“In the meantime, you stay out of trouble. You’re no good to anybody dead. And if that idiot Holden’s plucking another thread in the same knot, God alone knows how he’ll fuck it up. So. Report in when you can.”

The recording ticked and went silent.

“Well,” Alex said. “She sounds the same as ever.”

“Give her that,” Bobbie agreed. “She’s consistent.”

Alex turned his couch to look back at her. Bobbie made hers look small, even though it was the same size as his own. The pinnace was doing a fairly gentle three-quarter-g burn. Over twice the pull of Mars, but Bobbie still trained for full g just the way she had when she was an active duty marine. He’d offered less in deference to her wounds, but she’d just laughed. Still, he didn’t need to burn hard.

“So when you said you were working with her?” Alex said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation. “How different is that from working for her?”

Bobbie’s laugh was a cough. “I don’t get paid, I guess.”

“Except for the ship.”

“And other things,” Bobbie said. Her voice was carefully upbeat in a way that meant she’d practiced hiding her discomfort. “She’s got a lot of ways to sneak carrots to me when she wants to. My job is with veterans’ outreach. This other stuff…”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is,” Bobbie said. “But it all needs doing, and I’m in a position to do it. Makes me feel like I matter, so that’s something. Still miss being who I was, though. Before.”

“A-fucking-men,” Alex said. The lift of her eyebrows told him he’d said more than he’d meant to. “It’s not that I don’t love the Roci. She’s a great ship, and the others are family. It’s just… I don’t know. I came to it out of watching a lot of people I knew and kind of liked get blown up. Could have lived without that.”

Bobbie’s expression went calm, focused, distant. “You still dream about it sometimes?”

“Yeah,” Alex drawled. It felt like confession. “You?”

“Less than I used to. But sometimes. I’ve sort of come to peace with it.”

“Really?”

“Well, at least I’m more comfortable with the idea that I won’t come to peace with it. That’s kind of the same thing.”

“You miss being a marine?”

“I do. I was good at it.”

“You couldn’t go back?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Me neither.”

“The Navy, you mean?”

“Any of it. Things change, and they don’t change back.”