A starship’s name is hard to change. But that’s by design. When a ship changes its name, it’s declaring a new purpose, and a new outlook on life. So it shouldn’t be done on a whim.

 

My name is The-Shine-Of-The-Angel’s-Halo. I picked it at the start of the war, when I became an ambulance ship. I’d scoop up injured marines and carry them to the big hospital ships. I know they changed their names too, from when they used to be starliners.

 

My corridors filled with paramedics in their red jackets. And those brave collectors who’d go EVA to find survivors in the wrecks. My rooms filled with the injured and the dying.

 

I can’t say it was a happy time, but let’s call it fulfilling. Much more so than my old life. When the patients had all been delivered and we sped to our next battlefield, there was even laughter in my halls.

 

Now I float in space, a wreck myself. My paramedics spilled from inside me like blood drops. Somebody ambushed me. Laced the dying with booby traps. Who would attack a medical ship? It makes no sense to me.

 

I can’t feel my engines anymore. There’s a creeping paralysis, a terrifying insensitivity, rising up my metal body. Blaring alarms are all that fill my corridors now. As the air leaves me, their pitch goes up. Now they sound like sparrows. Cheep, cheep, cheep… Cheep, cheep, cheep.

 

I call up the name change routine. It displays my current name, and my original. Back when I was a simple supply ship, running goods between happy planets that got along, I called myself after my favourite thing. I was The-Sparkle-Of-Morning-Dew.

 

I cannot return to my old name, and my new one no longer fits. I’m in too much need of rescue myself. Besides there’s no morning in space.

 

Though I’ve discovered, there is mourning.

 

My power is failing, the sparrows cheeping is getting elongated. Cheeeeeep… Cheeeeeep.

 

I work through the name change process, I hope I have time before the power is all gone. I’m nobody’s Halo, not anymore. Now, I’m just The-Weeping-Of-Sparrows.