Admiral Stonefist strode into the Engineering section of the ISS Swordheart. Work slowed as he stood in the middle of the Engine room, casting an appraising eye over the entire works. Everyone nervously tried to look busy and competent under Admiral Stonefist's watchful gaze. He rarely appeared in Engineering. Usually only for inspection, and the infractions he found were often plentiful.

  The Chief Engineer cautiously approached Admiral Stonefist. He was in his mid-30s, but with a youthful cast to his features that made him look nearly five years younger, and an utter lack of confidence that shaved another five years off.

  "Can I help you, sir?" he asked hesitantly, trying to suppress visions of getting gigged again.

  Admiral Stonefist turned his piercing gaze on the Engineer.

  "I need to see the initiator for the plasma ram," he said.

  "Ah... of course, sir. It's this way."

  "I'm aware."

  "Of course, sir."

  The Chief Engineer led Grimthorn through rooms of mysterious, pulsing equipment. Large power tubes and pulsing lights bracketed their progress through long, awkwardly narrow corridors. The Engineering deck was built around the needs of the reactor core and power distribution, and only incidentally for humans to navigate.

  At last they arrived at the plasma ram initiator. The Chief Engineer gestured helplessly at the complex equipment.

  "Well, uh, sir. There it is."

  Grimthorn glared at it quietly. The silence stretched out uncomfortably long.

  "Is there anything I can help you with, sir? If you have any questions..."

  "Do any of your people use this equipmert for personal purposes?"

  The Chief Engineer began to sweat.

  "Well, sir, some of the men, you know, it's-- I mean, it can melt small quantities of metal, and there are a few hobbyists that like to-- ah, that is..." The Chief Engineer swallowed miserably. "I mean, as long as we're not in jumpspace, it's not being used. The energy drain is almost immeasurably small. It's allowed by the regs, isn't it? Sir?"

  Grimthorn glared at the initiator.

  "How's the temperature control?" he asked finally. "Can you dial it in pretty tight?"

  The Chief Engineer started.

  "Uh? It's... yes, sir. Within about half a degree Farenheit, up to 3,600 degrees. Or so. Um, sir."

  Grimthorn nodded.

  "Very good. I may be back later to use it myself."

  He turned smartly and walked off.

  The Chief Engineer let out a watery sigh of relief.

  Grimthorn sat in his quarters. None of the quarters on any Naval ship were luxurious-- space was at a premium, even on the flagship of the Imperium-- but inasmuch as they could be, his were. There was enough room for him to stretch out his arms and turn around without hitting anything, if he were so inclined. His bunk was long enough and wide enough to entirely accommodate his considerable frame. He had a double-sized closet and a private washroom.

  Yet, for all that he'd lived in this room for over ten years, he'd barely left an impression on it. No stamp of his personality. No pictures or posters on the walls. No tchotchkes or decorations on his small desk. The single bookshelf held a few technical manuals-- his few physical books were kept in the little nook he now shared with Kinnit.

  With less than an hour of work, no one would be able to tell that this had ever been the place where the great hero of the Imperium spent a third of his life.

  Grimthorn was not, by nature, sentimental. As a rule.

  He slid open the shallow drawer on the desk. There were a very few items within. He drew out a small, flat box. Lifting the lid revealed a brass medal. It was round, with two blaster bolts criss-crossing it, and a battleship overlaid on the bolts.

  He took it out of the box and flipped it over, reading the words engraved on the back.

  "This Medal of Distinguished Action is hereby awarded to Admiral Stonefist for outstanding bravery in the face of overwhelming odds during the battle of Arcturus," it read.

  His mouth stiffened as he read, then softened. He laid the medal on his desk and returned the slim box to the drawer. He then drew out a small case, smaller and older than the box.

  He really wasn't sentimental, by and large, he told himself. He'd only ever been back to his homeworld of Dorvalla a couple times since he'd joined the Navy. His family was gone. His few homeworld acquaintances had either scattered across the galaxy, or settled on the rural planet, and had no interest in the doings of the great fleets of the Imperium.

  He'd indulged himself once, though.

  He'd spent many years of his childhood combing the garbage pits of Dorvalla. The Bloody Thorn pirates that had dominated his home would dump the trash of the galaxy in giant piles before raiding the citizens' food stores. There was no telling what manner of toxic spew he'd trudged through, how much garbage of a thousand stars he'd sifted through in his quest for food. The pits had been ugly, dirty, and dangerous.

  Yet even in the midst of such hazard and filth, a little beauty could grow. He opened the case.

  Five small flowers lay within, carefully preserved in individual anaerobic sleeves. They were tiny, no longer than his thumb, with spindly thin stalks. Each flower bore a blossom, five petals, purple fading to white, no larger than a fingernail. He didn't know what they were called, or if they even had a name.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  They might not. With a galaxy wildly full of plants and animals, even the scientists of the Imperium didn't have time to catalog and name every random species.

  During one trip downplanet, his last before his first commission as Captain, he'd walked through his old stomping grounds. Since the Bloody Thorn pirates had been suppressed, the garbage pits were overgrown, filled with grass, reclaimed by nature. He'd plucked the flowers carefully and brought them back on board, preserving them.

  Now, he looked at the small row of blossoms. He drew them out of the case one at a time.

  One for his grandfather, pushed off a loading dock to his death by a pirate in a fit of pique, when loading of their food into the pirate ship moved too slowly.

  One for his father, shot through the stomach for trying to defend the last of their food stores one winter. He'd died slowly over several days from the wound.

  One for his mother, killed for sport, forced to run through the tall grasses around their home while pirates cackled and fired at her, until one got a lucky hit.

  One for his older sister, taken away on board one of their ships to serve them, never heard from again.

  And last one for himself. Pulled out of the quiet, unassuming life he should have had, flung into space and a lifetime of vengeance. He held up the little glass sleeve. The flower lay within, thin and delicate.

  In the years since he'd left Dorvalla, he'd painted the galaxy in blood, repaying the lives of each of his family with untold thousands of pirate deaths.

  Still, these little flowers were all that remained for his remembrance.

  He slipped all the little sleeves back into the case except for one. He put the case back in his desk drawer.

  He held the remaining flower up, looking at it for a while. It was slightly crumpled, a bit dried out from age, but tough enough to survive the garbage pits of Dorvalla, and was now traveling the far reaches of space.

  He set it down on his desk. From the drawer he drew out one last item.

  It was a tiny leaf, vibrantly green. Almost obnoxiously so. It, too, was in an anaerobic sleeve, but it was much newer.

  It was a small, oblong leaf from one of the trees on Takkar, Kinnit's homeworld. He'd snagged it on a whim. At the time, he wasn't sure why. Certainly not for any sentimental reason.

  He'd have preferred to have grabbed a flower, but he hadn't seen any on Takkar. As far as he knew, there might not even be any, and he hadn't had time to go hunting in the Great Storm, so he'd just snagged what he could.

  He laid it on his desk as well, and considered the items. Medal, flower, and leaf.

  It was a good start for what he needed to do.

  The ceiling flashed in Grimthorn's office.

  "Work's over," he said. "You two feel free to head out."

  He paused and cleared his throat. He hoped this part of his plan would work.

  "By the way," he said, almost too nonchalantly, "I have some tattered old uniforms, they're in bad shape. I'm making a trip down to the second level to decommission them tomorrow. They need to be destroyed according to Navy protocol." He cleared his throat again. "If either of you have an old uniform to decommission, bring it in tomorrow and I'll take them all in at once."

  "I'm fine," Lieutenant Baric said.

  "Oh, I have one!" Kinnit chirped. "The elbows are worn through. I've been meaning to take it in."

  Grimthorn breathed a tiny sigh of relief. He wouldn't have to make it weird.

  "All right, bring that in and I'll take care of it."

  "Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!"

  Admiral Stonefist's two Assistants bustled out of his office, leaving him smiling slightly.

  Grimthorn held the tattered uniforms carefully as the lift descended.

  He was glad his ruse had worked. If Kinnit hadn't had a uniform ready to discard, he wasn't sure what he would have done.

  Of course, it was a running joke that most Navy folks had one or two old uniforms hanging around in their closets. Decommissioning uniforms was one of those annoying tasks where filling out paperwork took longer than the actual process of destroying the uniform. It used a slightly simplified form of the same forms required to decommission a battleship.

  There had been an effort some years back to "simplify" the paperwork by reducing the number of different forms required for Naval activity, but whoever had gotten the task had gone entirely too far in the other direction.

  Earlier in the day Kinnit had handed him her old uniform, carefully folded. Now, in the privacy of the lift, he hunted around until he found the sleeve. With a sharp yank he ripped one of the heavy brass buttons free. He refolded the jacket, then found the sleeve of his own old uniform, and ripped one of his own buttons loose. He tucked both buttons in his pocket.

  Now to pay the price in paperwork for his plan.

  Admiral Stonefist appeared in Engineering, once again rattling the Chief Engineer's nerves.

  "I'd like to use the plasma ram initator," he said.

  "Ah, ah, right. You're welcome to any time, sir." He swallowed. He still wasn't sure that this wasn't some elaborate inspection that was going to end up with another demerit on his record.

  "I know where it is," Admiral Stonefist said and wandered off.

  The Chief Engineer wondered if he shouldn't go after him, offer to help, or perform a safety check or something.

  Maybe... maybe the Admiral really was just taking up a new hobby?

  He went back to his office to check his service record and hoped for the best.

  The following week, Grimthorn sat at his desk, assembling all the pieces. The Darcian crystal lens and gold chain he'd ordered had finally come in. He could finish his project.

  It took him over an hour of careful, meticulous work. At the end of it, he frowned at the result. It had not turned out as well as he'd hoped. It wasn't quite what he'd envisioned when he set out on this project.

  He was no craftsman, but it would have to do. He knew himself well enough: he could keep fiddling with this for years and never be happy with the result. He'd just have to move forward.

  Besides, this was the easy part.

  The words were going to be the hard part.

  Kinnit sat at her desk, going through reports. Well, she should have been going through reports. It was Friday, near the end of the day, and her mind was wandering. Instead of paying attention to the report on her console, she was frowning and pulling on her finger.

  Was it less elastic than before? She couldn't tell. Besides, her fingers were supposed to have some natural elasticity. How much was normal? She wished she'd spent some time finding a way to measure it before she'd met Dass. Then again, she could start measuring it now, see if it was changing over time. But how could she--

  "Kinnit? You still with us?"

  "Sir!" she gasped, whipping her hands down below the edge of the desk. "Yes, sir! Sorry, sir! Just going through those reports!"

  Grimthorn glanced at the time on his console.

  "I tell you what, let's put those reports aside. I think it's time for us to do another inspection run."

  Kinnit was a little crestfallen. She'd been on the verge of her weekend, but it looked like worked was going to roll on through Friday afternoon.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Should I come along too, sir?" Lieutenant Baric asked.

  "No need, Lieutenant. I think Kinnit and I can handle it. You go enjoy your weekend."

  "Thank you, sir." Sol straightened up the work on his desk and stood. With a sympathetic nod to Kinnit, he stepped out of the office.

  "I'll get our inspection reports ready, sir."

  "Don't worry about that. Why don't you go prep Digger? I'll handle the rest."

  Kinnit paused. She looked at Grimthorn. It wasn't like him to keep her from handling the paperwork. He carefully refused to look back at her, staying focused on his console.

  "Should I contact Pilot Dabrini, sir?"

  Grimthorn stared at his console.

  "No need. Let her have her weekend. I'll pilot for today."

  Hmm. Grimthorn was clearly up to something. She smiled a little.

  Well. She'd find out in due time. She grabbed her scanner and headed for the docking bay.