Night Talk Aboard the Archangel

Deep in Michel's heart, a thought tied to his earliest dream—a thought he had deliberately cast aside for years while enduring the pain of its loss—began, somehow, to change.

The change was slow and subtle. It came not as a sudden blow or revelation, but like fine rain seeping into soil, silently soaking through every corner of his mind until his defenses began to crumble.

His body remained tense, but a strange light entered his bewildered eyes, too complex for any single emotion to describe.

For the first time, Michel began to think for himself, apart from orders and the rules imposed by his side. He considered questions about his own future without the weight of ideology. He even began to wonder whether "peace," dismissed as an impossible children's fairy tale in a world of chaotic conflict seemingly bound for destruction, might truly be the only—and best—answer for the future.

Beyond the dock where the repaired Archangel lay berthed, the vast night remained pitch-black. It swallowed the light spilling from the ship. Few people were in sight, and silence hung over everything.

The enormous dock resembled the lair of a steel beast. Beneath its rough framework and cold metal surfaces, a great white whale lay dormant.

Only the occasional low hum of machinery and the faint footsteps of soldiers patrolling in the distance showed that the place was not lifeless.

An oppressive feeling hung in the air, hard to put into words. Like the charged stillness before a storm, it promised violence to come.

In a few hours, this ark laden with hope and despair would tear through the darkness once more and head for the hell known as the battlefield.

Captain Murrue Ramius stood before the bridge observation window. Her slender fingers brushed the cold glass without her