The silence in the lounge was a physical weight, thick and suffocating.

It pressed down on Orion, who sat anchored to a chair, his elbows planted on the cold tabletop. Before him, the garish remains of a birthday cake seemed to mock him. The sprinkles were like cheap confetti at a funeral.

His birthday. The irony was a bitter pill. The day meant to celebrate his existence had instead become the day he presided over their professional execution. He had to be the one to tell them. The corporate edict from Pony Express, cold and final, had arrived in his inbox, and the duty of delivering it fell to him. After all these years of service, this is how it ends? So easily?

He had known Pony Express was no paragon of virtue. He’d navigated their bureaucracy, ignored the cutting corners, for the sake of the bigger picture—a steady job, a ship, a crew to call his own. But this… this was a calculated evisceration. Replacing his people, his crew, with automated systems. Not even a transfer, just a pink slip for everyone. A low blow. It was more than that; it was a betrayal that hollowed him out.

The cloying, artificial scent of the cake filled his nostrils, and his stomach turned. He wasn't a sweet tooth, not by a long shot, but tonight the thought of eating it was nauseating. The saccharine sweetness that still coated his tongue felt like the taste of the lie he’d been living—the promise of stability and purpose that the company had just shattered.

He couldn't escape their faces, burned onto the back of his eyelids. The stunned disbelief, the anger, the slow-dawning fear. And then there was Jimmy.

Especially Jimmy.

His friend’s outburst echoed in the silence of his mind:

"...You got what you wanted. Without the guilt... Leave the dirt behind now your boots are clean... I can go back to my, how'd you put it? 'Struggle of a life', yeah?"

The accusation was a knife twisted in a wound Curly had already inflicted on himself. He’d taken it, let the vitriol wash over him, because what could he say? Arguing felt pointless, and defending himself felt like a betrayal of Jimmy's pain. So he’d just… stood there. Passive. As always.

A sound, raw and guttural, escaped him. "...Damn it."

He dragged his hands down his face, the rough stubble on his jaw a small, sharp anchor to reality. The gesture was one of utter exhaustion. This was the helplessness he feared most—the kind no amount of piloting skill or navigational charts could fix.

He was the captain. His job was to steer them through the void, to make the hard decisions, to be their shield. But when the threat came from the very people who signed his paychecks, he was rendered completely, utterly useless. He was just a messenger boy, delivering their collective death sentence, and in doing so, he had become the target of their despair.

The empty lounge, the uneaten cake, the silence—it all testified to his ultimate failure. He was alone.