Ono Red-2 has a table already allocated to them. Curious gazes tail them as they follow the guidance arrow to their destination. Despite the secrecy folded around this clandestine serving, the crew of Angelsteeth know that something’s up. They’re old hands at keeping secrets. They know the way one smells. Ono Red-2 take their seats. On the table, a silver box on a silver tray for each one of them. Misery unwraps hers. Within it: a small and fragrant spread of ambrosia. Tender grains, butter-drenched flakes of protein. Shit, even military food is better than the dreck they get back home.

“Saints don’t necessarily need to eat,” Ruin observes. “Organic food consumption is such a messy, nasty affair. They have to make the process worth it, don’t they?”

Saint or not, it’s definitely worth it. Misery has eaten with dukes and archbishops and this isn’t shabby by far. Not too bad if this is her new normal. Look at her, a moonrat getting all used to luxury and shit.

No. She can’t get distracted by base indulgences. Put the allure of bodily pleasures aside. First chance she’s got to observe her new colleagues since their brusque introduction; she needs to get them before they can form opinions of her. Six to a serving, half saints and half not. The captain and the kid—Tank—are the easiest to read. Captain because she’s seen so many of that archetype, the washed-up vets turned supply runner, or purveyor of dark-web goods, or whatever puts carbs in their bowls. That deep, untouchable well of sadness, cyanide-laced, poisoning every aspect of their manner whether they realize it or not. Captain Diamond Sunyata has seen too many friends dead and too many lovers lost. She dreads sleep and even the brief bullets of carnal pleasure she allows herself are tainted. Not worth the wounds they leave behind. Someone she must handle with caution. Gentleness. Care, even. Empathy if she can manage it. Misery’s not good at empathy.

Tank, on the other hand, spills over with a kid’s enthusiasm, eager to show off everything that she is. She’s the kind of smart that rolls over into dumb, a cleverness that’s so overwhelming that it leaves her vulnerable in places where she’s not looking. Misery admires her raw intellect—she knows her own brain will never tick that way—but she wouldn’t trade it for what she does have. It’s fine, Tank is a kid. She’ll learn, or she won’t and the consequences will come for her. Either way.