The sudden silence made his nerves worse. He knew he’d given no sign that he was trying to write Tennal, so at best the commander would assume Surit’s commands were effortless now that Tennal was synced, and at worst he would see straight through the whole thing. Surit swallowed.

The commander grunted. “Good. I won’t be able to carry a rogue reader once we get into chaotic space, Yeni. Other senior commanders are not as fluffy and sensitive as I am. Fifty-Six will be faultless, or I’ll hand him to the regulators for them to fix. I trust I won’t have to explain that again?”

He believed them, Surit thought in disbelief. They’d gotten away with it—the first part of it, at least. Even when Surit had hatched the desperate idea last night, part of him thought the commander would just send them both to the regulators and cut the whole thing off at the knees. “We understand, sir. You won’t need to remind us.”

The chief of staff, behind the commander, was not quite buying it. “To remind either of you?”

“Oh, I hope not,” Tennal said. He was still at some form of attention, but the strain was showing: his foot tapped arrhythmically, and he had to wet his lips before he spoke. “Sir.”

“Good,” the commander said, and dropped Tennal from his attention completely. He tilted his head at Surit. “Get into the briefing, Yeni. We’re wasting time. I’ll speak to you afterward.”

He no longer paid attention to Tennal, as if Tennal had just winked out of existence now that someone had leverage over him. Surit, not for the first time, felt a deep unease about the observational skills of his senior officers. A lit fuse didn’t stop being a lit fuse just because it had decided to burn politely. Tennal gave Surit an inscrutable glance and fell in behind him.

The flag chamber usually held a table for the morning strategy meeting. Today that had been cleared away in favor of close-packed rows of chairs. The chamber was full.

Dozens of ships had just joined the fleet, from sleek scanning vessels to enormous grappling frames to the retrieval shuttles that clamped onto the Fractal Note like barnacles. Thirty new emblems hung on the walls of the room between the Note’s crossed-lance flags. The officers of all the new ships were all here, groups of them talking quietly with crimson Cavalry panels on the shoulders of their immaculate uniforms.

As he entered the grand room, Surit felt the nerves of his first day at the academy all over again: he was too rural, too big, too clumsy. His accent didn’t fit, his parentage was a liability, and being half a head taller than average just seemed to add insult to injury for everyone else. He felt himself duck his head, trying to make himself inconspicuous.