“This is the Deliverance,” a voice said from the open comm channel. “We have completed our transit from Hamshalim.”
“Copy that, Deliverance,” Ian said. “Benedict, you’re clear for transfer.”
A few seconds. “This is the Benedict. Copy that. We are starting our burn.”
Two hundred of the ships had already come through. Like the Roci, they were making their way to the Laconia gate. The others were still stacked outside their gates with Naomi’s transition order. Without Medina control to keep anyone from going dutchman, they had to rely on her for their script. Which would work as long as not too many other ships came through in the same time frame. And as long as the behavior of the gates hadn’t changed.
That wasn’t the slow zone’s only new risk, though. Alex could still remember coming through the Sol gate the first time. Back then, the slow zone had been a place of mystery and terror, alien artifacts and death. Before Medina, he’d have said that the decades had tamed it. Made the place into something known and understood. That it was capable of changes they didn’t understand tore the scab off that wound every time he thought about it. He kept reaching for the drive control, wanting to edge the ship out through the gate just a little faster, a little earlier. He was heading to a battle with a vastly more powerful enemy, but at least that was known. Being reminded that they’d been building roads through a dragon’s mouth left him jumpy.
That was the thing about hubris. It only became clear in retrospect.
“This is the Benedict. We have completed our transit from Hamshalim.”
“Copy that, Benedict,” Ian said. “Chet Lam, you are cleared for transit.”
Alex reached for the drive controls, pulled back.
“You okay?” Ian asked as Alex unstrapped from his couch.
“I’m going to go get some tea. You want some tea?”
“I’m good,” Ian said, and Alex pushed off for the lift. He wished they were under burn, not only because he wanted to get out of there, but because being on the float made moving through the ship too easy. If he could feel the effort of motion, maybe it would do something for his anxiety. As it was, it was just having an itch he couldn’t scratch.
In the galley, he pulled out his hand terminal. There was one message in his outgoing queue, flagged to hold. He braced with his right hand and foot and spun his terminal slowly in the air like a pinwheel while he thought about it. The display, reading his orientation, flickered to keep up with its own rotation. After a few seconds, it started to annoy him. He grabbed it again and opened the message. His own face appeared on the screen. His voice came from the speaker.
“Kit. I’m about to do something, and it seems like I might not come back. It’s risky anyway. And the last time I did something like this, I thought about you a lot afterward. I know me and your mom didn’t get along there towards the end, and maybe I haven’t been as good a dad to you as I could have been—”
He stopped the playback, looked at it for a long moment, and deleted it without sending. There was this idea that one message could change a lifetime of decisions you’d already made. The truth was, he hadn’t said anything in there that Kit didn’t already know. If Naomi’s plan worked, Alex could go back and say anything that still needed saying in person. If it didn’t, it was probably better for Kit not to have had communications from his rebel pilot father.
Belinda and Jona came in together with the subdued glow of two people who’ve been enjoying each other’s private company. Well, they were in the hours before action. Alex could still remember a time when he’d taken some comfort that way himself. They nodded to him, and he nodded back like he didn’t suspect anything. Truth was, as long as it didn’t affect the ship’s function, a little affection in the crew was probably a good thing. Holden and Naomi’s relationship had been the unstated center of the Roci crew for a long, long time. That was part of why losing Holden had broken everything apart.
Now, here he was, and here was Naomi, back in the ship, doing something dangerous. It almost felt like old times.
His hand terminal chimed. It was Naomi.
“Admiral?” he said.
“Captain is fine.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Felt weird saying that anyway.”
“So. I’m about to do a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Speechy, rousing-the-troops thing, admiral-of-the-fleet kind of thing.”
“Ironically,” Alex said with a laugh.
“This is serious,” Naomi replied, but there was no scold in her tone. “We’re three transfers away from having the whole fleet in here. I’ve sent my group assignments to the other ships. I thought I should make a statement. Something to the crew. Did Bobbie do that?”
Alex had to think. “Sort of, yeah?”
“I was really hoping you were going to say no.”
“Nervous?”
“I think I prefer being shot at.”