw I was mentally fit again, and I became their puppet, brought back under The Empire's wing.

But one hundred and ninety-seven days ago - a close friend named Steven Alperton - informed me of an "off-the-record" signal recorded off of Ares; a SOS sent by squadron D.

It feels like only yesterday I almost shot Sergeant Travis through the temple. He confessed to me all his sins: he abandoned Jayson Glover and his team out of spite; a spite against his 'unruly behaviour' and his 'unnatural relationships' with the male sex, pacifically with me.

And on that day I fled in this ship with a course to Earth. Time sure flies when you're in a semi-comatose/paralytic state being fed through a straw.

Now I am awake, and I feel her hand on my shoulder.

"... Computer," I begin. "Prepare the ejector pod to land direct west of the location. I wish to be equipped with additional medical supplies and a short-range rifle alongside the standard survival pack."

"And a communicator." She says over my shoulder.

"... And a communicator."

Soon the ejector pod is opened for me to step inside. I wear a helmet along with extra padding for the bumpy ride down. It feels like I am in a coffin, my own coffin.

The steal casing seals around me, with a little square window for me to see out of while I hurtle to the ground. However, before I am shot into space, she comes to the glass, holding her stomach. I see her golden hair all pinned back and the dark purple of her tight suit and eyes. She feels more aged than I am, though her birthdate is only three months past my own. "It's a girl." She says, and then I am gone.