[i]On Board the Caelestis,
Omega[/i]

[hr]

Naryxa moved barefoot through the cabin of her ship with a silence as if she were trying not to wake the dead. It had been a long day, docked on Omega. The Caelestis at rest while the Asari worked in loose clothing to push and pull at every sliver of dirt, in every crevice, across every surface.

The comfortably lived in smell had soon enough become replaced with the piercingly sterile scent of chemicals.

The last engineer’s coffee stains erased from her workbench, the chef’s lucky cloth squeezed of it’s dirt and folded away, removed from the bench. Even the medic’s bottle of whisky had been taken from the modest med-bay. One by one, Naryxa had removed the last pieces of their memory and tucked them away. A clean slate remained. 

Naryxa had done it all herself, her skeleton crew had been relieved of their contracts -- and she assumed they’d all be carefree in dancing through Afterlife by now. They’d earned it, even if part of her hoped that the mechanic would come back through early for a familiar nightcap with the Captain… No, she expected that the Mechanic wouldn’t return at all. 

Tearfully, she had brushed away some dried flowers from the mechanic’s desk. Too close. Too close, again.

In the corner, a waste bin full with more things. A sweater, a notebook, and litter and tiny trinkets that needed clearing out. A dried up plant that was beyond saving. It had pained her to throw it away.

It was the last, and only night she would be alone on the ship. She savoured it, watching out from the pilot’s deck, her feet up on the console as she babysat the drink in her hand. All of the fresh cold it had once been had left, warmed through by her palms now - a syrupy, strong mixture even after the oversized cube of ice had melted entirely within the little steel mug.

She turned her eyes from the dirty, overflowing pathways of Omega - and up to the sky, what little she could see of it from between the walls and rigging of the station. She looked at the nebula as it bled out all of it’s phosphorescent colour against the shrouding endless black. Not for too long, lest it stare back at her with all of it’s ominous wisdom.

Back at the streets then; at a Krogan stampeding across the walkway, belly laughing and cheered on by his friends. At a young Asari maiden clothed in a transparent jacket, revealing her shape through the cutaways of her outfit -- off to start a shift at Afterlife. Humans were lounging over the railings, looking down into the belly of Omega from the edge of the strip. 

Every visit to the station played out the same raunchy scene. It’s why it was the perfect place to find new hires, and to drop off the old ones. Six years with that crew. Six. Two-thousand, one-hundred and ninety breakfasts. So many good mornings -- all circling back to one hard goodbye. 

Naryxa tilted her head back and sipped. Only the pilot would be back, and thankfully he was the most difficult of them all to like. Abrasive, caustic, ill-mannered. She smirked. He was at least a keen judge of character; he’d gone through the applicants too. 

[sup][right]”This one’s shite, ye dinnae want this cunt on the ship. [b][i]AH[/i][/b] dinnae want this cunt on the ship!”[/right][/sup]

She reckoned he’d be somewhere in Afterlife, in a puddle of his own piss by now. For a human, he drank as though he had the size and constitution of a Krogan and always acted surprised, the next day, when that wasn’t the case. Damn it, she loved him too, she thought to herself with a wry smile.

It was the last and only night she would be alone on the ship, Naryxa thought to herself again, closing her eyes from the flashing lights at last. 

Her thoughts remained uninterrupted until she heard a familiar creak from above, followed by a thud in the air-ducts. She raised a brow and sighed through her teeth. Her hand turned to tip out the liquor into the waste bin - the  soil soaked it up greedily and for a split second the stem of the plant twitched.

It was the last night she would be alone on the ship. 

[i]Almost[/i].