Aftermath

[Sarah McFarlen]

Sarah 'Sparks' McFarlen

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There was no forgiveness in those eyes. Each word Axel spoke struck home like a hammer blow. She didn't try to argue, didn't object. She simply sat there, the bed's steel railings growing warm in her hands. He was right, and the worst part was that she knew it. Arsenal has been her responsibility, and hers alone. Erich had trusted her with the ship, and she had betrayed that trust. She hadn't checked her systems. She had, for now at least, robbed the Widerstand of the largest transport they had, and very nearly taken three lives with it. She closed her eyes as Axel rolled back to face the ceiling, breathing in the heavy air.

This wasn't what she'd meant to do. Plugging in that database atop Arsenal's control panel had been something new, something exciting. Something that could have bought some measure of hope. But here, surrounded by the ill and dying, what she had meant to do no longer mattered. What point was there in arguing a point you knew to be false? Deep down, she knew it had been naive to hope for forgiveness, for a simple 'sorry' to repair near fatal damage. Axel knew the truth of things now; though, and surely that had to count for something. What, she wasn't sure, but something.

Slowly, she crept to her feet. She couldn't leave, not yet. Somehow; she felt that would have been more cowardly then not arriving in the first place. This was a storm of her own making, and she would stand before it. "I know." What more was there to say? "I'm sorry. I never meant to do this, for Arsenal to go anywhere near people in that state.

I don't expect you to forgive me. I just thought you should know why." She told him, just as she had Alex, in stilted sentences. Each decision, each mistake. How she had tried to fly Arsenal by remote in the vain, stupid, hope that maybe it could help save lives. How she had only ended up nearly taking more lives. As she finished, she fished around in a pocket, retrieving a slim matte plate. A datapad. She placed it on the bed beside Axel like a monk leaving an offering. "My access codes. For Arsenal." She added. "She's just about cleaned up now, and someone needs to fly her. I... After today, I don't think I'm that person. I betrayed your trust, I never meant to, but I did. Arsenal deserves a better pilot then that. Then me." She turned to leave, stepping over the prone figure at her feet. "Please treat her better then I did."

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"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."

- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.

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