“The whole fucking thing was a waste,” Alva snapped. I was on my way to my cabin, bone tired after hunching over navigation displays for the best part of a day and a half; she was on her way back from the gym, with a white towel hooked across her shoulder and a half-empty bottle of water dangling from her fingers. It was the first time we’d seen each other in thirty-six hours, and the longest conversation we’d had during the entire flight. “We’re never going to know why they crashed.”

“They were out there a long time.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was mechanical failure. Maybe they got sloppy.”

Alva’s eyes narrowed. “You were pretty sloppy yourself.”

I felt a tightening knot of resentment. “Do you think you could have done better?”

“Maybe.”

My cheeks burned. “You haven’t commanded a ship in your life.”

Alva’s response was as cold as the ghost winds buffeting the hull. “I know more than you do about ground operations,” she said. “I know how to look after my troops. I was on the front line, down in the mud with all the other poor bastards. I commanded a squad.”

“And I commanded a frigate.”

Her lip curled. “Those ships fly themselves.”

I felt my fingers close around the pommel of a ceremonial cutlass I no longer carried. “Fuck you.”

We glared into each other’s eyes, our faces close enough that I could smell the mouthwash on her breath. She had been close to George. He had helped her with her rehabilitation. He had taught her to play chess. I wanted to tell her that George had died while we were on the ground, not in space, and that the creature that had taken him had struck with such suddenness that not even the ship had had time to raise the alarm. I wanted to tell her of the lives I’d saved on Bone Beach and Big Hill, and the way I’d spent the whole of those engagements cocooned within the command decks of my ship; that, when we were operating planet-side, I relied on her expertise because I wasn’t used to ground operations. But I suspected that in her eyes, to admit that would be to admit my unfitness for command.

During the war, I’d taken fire and commanded my ship when all hell had broken loose around us; I’d faced death and failure and somehow kept my shit together and kept the ship flying. But—despite participating in over thirty rescues during my three years with the House of Reclamation—I’d never been on the ground during a firefight, never been responsible for a squad of fragile human bodies beyond the armoured confines of a ship. I knew I should have had the wherewithal to tell George not to unroll his stretchers at the water’s edge, but I’d been too distracted.