Tennal felt the chill of exposure. The last time the commander had accused him of spying, they’d both known it was just a tactic to keep Tennal in line. This time he had more grounds for real suspicion, even if Tennal’s initial message to Oma had been as bland as he could make it. But all Tennal had given away was that there was a Cavalry fleet in chaotic space. The rest she must have guessed.

Surit stiffened, apparently not having Tennal’s rosy optimism.

But Commander Vinys didn’t have time to do any worse, because an urgent alert came from his wristband. “Sir, bridge reporting,” a pilot said, as soon as the light-screen came up. “Course update. The currents have shifted. We think our scanners have found a structure.”

The pilot officer was trying to sound professionally neutral, but their excitement leaked through. “What size?” the commander asked sharply. Surit had also leaned forward. Tennal couldn’t care less about the remnants, but he could see Surit did.

The pilot looked away from the screen as if for information. “Several modules,” they said. “Sir, I think this is it. I think this is the lab you were looking for.”

Commander Vinys rose to his feet. Tennal and Surit were forgotten as he brought up an all-comms channel. “Summon all personnel to retrieval stations.”

Surit saluted, but Commander Vinys ignored him. He narrowed his gaze at Tennal instead. “Not you, Fifty-Six,” he said. “You report to the pilots on the main bridge. Let’s see if you can be any use yet.”

CHAPTER 14

Surit was still buzzing with uneasy adrenaline as he pinged his unit to get ready for launch. He wished he could clear his head. It was unbearably distracting, to know how close they were to the laboratory Marit had attacked, but he had to remember Marit wasn’t his business: his shuttle and Tennal and Retrieval Two were his business. It was just hard to keep that in mind.

Tennal split off in the corridor, but not before grabbing Surit’s wrist and setting up private voice and location channels between their wristbands. “Keep those open.”

“Why do I need to track you?” Surit said. “You’re staying on the Fractal Note. You’ll only be on the bridge.”

“Lieutenant Yeni,” Tennal said, deceptively smooth, “I’ll be on the bridge, but you are going into deep space in a tiny shuttle. And besides, if you think I’m going to sit with those fuckers on the bridge without an open comms channel to the one person I trust in this whole Lights-lost fleet, then please have your cognitive functions checked.”

Surit saw his point. He opened the channels.

Tennal threw him a casual salute. “See you on the other side, boss. Give my love to Istara. Bet they’ll be disappointed they wasted all that training.”