Character
The first thing Domaric Mordane noticed upon returning to the Executrix was that the ship still smelled the same.
Not precisely the same, of course. Starships accumulated scents the way old cities accumulated myths. The crewmen who had served aboard her had left their mark in countless invisible ways. Yet beneath the fresh polish, new carpeting, replacement bulkheads, and modernized systems there remained something familiar in the recycled air. He had lived enough of his life aboard this vessel to recognize it immediately. A young lieutenant guided him through the refurbished command deck and adjoining corridors, though the gesture was more courtesy than necessity. The cybernetic eyes worked well enough. Better than well, according to the physicians who had installed them. They restored sight, but not the sight he had once possessed. Colors appeared slightly different now. Faces sometimes seemed too sharp. Distances occasionally felt artificial. His brain still spent considerable effort translating the information it received. The doctors assured him this would lessen with time.
Mordane doubted it.
The injury itself had become easier to accept than the recovery. Blindness had been absolute. There had been a strange simplicity to it. The implants returned the world, but imperfectly, and every day he found some new detail that reminded him he was looking through machines.
The lieutenant stopped to greet several crewmen. Mordane recognized none of them. Most of the officers who had once served under him were dead, retired, or scattered across the galaxy. The men and women aboard the Executrix now belonged to a different generation. Yet many wore the same modified insignia stitched upon their right shoulders, a variation of the Imperial cog adopted years earlier by those who had chosen to remain within his personal network after the Empire's collapse. They had not been soldiers for some time. Some operated shipping companies. Others worked as engineers, administrators, mechanics, or merchants. A few had become farmers.
He smiled at that.
The ship herself had never truly entered retirement. While Mordane had spent years on Keldoonie pretending to be content with irrigation schedules and market prices, he had quietly maintained the arrangements necessary to preserve certain assets. Crews had rotated through the vessel. Maintenance contracts had remained funded. Docking fees had been paid. Systems had been upgraded incrementally. The process had required patience rather than wealth, and patience was one resource retirement had provided in abundance. Many former Imperials imagined restoration as a sudden event. A declaration. A campaign. A triumphant return. In practice, restoration usually began with bookkeeping.
At length he arrived outside the private study. The room had been reconstructed almost entirely from archived specifications. The furniture had been replaced. The lighting modernized. Several walls had been rebuilt following damage sustained years earlier. Yet the proportions remained familiar enough that he recognized it immediately.
He paused before entering.
For a moment he remembered another time, another government, another future. He remembered standing outside these same doors carrying reports from distant campaigns. He remembered victories that seemed permanent and defeats that seemed catastrophic. Most had proven temporary.
The door slid open and Mordane adjusted the cuffs of his white uniform, noting with mild amusement how naturally the gesture had returned. The garment bore no rank insignia. There seemed little point in that now. The silver epaulettes and modified cog were sufficient.
Then he stepped inside to meet Marlon Sularen for the first time in many years.
