A sigh ghosts through the room. The siege of Monkglass has stretched for unhappy months. In the grand schema Monkglass Station isn’t so important, a vestigial organ on the edge of the Empire, an old trading post between two smaller duchies that has been eclipsed by newer, faster jump routes. Yet it still bears the crest and colors of the Faithful, and the pride that comes along with it. When the siege first burst over the station, outrage and disbelief flooded the waves, top lede, every development followed second by second by the breathless masses. A hundred Heretic ships, a net around the trading outpost, a toothless Throne that held back on retaliation. And then days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and the nerve circuits electrified by the adrenaline of fresh hostilities went tired and numb. A siege is a siege, a long waiting game, and with no change of status on the horizon the attention of the Faithful eventually lurched elsewhere. Updates slowed and shrank to eight-point at the bottom of bulletins. Misery was aware of the siege in the same dim way she knew of happenings in the Capital. Summarized and distant, filtered of all color and interest. Unless the siege disrupted major supply lines, it had no real bearing on her life. On Angelsteeth, this military installation where the threat of deployment swings merrily overhead, people pay more attention. But there isn’t much to see. It provides a blanket of white noise, nothing more.

The Archbishop folds their hands on the table before them. “To break the siege would be to score an unprecedented victory against the Heretics. A gesture grand enough the Throne cannot lock it away or suppress its existence. It will be undeniable. A nova that can be seen from one end of the Empire to the other. A blow that will puncture the nullvoid.”

“Enough of this bombast,” General Tsung says. “You want us to carry out a major engagement without backup, risking the lives of all the troops who serve here. That’s unacceptable to me.”

“Or to me,” says Major Reyes. “I see why you called it a favor. Dress it up all you want, Imogen, but we all know why you’re asking.”

“Photon,” says Duke Argan, sharply. Tension ices the atmosphere; the Archbishop remains silent but anger gleams off their expression.

“Enough,” Misery says. There’s too much to parse simultaneously: the senior officers’ hard-baked resentment toward civilians, the Archbishop’s deeply held knot of pain, the Duke’s anger and torn loyalties. Diamond’s ambivalence. And the way Lightning brushes her ankle against Misery’s, a gesture that seeks assurance as much as it provides it. She doesn’t know what is going on exactly. But she does know that the molten moments of these conflicts are perfect places to act. When no one knows what is going on, the loudest voices always win.