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Clarissa put a hand on Cortez’s shoulder and shook her head once

“He’s the father,” she said “The ship is his house”

“Thank you,” Ashford said to her, but with his eyes still on Cortez “I’lad that someone here understands how this works”

“Suppression teauard units too?”

“Whatever it takes,” Ashford said “I want you to get it done”

On the screen, the view shifted, and Anna’s face filled the screen Her hair was pulled back, and soiven her makeup in a way that made her look like everyone else in broadcast Clarissa felt a strange tug in her chest, resentht at the screen God’s not going to stop bullets for you

“The idea,” Anna said, “is that the station has identified us as an ongoing threat Its actions toward us have been based in a kind of fear Or, that’s wrong A caution We are as unknown and unpredictable to it as it is to us And so we have reason to believe that if we appear to be less threatening, it may relax its constraints”

The ca sober All the physical cues that would indicate Anna was a serious woman with important opinions

“And what is your plan, exactly?” Monica asked

Anna’s laughter bubbled “I wouldn’t call the planis that if er down the reactors in all the ships and reduce energy being used, the station can be induced to… well, to see us less as a threat and more as a curiosity I ate opened, and whatever it had been expecting to co ballistic at tremendous speed Then a flotilla of new ships behind that, and armed soldiers ent aboard the station itself eapons firing If so caiving soive whatever we’re dealing with here the opportunity to not escalate against us,” Anna said “We’ve been thinking of the protos that came from it as—”

The screen went dark Ashford scowled at his control boards, calling up and dis information with hard, percussive taps Cortez floated beside Clarissa, frowning Huineered Ashford’s escape and reconquest of the Behemoth, and she could see in the older man’s eyes that it wasn’t what he’d expected it to be She wondered if her own father had that same expression in his cell back on Earth, or wherever it was they’d put him

“Ruiz,” Ashford snapped “Report What’s our status?”

“I still have half an hour, sir,” the woh the connection

“I didn’t ask how much time you had left,” the captain said “I asked for a report”

“The conductant is in place and curing,” the woman said “It looks like it’ll be done on time I’ve found a place in the breaker system that Sam… that Sam put in a power cutout”

“You’ve replaced that?”

“I did, but I don’t know if there are others She could have sabotaged the whole circuit”

“Well,” Ashford said “You have half an hour to check it”

“That’s what I’ain Clarissa found herself wishing he’d put the newsfeed back on She wanted to knohat Anna was saying, even if it was only as a way to pass the tie wasn’t as hot and close as it had been in the dru, it see Her belly was beginning to coine that the others were feeling the saest spacecraft humanity had ever built, trapped in the starless dark by an alien power they barely began to comprehend, but they were still constrained by the petty needs of flesh, and their collective blood sugar was getting pretty low She wondered what it said about her that she’d watched a women shot to death not two hours before and all she could think about noas lunch She wondered what Anna would have thought