Cruickshank. Hansen. Jiang. Sujiadi. Tony- everyone else.
Died within the moments of what seemed like a lifetime. In what reality was only really a couple of weeks.
He feels those memories inside him anytime he does anything.
The biting of Cruickshank’s foot as it hit him as she died- the splatter of gore Jiang was left of. Digging through the clumps of flesh and blood with Jiang, searching for something - anything to bring their brother back. Stacks unretreived.
Sometimes he’ll think about the others too.
Tony dead at his own hand- the wolf gene in him sobbing as he watches him go down with a look of shock on his face- maybe a look of betrayal as he watches from a third person perspective as he is killed.
The doctor who had known of his plans- falling to his knees crooning, ‘I knew it. I heard you, I saw you. Kovacs- I knew you’d do it.’ Over and over again, like the battle the Martian starship was replaying that infiltrated their heads to no end. And even Jan- thrown up into the abyss of what space claims to be- a deserter, and a traitor in all forms. A new sleeve. A fresh cut deal as the rest of them can’t control themselves from hurling over every ten minutes from the radiation. Regardless, Takeshi was guilty of making Schneider fear. Making him run away.
Hand.
A stupid son-of-a-bitch beliver, arguing with Takeshi on the roof of the corporate building days before their mission about religion. A stick permanently up his ass, a serious and boring corporate executive like all of the rest at Mandrake, being kicked down by Carrera for a bounty- his stack cut out.
Takeshi probably could have afforded to bring him along- but he wasn’t sure if it was worth it in the end. Someone would end up like Cruickshank again with his ass still there. The cooperation would track him. He doesn’t know if he could handle another set of nannodes.
Sometimes he misses hearing his hushed prayers from the barracks, though. He won’t ever admit it regardless.
Tanya wardani. Not dead, but sometimes she might as well be. They won’t speak again. Come, eleven years, maybe. The time they spent on the beach- the way he’d watch her work and the surge of what emotion he really couldn’t tell everytime he saw her inching back from the ledge.
She was a murder. A traitor. Killing her teammates souly due to greed, wanting to keep this one for herself. A coward. Siding with the terroists the Kempists were, just for the sake of her planet.
Still, Takeshi couldn’t help himself.
He’d grown a family with them. An envoy bond. A pack.
For each of them moments were shared- proving them human.
And now they were gone.
He remembers ribbing on Cruickshank. ‘Dead at 22,’ he’d said. Maybe he manifested it. She’d been dead before- but this was real. Takeshi almsot wants to throw up when he thinks about her- someone so young killed for nothing by nanodes for the sake of what? A fucking starship? The greed shared by two men- killing humans because they are cheaper than machines- not caring who is caught in the crossfire or who does not return.
Fuck Mandrake corporation.
For once he gets to latimer- he will notify her family of her death. He will save the details of how she was torn apart- the body bag she was gathered into not even resembling a human- the layout of gore on the turquoise sand- the way her head landed somewhere apart from everything else. Letting those words out alone would make him retch. She never even made it to the Tanya Wardani. She never made it to space. She never saw what they saw. She would never share the look of admiration and true shock at the sight of the warship- the Martian skeletons hanging there- captivating them. She never saw.
The crying of cruikshanks mother he will hear. The look of shock on her father’s face. ‘She was just a baby,’ he will mutter, ‘she was only 22.’ Takeshi will bite his lip and nod his head, giving the family news of her passing 7 years too late.
She was the first one dead.
Maybe that’s why he remembers it the most. Or maybe he was more alive when she died than he was when the rest of them went down.
Dying was a serious condition. Fucks with everything you do.
They were all supposed to die, in the end, regardless of their true survival of the mission. The explosion of Sauberville by the Kempists proved that true.
But that was different. Stacks intact- promised millions of credits and a passage to Latimer City where new sleeves were garuiteed.
Out of the 10 of them, only four of them had made it out- the wolf in him screaming and crying and scratching his eyes out with hands covered in blood that isn’t his over a graveyard with fresh soil laying above the land.
Even as he stays in that construct on the ship, making his 7 year journey to Latimer city- a journey to better jobs and newer sleeves, he thinks of them every once and awhile.
Their journey will always be apart of him.
