A pause. A crackle. “Hello from Earth, Atalanta.” Evan’s voice was faint. Naomi had first met Evan Kan when he was eleven, two years older than her, not long after she’d come to live with Valerie. He lived in Singapore with his father, usually ignoring Naomi when visiting his mother, sending messages to his friends back home in a blend of English, Chinese, and Malay.

Naomi imagined Evan there in the underground comms hub Valerie had built on one of her many pieces of land in southern California, hidden in a room of machines beneath satellite dishes and radio waves. By day, he’d still work as a postdoc research fellow at an immunology lab in La Jolla, but each night, he’d come back and sleep there.

He wouldn’t be much help in an emergency. In a pinch, messages could be routed to his tablet, but they’d be more easily discovered. At least until Mars, he was Valerie’s main contact on Earth, someone who could ferry through additional information if required and give them updates on how the world was reacting to what Valerie and her team had done.

“Status update?”

“Lockwood’s rocket is taking off in half an hour, tops. Gateway will send another craft just after if there are any issues from the ground. You better split.” Naomi had slowed them down with her minor suit malfunction.

“Readying engines as we speak. They’re pissed off down there, I take it?” Valerie leaned towards the window again, twisting her head in the direction of Washington DC. She bared her teeth in triumph.

“They’d skin you alive if they could. Get going. I’ll send you a report later.”

“On it. Over and out,” Valerie said, cutting the call. “Strap in,” she said to her crew. “Let’s keep our skin.”

Naomi made her way to her seat at the right hand of Valerie’s captain chair. She buckled herself in tight.

Down on the surface there would be an emergency meeting of men in dark suits, red or blue ties, American-flag lapel pins. The chief of the Federal Aviation and Space Administration would be wishing he could shoot them down. The Army generals present would wish the same. Space wasn’t quite militarised, though it was on the way. Any missiles were automated, designed for incoming threats, not retaking a stolen, parked spaceship. Theoretically, they could shoot the Atalanta down, but the five women were betting that they’d baulk at wasting the amount of money that had been invested in the craft. Higher-ups in NASA would be grim-faced and nervous, wondering if anyone’s job was on the line. President Cochran himself might even be there. All of them realising a group of women had screwed them over.