Surit didn’t pause. He recognized him: the tall, grave head medic from the Note. “We got out quickly,” Surit said. The image of Orshans firing on other Orshans was burned into his brain. Surit couldn’t forget the low pulse of Tennal’s despair at the legislator falling; he had to pull his mind away from it. “Any casualties in your escape?”

“None yet,” the medic said. His hair was graying; he might have served during the Reader War. “We’ll see if we get through this without any.”

Surit completed his loop of the bridge and ended up at the command desk with the small group he’d collected. Basavi had assigned subunit heads and already had a list of them on the table. She’d brought Istara with her. Surit had to figure out how to get Basavi in front of a promotion board when they were no longer in an undeclared civil war. The medic, who was technically a lieutenant, hung around the other side of the desk. Tennal sat in a chair to the side, his head in his hands like someone with a migraine. The sync hummed between him and Surit like a stretched wire.

“All right,” Surit said, looking at everyone’s face in turn. “I won’t pretend the situation is good.”

He had to stop and take a breath, as if he were physically incapacitated. He wasn’t. It was just that the magnitude of the situation hit him all at once—chaos from all angles—and Surit’s mind stuttered to a halt. He hadn’t stopped moving since Tennal had flung himself through the door of Surit’s cell and they’d both turned their minds inside out then stepped into the middle of a battle. Surit couldn’t keep the confidence of the soldiers on this ship. Everything was out of his control.

Surit closed his eyes. Then he felt, from Tennal: a curl of salt water through the crack under the door. A wisp of spray flung through the window.

And Surit opened his mouth. And he said, “Here’s what we know.”

In his head there was suddenly a crystal clear memory of Tennal’s conversation with Oma in her office, as if Surit had been there himself. He described the remnants. He described what he and Tennal knew, or guessed, about Oma’s coup. About their suspicion that Oma was using the remnants to brainwash any strong architect she could find. About how it would help her take Orshan and install herself as the new legislator. There was a vacancy, after all.