Tennal had left Surit alone to sleep, but he wasn’t completely gone; Surit was aware of him hovering in his head, like someone constantly leaning over his shoulder. Tennal’s presence felt fresh to Surit, as if a complete rebuild of his mind had just made him more himself. His newly focused emotions were as accessible to Surit as if Tennal had written them in a comms message. Tennal had let himself care when Surit put him back together. Tennal had let himself have a goal. He was afraid but determined.

I owe you, Tennal said, in a thread in Surit’s head as Surit made his way up to the bridge. Thanks.

Surit felt a resonance behind owe. Surit didn’t want anyone owing him, but that wasn’t quite what Tennal meant. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He sent a thread of whatever it was back and didn’t even realize until Tennal responded in kind, with amusement, that it was affection.

A few days ago, Surit would have thought he might be in trouble. But in the chaos they were all in now, this was a drop in the bucket.

When he entered the bridge, it was business as usual. Tennal, Istara, and Basavi—technically the high command of their skeleton crew—congregated around the pilot seats, working on a map of their position.

Istara and Basavi stood and exchanged salutes with Surit. Tennal, slumped on his elbows over the map, didn’t move. Instead his consciousness slipped in beside Surit’s mind, still with that thread of affection, and shared Surit’s eyes as Surit looked at the map over his shoulder.

There were no accurate maps of chaotic space. The three of them—No, it was Istara and me, Tennal commented—had drawn the worst illustration Surit had ever seen, which seemed to be their joint idea of chaotic space and the area around it. Surit could see Tennal’s memories of working on it. They’d drawn dots to represent known ship positions. The misshapen doodle of a horse—That means Cavalry, Tennal said—was Tennal’s handiwork, and Istara had put a stick figure labeled Oma on a ship to Orshan Central. Chaotic space was a series of carefully drawn lines and some stars for effect. The army did not like to work freehand, and it showed.

Surit examined it closely, Tennal’s mind twinned quietly and attentively around his own.

They weren’t fooling themselves that their mission had much of a chance. This was a coup, a hurried civil war, like Orshan had been rocked by several times before. The difference here was that Oma had capabilities beyond anyone’s ability to fight. This ship, the unit, Surit and Tennal themselves: they were just afterthoughts in the larger crisis.