An excerpt from Rose's diary, the 10th of April, 2042.
Another night in hydroponics. The machinery hums and rattles, heaters kicking on when the water gets too cold, and pumps automatically surging to life when the solution needs to circulate. Nutrients in, toxins out.
If only my life were this formulaic. If only I was like my plants, content with their birth, life, flowering, fruiting, and death. An enhanced cycle of harvest that sustains the fleet at near-optimum efficiency.
If only.
There's another crackdown happening by the Marines. All flights to and from Cerberus have ceased.
I couldn't talk to him when we were under Condition Two. I saw him for a night, on the grounds that we would start over, and try to make a relationship again. A real, honest-to-goodness relationship.
Then people got sick.
The wireless talks are becoming infrequent again.
Now this.
I expect them to drop away again.
Only my work in hydroponics is consistent. Even with the threat of men stealing a little off the top, it's not so bad. They don't threaten me. They don't threaten my people. Marines come and go and the investigation continues. Life continues.
Another machine burbles to life and sends nutrient-laden water, pH-balanced, through the system.
I love him. I desperately love him. But I can't live with this awful, gnawing uncertainty.
And I am lonely. So terribly, terribly lonely.