[INTRO — SOFT, DREAMLIKE, FLOWING] Secure from alert and virtually undetectable in the vastness of the interplanetary gap, the crew breathed again in the heady post-combat rush and let weariness overtake minds still burning with the memory of recent combat. JFS Offensively Bold. Deimos-class Heavy Assault Cruiser. Alive. Quiet. Hidden. [VERSE 1] Outer system, far from traffic, cold drives idling down to blue, armour cooling after violence, nothing left to shoot or do. Weapons safe and signatures buried, reactors breathing low and slow, dagger-bright against the darkness, nowhere anyone should know. And inside the armoured silence, systems settle one by one, combat clocks give way to heartbeat, battle mathematics done. Threat brackets fade. Target locks release. Command channels empty. And for the first time in hours— peace. [CHORUS] Just a woman in the silence. No command. No war. No name she needs to answer to, no enemy anymore. Just these eyes. Just these stars. Just one heart looking for you. [VERSE 2 — CONTINUOUS] Diagnostics green. Hull integrity nominal. Crew accounted for. She breaks the link. The ship falls away. No sensorium, no weapon arcs, no tactical mesh turning distance into certainty. Only skin. Only breath. Only gravity remembering her body. Feet against the deck, cold air across bare shoulders, two biological eyes trying to become enough. Olive skin shadowed in the gloom of the chamber as her raven-dark hair falls over neck and spine to hide the interface machinery there in sweet pretence she is just a woman again— something less than the sum of seven lifetimes and knowledge of all that has gone before. [CHORUS] Just a woman in the silence. No command. No war. No ship extending through her nerves, no distant killing star. Just these hands. Just this skin. Just one heart remembering you. [VERSE 3] Water hot against her shoulders. Blood and capsule-salt run clear. For a little while the universe is only steam and mirror. Raven hair against her back now, dark silk robe pulled loosely closed, bare feet quiet on the passage, following where the warm light goes. Through an open hatch she sees them— boots abandoned under tables, someone laughing far too loud, contraband passed hand to hand, someone sleeping in the crowd. Someone eating cold from cartons. Someone kissing by the door. Someone falling gently into someone they might not have noticed before. They survived. That is enough. She leaves them to their lives. No orders. No speech. No reason to disturb them. She keeps walking. [CHORUS] Just a woman in the silence. Just the ship. Just stars. Just the lives still happening behind these armoured walls. Just these eyes. Just this breath. Just one thought— you. [BRIDGE — STEADY BEAT, FLOWING] Observation blister. Exterior armour sealed. Display overlays—off. Navigation marks—off. Range figures—off. Threat identification—off. No names written across the heavens, no distances, no vectors, no tactical meaning. Only light. The glass curves away beneath her hands and the universe opens. A double helix tapestry of stars turning through impossible black, threads of fire crossing threads of fire, worlds beyond worlds beyond worlds. And for once she does not ask what any of them are for. Behind her, Offensively Bold keeps its sleeping watch. The crew drink. The crew laugh. The crew touch. The crew begin again. And somewhere beyond all measurement, beyond relays and gates and war, there is one distant woman she cannot see. No channel open. No message sent. No proof that words whispered here can ever arrive. [FINAL CHORUS — VERY SIMPLE] Just a woman in the silence. Just the stars. Just you. [OUTRO — CLOSE, INTIMATE] Vertigo for a moment— a residual instinct of baseline humanity that the technology of our times has not erased with any real success. One hand against the glass. Seven lifetimes behind her. The whole dark universe ahead. And she whispers— I love you. [SHORT INSTRUMENTAL SPACE — 8 BARS MAX] I love you.
