“Ah, there’s that beautiful Snarl poetry.” He grinned. “You made good time. I wasn’t expecting your call this early. Where are the others?”

Tilting the tablet, Clo showed him Eris, Rhea, Nyx, and Ariadne—who gave Sher an enthusiastic wave. Eris nodded once in greeting.

“Well done on Macella, all of you,” Sher said. “Any problems, Eris?”

Clo wasn’t sure if Eris had mentioned the pilot to Sher. Clo didn’t know how to broach the subject. By the way, we’re conducting an unauthorized experiment and trying to break through a potential new strain of deprogramming. The subject nearly throttled one of us to death, but otherwise, it’s pure gleyed, promise.

“Not yet, but something feels off.” Eris gestured to the trees in view of their ship’s window. “If they’re hiding a bunch of precious ichor cargo, there should be security like what we saw on Zelus before we commandeered it. Anyone here would have approached the ship by now.”

Ariadne nodded. “The Oracle’s files mentioned security around the building but nothing else. On all official documents, Ismara is declared completely uninhabitable, so that seems to be keeping people away. We should be fine, but we still ought to wear the same basic protection I wore when I looked at Josephine.”

Sher looked confused. “Josephine?”

“Josephine is ichor, that endospore-studded rock that’s probably a high-density blaster in a weapon of mass destruction,” Ariadne said with a serene smile.

“Right.” Sher rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. Dust painted his collar ochre and the bags under his eyes were larger.

“How are things back at base?” Clo asked. “Dust storms letting up?”

A twist of his mouth. “Most of the food and water is contaminated. Our communication is shit, tech at headquarters is glitching, and everyone is exhausted trying to keep things in order. Our engineers are looking at setting up biodomes for the long term, but we can’t begin recovery efforts until the weather lets up.”

“I guess now is a bad time to ask you to approve an unmanned craft to send us supplies? We need medical stuff. Still fine on food.” The ship had only been outfitted with enough food to get to Myndalia, but meal packets for one hundred people for two weeks would keep the five of them—ugh, the six of them—pretty for months to come.

“Anyone hurt?”

Ariadne opened her mouth, but Clo shot her a look and she snapped it closed. Telling the co-commander of the resistance that they had an injured Tholosian pilot aboard while on a mission of this importance would only complicate things. The last thing they needed was to be reassigned. “Not yet.”

Sher nodded. “Send me a list.”

They said their goodbyes to Sher. Ariadne double-checked everyone’s suits and helmets, then they all departed the bullet craft.