Then, in the stillness and quiet of the room, the full weight of the day’s events began to settle upon her. Morning felt like it had been a week ago, so much had happened since. The Jellies, the compulsion and her response to it, Sparrow … How was the Numenist she’d stabbed? For a moment, she lingered on the thought, then bright flashes of sensations from the fights on the Jelly ship struck her, and Kira shivered, though she wasn’t cold.

She continued to shiver, the tremors locking her muscles into banded cords. The Soft Blade roiled in response, but there was nothing it could do to help, and she could feel its confusion.

Teeth chattering, Kira crawled onto the bunk and wrapped the blanket around herself. She’d always done well in emergencies. It took a lot to rattle her, but the violence had been a lot and then some. She could still feel the vomit stuck in her throat, clogging her airway. Thule! I nearly died.

But she hadn’t, and there was some comfort in the fact.

Not long after, a scared-looking crewmate delivered a tray of food. Kira pulled herself out of bed long enough to fetch the tray, and then she sat with the pillow behind her and ate, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. With each bite, she felt more normal, and when she finished, the cabin no longer seemed quite so grey or dismal.

She wasn’t about to give up.

If the UMC wouldn’t listen to her, maybe the highest-ranked League official in the system would. (She wasn’t sure who that would be: the governor of Ruslan?) The UMC still answered to the civilian government, after all. There was also the company rep stationed on Malpert. He could arrange legal representation for her, which would help give her some leverage. As a last resort, she could always reach out to the Entropists for help.…

Kira reached into her pocket and pulled out the token Jorrus had given her. She tilted the faceted disk, admiring how light reflected off the fractal embedded in the center.

No, she wasn’t about to give up.

She put away the token, opened a document in her overlays, and started to draft a memo outlining everything she’d learned about the Soft Blade, the Jellies, and the Staff of Blue. Someone in authority had to understand the importance of her discoveries and realize they were worth taking a chance on.

She’d only written a page and a half when a sharp rap sounded against the door. “Come in,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and sitting upright.

The door opened, and Captain Akawe entered. He was holding a cup of what smelled like coffee, and there was a stern look on his perfectly sculpted face.

Behind him, an orderly and a pair of Marines remained stationed just outside the cabin.

“Seems today is a day for nasty surprises,” said the captain. He seated himself opposite her, on the cabin’s sole chair.