Relative Time

The transport docked with Luna Base at 0600 hours station time, and Commander Zara Okonkwo felt the familiar pull of lunar gravity—one-sixth Earth standard, enough to remind her body it was home but not enough to weigh her down.

Three years. She'd been gone three subjective years on a near-light-speed reconnaissance mission to the outer system. But as she stepped through the airlock into the arrival bay, the station around her told a different story.

Everything looked older. The walls showed fifteen years of wear. The equipment had been updated, replaced, modernized. Even the lighting was different—more efficient, casting shadows her memory didn't recognize.

Because fifteen years had passed here. Time dilation at relativistic speeds meant that while Zara had experienced three years, Luna Base had experienced fifteen. Everyone she'd known had aged. Lived. Changed. While she'd stayed twenty-eight years old, frozen in time by physics.

"Commander Okonkwo?" A young officer approached, his uniform showing rank insignia Zara didn't recognize. "Welcome back. I'm Lieutenant Chen. Station Director Volkov asked me to escort you to medical for your post-mission evaluation."

Volkov. The name hit Zara like a physical blow.

"Elena Volkov?" Zara asked carefully. "She's the station director now?"

"For the past eight years, ma'am. You knew her?"

Knew her. Past tense. As if the Elena that Zara had known—twenty-six years old, brilliant and ambitious and so beautiful it hurt to look at her—no longer existed. Because she didn't. That Elena was fifteen years gone, replaced by a forty-one-year-old woman Zara had never met.

"Yeah," Zara said quietly. "I knew her."

The medical evaluation took three hours—standard protocol for returning relativistic travelers. They scanned her body for radiation damage, tested her reflexes, evaluated her psychological state. The doctor—a woman Zara didn't recognize—asked the standard questions: Any disorientation? Hallucinations? Difficulty accepting the time differential?

Zara answered honestly: Yes to all three.

"Normal," the doctor assured her. "Your subjective experience says three years have passed. Your body believes it. But intellectually, you know fifteen years have elapsed on Earth and Luna. That cognitive dissonance takes time to resolve. We recommend counseling, gradual reintegration into station life, and patience with yourself."

"When can I return to duty?"

"That's up to Director Volkov. She'll want to debrief you personally before making any decisions about your assignment."

Of course she would. Elena—if she was even still Elena in any meaningful sense—would want to evaluate Zara herself. The woman who'd been her girlfriend fifteen years and three years ago, de...