Standard Terra Calendar .005.M31
Aboard the Glorious Queen-class battleship Iron Blood, in a cabin on the lowest deck, a woman held her little daughter, Little Liliana, tightly in her arms.
The cabin was cramped and dim. Rust and the marks of age covered the walls, and the air was thick with the smell of machine oil and decay. Every breath felt like swallowing a mouthful of foul mist.
The woman's hands trembled with tension and fear as she stared at the child in her arms, who was not yet a year old. Her little daughter's face was pale, her skin almost translucent, the fragile veins beneath it visible.
Weak and curled up in her mother's arms, the little girl gripped her mother's clothes tightly. Every cough seemed to use up the last of her strength.
The mother's heart was filled with pain and helplessness. She knew the polluted air aboard this ship was slowly robbing her child of her life.
"Hush, sweetheart. Don't be afraid. Mommy's here."
Her mother spoke softly to comfort her, though her voice trembled, too. The air quality on the lowest deck was terrible, and an infant's fragile lungs couldn't withstand it.
She scooped some gruel from a chipped bowl nearby with a metal spoon and tried to feed her daughter. But then the little girl coughed, bringing up the milk and mush she had swallowed.
She tried to wipe the milk and mush from Aidan's mouth with a rag, but the streaks of blood mixed in made her heart ache as if it were being cut by a knife.
She knew this wasn't just a problem with the air. Some deeper illness seemed to be eating away at Little Liliana's life.
The cabin lights flickered, as though they might go out at any moment, adding