“Of course it’s not,” she said, turning back. “The only true thing I said was that we had no deaths, although it’s probably more accurate to say that we don’t have any deaths yet. As for the rest of it, our life support and energy systems are hanging by a thread, most of the other systems are dead or failing, and it will be a miracle if the Clarke ever moves from this spot under her own power. And to top it all off, some idiot destroyed our shuttle.”

“Sorry about that,” Wilson said.

“Hmmm,” Coloma said. She started to turn again.

“It was a very great thing, to risk your ship for the Utche,” Wilson said. “I didn’t ask you to do that. That came from you, Captain Coloma. It’s a victory, if you ask me. Ma’am.”

Coloma paused for a second and then walked off, with no response.

“I don’t think she likes me much,” Wilson said, to Schmidt.

“Your charm is best described as idiosyncratic,” Schmidt said.

“So why do you like me?” Wilson said.

“I don’t think I’ve actually ever admitted to liking you,” Schmidt said.

“Now that you mention it, I think you may be right,” Wilson said.

“You’re not boring,” Schmidt said.

“Which is what you like most about me,” Wilson said.

“No, boring is good,” Schmidt said, and waved his hand around the shuttle bay. “This is the shit that’s going to kill me.”

XI.

Colonel Abel Rigney and Colonel Liz Egan sat in a hole-in-the-wall commissary at Phoenix Station, eating cheeseburgers.

“These are fantastic cheeseburgers,” Rigney said.

“They’re even better when you have a genetically-engineered body that never gets fat,” Egan said. She took another bite of her burger.

“True,” Rigney said. “Maybe I’ll have another.”

“Do,” Egan said. “Test your metabolism.”

“So, you read the report,” Rigney said to Egan between his own bites.

“All I do is read reports,” Egan said. “Read reports and scare midlevel bureaucrats. Which report are we talking about?”

“The one on the final round of negotiations with the Utche,” Rigney said. “With the Clarke, and Ambassador Abumwe and Lieutenant Wilson.”

“I did,” Egan said.

“What’s the final disposition of the Clarke?” Rigney asked.

“What did you find out about those missile fragments?” Egan asked.

“I asked you first,” Rigney said.

“And I’m not in the second grade, so that tactic doesn’t work with me,” Egan said, and took another bite.

“We took a chunk of missile your dockworkers fished out of the Clarke and found a part number on it. The missile tracks back to a frigate called the Brainerd. This particular missile was reported launched and destroyed in a live-fire training exercise eighteen months ago. All the data I’ve seen confirms the official story,” Rigney said.

“So we have ghost missiles being used by mystery ships to undermine secret diplomatic negotiations,” Egan said.

“That’s about the size of it,” Rigney said. He set down his burger.

“Secretary Galeano isn’t going to be very pleased that one of our own missiles was used to severely damage one of her department’s ships,” Egan said.