The Drifter walks the gloaming halls of the Hive vessel, past the pulsing bioenergetics of multiple living systems.

Over comms, he can hear his best (remaining) friend tearing chitinous bodies to shreds with sheer will. The ship, and its inhabitants, are occupied.

He stumbles along, past pillars that could be ribs, past something that gibbers and gestates but otherwise ignores him.

Why did he have the gall to be surprised?

He should have stayed with the Ghostless. Those were his people. Tomorrow is never guaranteed for them, and he rarely got attached. Leave the gods alone.

He has broken all his rules.

His mind moves to the infernal machine he carries as the haul of his ship, thoughts sifting through everything he owns: artifacts of the City that might help, Echoes of the Witness that the Cryptarchs have catalogued, favors of the Nine he could dare to call in. But he knows…

There's nothing he can do.

He has lost before, but not like this.

He walks and he walks and finally reaches what might be the prow. He imagines this might have looked out over Saturn at some point, where the king's body had once drifted. It stares out into the abyss now, no stars, full dark.

There's a hollowness in him, too, that might be pain or anger. He's not certain.

He holds onto it because she doesn't even have that anymore.