Small Mercies

They woke the sleepers in waves, and the captain told them everything, and nobody broke. Some wept. Some were angry. Most simply asked what they should do next, which Ines would remember as the bravest question she ever heard.

The patient from Bay Nine walked down the ramp first, on Ines's arm, into air that smelled of rain. The lights from the city on the ridge had come down to meet them — not weapons, not walls, just people carrying lamps.

“You came anyway,” one of them said, and it was not an accusation. Behind her, eleven thousand strangers held their breath. Ines stepped forward and did what she had always done. She asked who needed help first.