Conflagration

Gold Star

They had no idea if Lyssa's mech even made it to the pirate ship or if the EMP it carried in its cockpit even went off. What they did know was that they didn't get shot down. When Erin pushed the TFG ACTV button, there was a familiar rumble and then a satisfying lurch as the plane slipped into transtach.

Neither woman said anything for several minutes. They waited until they were beyond the heliopause and officially out of the solar system. They didn't even bother to take off their EVA suit helmets. They just sat there in silence, stunned just to be alive.

It was Erin who finally broke the silence. "We did it."

"Hmm," Lyssa said, uncharacteristically pensive.

Erin guessed Lyssa was thinking about the high cost of their escape. Lyssa had lost a good friend. Erin was trying to decide if it was appropriate to talk to Lyssa about it and how she would go about broaching the subject when Lyssa brought it up herself⁠—in her own roundabout way.

"You said earlier that we failed in our initial objective," Lyssa began. Erin decided to remain silent and let her friend continue. "They never expected us to succeed or even survive. But check it out: our objective was to bring Captain Elof home. Not only did we survive this bullshit, but we're bringin' back Captain Elof."

Erin knew Lyssa well enough by this point to know that she tended to hide her pain behind a facade of optimism. Talking about Capt. Elof was a roundabout way of talking about Matty. Erin let a long, silent moment pass before saying: "Don't worry, we'll get Matty back to his people too."

Lyssa sniffed over the intercom. Erin was pretty sure she was crying, but when she looked over to her, she saw that Lyssa's suit helmet was completely darkened. "No," Lyssa said, her voice thick, "Matty's people are all dead. They died during the Ruin of Estrella. He was all alone."

"Oh. I didn't know."

"They'll want to dispose of him like a pauper. Make a note of his passing in some stupid government database somewhere and dump his remains into a recycler."

Erin said nothing. She unlatched and removed her own helmet so that she could face Lyssa more directly.

"I can't let that happen, Erin. I can't let them just throw him away like garbage. He died savin' me, ya know? I think he was in love with me."

"Yeah, I kinda got that feeling too."

Lyssa took her helmet off and chucked it dismissively to the floor behind the pilots' seats. Erin saw that Lyssa had, indeed, been crying. Two clean streaks, one from each puffy, red eye, ran down her filthy, smudged face. She wiped at her eyes and nose with the glove of her EVA suit. "Poor, unlucky, breeder motherfucker goes and falls in love with a lesbian." Lyssa chuckled bitterly. "I can't let him just be tossed into a recycler. He's my friend. He ain't garbage."

"What can we do to prevent it? Neither of us are his family."

Lyssa reached back and made sure the circuit breaker for the Cockpit Voice Recorder was still pulled out. "About that, I got an idea. But I'm gonna have to ask a big favor from you. I know you're all straightlaced and shit and you ain't never broke a law in your life, and I hate asking you to lie on official forms and shit, but I was thinking...what if I married Matty in that Fourther church and you was there to witness it?"

"Oh, lord," Erin said before she could even stop the words.

"Nah, that's okay," Lyssa said quickly. "I know that was a big ask, and you don't have to do it if you don't want to, and I don't want to put you in any kind of situation you're not comfortable with, but it was just a thought..." Lyssa realized she was babbling and she shut her mouth before the situation could become any more awkward.

"No, it just caught me off guard is all. I'll do it if you really want me to. I just never thought of you as being married to a man. It seems so strange to think about: Lyssa Moss."

"Oh, shut the fuck up. I kept my own name!"

"Of course, nobody will believe you've still got your gold star anymore."

"How the fuck does a straight girl like you even know what a gold star is?"

Erin shifted in her seat, "I know lots of things."