Walters whistled his way back down the tube, and she could hear him chuckling to himself. There was a good reason she used her mother’s maiden name on her application, and why nobody on base except for her boss knew about her family. It was the last name on that delivery sticker—Belrose—that had gotten it pushed through almost straight to the ship itself. That name opened all kinds of doors.

The return address made her hands go numb. The thought of that place, of her father and her old job, flooded her with so much rage that her system simply shut it out. It was too much to process, especially five minutes out from a mission. Better to go cold all over, to let the force of it bounce off her, as if she could harden herself into a little ball of steel.

Had she been warm once? She couldn’t remember. Now she felt like ice all over.

She ripped open the silver packet and found a single ear chip inside. Steel, she told herself. And she would have to be, to listen to her father’s voice again. It had been almost an entire year since they last had contact of any kind. Deep breaths. Closed eyes. She stuck the rubbery earpiece and its square, reloadable chip piece into her ear and tapped the little button on the chip.

Silence. Crackling. Rosalyn curled her fingers into fists and braced.

“Roz? Rosalyn . . . It’s your father.”

Obviously, Dad, thanks.

“I wanted you to know that I miss you.”

On the message he cleared his throat, and Rosalyn ripped the earpiece out and shoved it in her pocket. Fuck him. She didn’t need to hear him when she already had so much on her mind. Maybe it was an apology, she thought, or an explanation. Her father was never good at apologizing, something she had inherited.

“Everything okay here?”

She snapped her eyes up to find Josh Girdy watching her from down the corridor, hands in pockets, his outfit identical to his own from earlier in the week, except for the slightly darker tie. Nodding, Rosalyn cleared her throat, just as her father had done on the message, and gave a thumbs-up.

“Forget the thumbs-up,” she said with an uneasy laugh. “Everything is okay. But it’s all right to be nervous, mm? Always get a bit jittery before launch.”

“Hate space travel myself,” Girdy agreed. His shoulders eased back and he took a few languid steps toward her, peering over her shoulder to check for Walters. “I know our last interaction was, um, tense, but on behalf of the entire Merchantia staff, good luck. Have a safe voyage, Devar.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And I appreciate this chance. I won’t let you down.”

He took another step toward her, and another. Going rigid, she tried not to roll her eyes. He was trying to get a whiff of her breath.