The Road Less-Traveled

“In order for a leader to remain in power, they must make themself essential. It is the sad truth that most people are replaceable, no matter their position. No one likes to consider themselves expendable, but until a person is respected or needed just enough that no one can step up in their stead, they are. Keep an eye on anyone who can fill your shoes, and start making your shoes bigger.”

-from Realtalk: A Governor Speaks Out by Raj Calai

Sid and Kino were back on the bridge when they jumped into the star system that housed the illegal station. The code name that referred to it in all the stolen Guild documentation was Less-Travel Station, but no one called it that. If they needed to refer to it by a name, they called it The LT, or just The Station. There was hardly any question of what they were referring to. The LT was in a star system with five planets, and it was in orbit around the third. The Impulse came in in several jumps, in order to best disguise its presence. It started out beyond the orbit of the fifth planet, then Captain Wen decided that they should jump into the orbit of the fourth planet, in order to survey the LT more closely while remaining unobserved.

Of course, if the station was paying very close attention to all of the space within their system, they probably would have been able to notice the Impulse jumping in. But the Impulse had an advantage that the LT did not, and that was that the LT should not have any idea that they were coming.

The Impulse deployed their most detailed sensing apparatuses, and though they were still light minutes away, they could see things in rough detail. It was enough to make Sid’s breath catch in his throat. The station orbiting the planet came into view, but it wasn't the station that was the thing that made his hands clench into fists. Next to it, looming large enough to be a moon, was the supership that the Guild was building. On the view screen, the two fuzzy forms danced together. They were in a very high orbit above the planet, as far an orbit as Emerri’s small moon was above it. As they watched and plotted out the orbits of the various bodies, it became clearer that the station had situated itself in the balance point between the massive ship and the planet. Tiny dots would occasionally move between the three bodies: the planet, the station, the ship, carrying raw or finished materials. From the amount of traffic going up from the planet into orbit, the planet must have at least a small mining venture operating on it. Sid wondered what they could be pulling from there that would be worth the cost of hauling it into space without an elevator.

Or perhaps anything was worth the cost, in order to keep this project secret. If they needed raw materials to smelt into construction pieces for their ship, it might rouse suspicion to buy that from elsewhere. And the station there was large enough that they could conceivably have a small manufacturing facility set up to process raw materials into almost anything. There must be a constant tradeoff between the economies of scale and secrecy that the Guild was manipulating here. On one hand, building this ship required so many materials, many of them specialized, that could be bought in quantity on most planets in the Empire. Perhaps if those purchases were distributed out across many different planets, many different families, many months, it wouldn't rouse suspicion. But for more specialized parts, especially anything that was needed to support the structural integrity of such an absurdly large ship, everything would need to be custom made and designed. And that couldn't be exported. The Guild would have to make those themselves.

And clearly they had been. Even in the grainy, blurred out images taken from the distance they were at, they could see constructions on the surface of the ship, massive things.

"How close to launch do you think this is?" Kino asked anybody who had the answer.

Captain Wen considered it for a moment. "From here it's hard to tell, but based on the amount of things on the surface, they probably haven't installed everything inside the ship. They might still be excavating."

"It's not fully excavated?" Sid asked.

"Probably not enough to build the rings. If we enhance this image…" Wen controlled the large screen from his tablet, and it zoomed in. An algorithm made predictive enhancements to the fuzzy blobs of the surface of the ship, and it resolved into a 'best guess' for what the things on the surface were. Massive poles, support structures, prefabricated walls laying flat on the ground.

"But as soon as the stardrives arrive it will be able to move," Kino said.

"As soon as they install them, yes," Wen said. "It's impossible to tell if they have the computer and the chamber for the drives ready yet."

"We can't be spotted from where we are, can we?" Sid asked.

"If they know we're here and are looking, they'd be able to find us, but we're keeping radio silent, we're running cold, and we're staying as much behind this planet as possible," Wen said. "I'd be shocked if they managed to see us. And even if they did, I'm not sure what they'd be able to do."

"How many people are working on that station?" Kino asked.

"No way to know. Probably a lot, though," Cesper said. "It's a big job to build a station like that, even if they're importing all their food and supplies. There's still a lot of robot wrangling that needs to be done."

Sid could attest to that. His family's farm was completely mechanized, in terms of the actual crop production, but even with a fleet of robots performing at their peak capacity, it still took his family an absurd amount of time to program their routes, keep them working, monitor their operation, and deal with any mistakes they made. Though he liked all the robots, and was glad for the work that they did, they weren't autonomous enough to run a farm without constant supervision, and he shuddered to think of what type of monitoring would be required to build something completely unique, like this ship.

"But where do they all come from," Kino asked. "All the workers?"

"That's one of the million charge questions, isn't it?" Captain Wen said. "I think that if you figure out that answer, you'll have a much better idea of what the Guild's plans actually are."

"What do you mean by that?" Sid asked.

"Well, the Guild is only going to recruit people who are willing to work with them toward their future goals. They could be directly supplying people from within their own force, or they could be picking up passengers off of planets and giving them work, or they could be working with–"

"Pirates?" Kino asked.

"It's a long shot, but possible," Wen said. "After all, who has a better supply of free labor?"

"Imperial prisons," Sid said. Wen laughed.

"Maybe so, but I think we can be safely assured that the Guild is not taking prisoners from us. Do you have a plan for when we jump in?"

"Yes, of course," Sid said. He had discussed it with his whole team. He and Kino had a veritable entourage of diplomats, there to ensure that they didn't make some sort of horrible misstep. Of course, when it came right down to the grain of it, Sid and Kino would be the ones doing the talking and making the decisions, not anyone that Sandreas had sent along with them. Sid wasn't intending to disobey their advice, precisely, but he knew where true power lay. "Can we radio them from here?"

"Sure, but it'll take a few minutes for them to get our message."

"Yeah, I know. I just want to give them about a minute of head time before we jump in on top of them."

"Why?" Wen asked.

"It just seems polite, doesn't it?"

"I think you and I have different definitions of polite. Since we've come here armed and dangerous, perhaps politeness is out the window."

"Politeness is never out the window," Sid said with mock seriousness. "But I do want to give them a little warning, and then jump in ourselves ready to go. I think it would be a bad look to go in aggressively."

"Do you really think that anything we do here will come off as non-aggressive?" Kino asked.

"We have to try." He didn’t want to make any steps that could turn this into a bloodbath, and if giving the LT a bit of warning could avoid triggering a panic defense, then he’d take that any day.

Sid stared at the blobs on the screen, the giant false moon and the smaller station, watching the occasional dot of light pass between them. He didn't want to think about all the people aboard those places. Sid couldn't help but remember the pirates. These weren't pirates, though. They were just people. People doing illegal things.

It was another eight hours before they could jump in closer. Sid took a nap for the first part of it. His sleep had been disjointed for months, and being on the strange ship's schedule only made it worse. He felt a little bad for Cesper, who was responsible for following him and Kino around and making sure they were in the right places at the right time. Since Kino seemed to always be awake and around when Sid was, he didn't actually know if she ever slept. Cesper was developing bags under his eyes that deepened every time Sid saw him, which was often. The man must have had some sort of access to the ship's monitoring cameras to know when Sid was awake and wandering around.

As he lay on his bunk, staring up at the corrugated metal ceiling above him, Sid wondered how things were going back on Emerri. What was Sandreas doing? Was he quietly informing Guild leadership about Sid's presence here? Was he wrestling with the Imperial Council for funding to build their own multi-stardrive ships? Was he just waiting and watching to see what would come of Sid and Kino's trip?

And Yan. He hadn't abandoned her in his thoughts. Where was she? She had to still be alive. As irrational as it was, Sid thought that he would know if she was dead. Some part of him would have to feel it. Something would echo through the universe and tell him.

Maybe that was God. That hoping, that message that he knew he would feel.

He rolled over in his bed, trying not to think about any of it. He didn't want to think about how badly the upcoming negotiations could go. If there was one thing that was good about Yan being missing, it was that she didn't have to be around to see what the Trade Guild had come to. It probably would have been miserable for her to hear about the murder, and the missing stardrives, and the illegal station, and what Sid and Kino might have to do if the negotiations fell through. It wasn't going to come to that, though.

Sid slept uneasily. He had an alarm set for a while before the Impulse was set to jump out, but as he drifted of to sleep, the buzzing of his own snoring kept making him think that his phone alarm was vibrating under his hand.

Hernan came to get him, once he was done with his nap. Sid had made his way to the Junior Officers' Mess, hoping to find Cesper, and also to get some breakfast. He still wasn't sure which dining hall was appropriate for him to eat in by himself, so he usually waited for Cesper to arrive and bring him somewhere. Today, though, he was ravenous. As he was trying to figure out if he could open the door himself, Hernan and Cesper arrived, walking shoulder to shoulder down the hall.

"Apprentice Welslak," Cesper said. "Captain Wen is looking for you on the bridge."

Of course he was. "Can I just grab something to eat first? I'm starving."

Hernan checked his watch. "You have a minute," he signed.

"Thanks," Sid signed. "Lieutenant, can you open the door for me?" he asked aloud. They were addressing each other formally because people were rushing past them through the hallways. It wouldn't do to seem informal to the general crew of the ship. As Sandreas would say, it was bad optics.

"Of course. Though you know I feel horribly left out when you sign to each other," Cesper said, unlocking the door and holding it open for Sid to get in.

Sid grinned and headed inside. The dining hall was crowded, and the line to get food was quite long. Surprisingly, the predominant smell was roast meat, and it made Sid salivate. He didn't have time to sit down and eat something, though, so he scooted around the line until he got to the big bowls of fruit. It was still strange that the Impulse rarely served meat but had the space available to dedicate to fruit trees. The vats to make meat were smaller than trees, even if they were much more resource intensive. Sid snatched a couple apples and shoved them deep into the pockets of his cassock. He kept one in his hand and ate it as he left the dining hall, walking beside Cesper to the bridge. Hernan trailed the both of them as a guard. Not that he needed it on a Fleet ship like this one, but Hernan's familiar presence was never unwelcome. At this point, Hernan probably knew Sid better than anyone else. After all, he had been there through the worst of it.

When they arrived on the bridge, it was maybe even more of a hive of activity than it had been that first day when they jumped away from Emerri. Captain Wen was sideling along between the different stations, personally checking in on everyone. Kino was lingering on the side of the room, waiting for Sid. She came over to join him, and together they watched the business of the ship.

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Impulse, soldiers were suiting up, checking their shuttles and dogfighters, preparing for any conflict that might happen. Somewhere, weapons were heating up, ready to accelerate chunks of metal towards an enemy. Somewhere, the stardrive was churning to life, ready to jump them all in.

When Captain Wen noticed who had come in to the bridge, he patted the shoulder of the man he had been leaning over, and walked over to see the two apprentices.

"Ready for the jump?" He asked.

"I want to send the message first," Sid said. He was still holding the apple core in his hand, and he stuck it guiltily in his pocket. There was probably some prohibition about food on the bridge. Certainly if he had been running a ship, he would have banned it.

"Text, voice, or video?" Wen asked. "I can get you set up at a station."

"Let me send the message," Kino said, jumping into the conversation. Sid glanced at her, then shrugged.

"Sure."

"Video, please," Kino said to Captain Wen.

They had prepared a script beforehand, and it had been carefully combed over by the whole diplomatic team they brought with them, so it didn't particularly matter which of them delivered the message. Still, Sid was surprised that Kino was volunteering. She didn't tend to like the spotlight. He saw her nervously fiddle with her hair, straightening her two long braids to fall neatly across the front of her shoulders. Kino's minder, Deboan, who had been lurking in the corner of the room, came over and adjusted the lay of her short cape across her shoulders. Something incomprehensible to Sid flashed between them at that moment.

Sid hadn't gotten much of a chance to see Deboan interact with Kino. First there had been the period before their minders introduced themselves, then there had been the long trip away from Emerri, and then Deboan had been out on injury, so Kino had what felt like an endless string of substitutes. Then, once Deboan was back, Kino did her best to avoid her. Kino was a remarkably private person and seemed to resent having her minder around. It was nothing like the professional relationship that Sid had with Hernan, or the friendly and teasing one that Yan… Thinking about Yan was the wrong thing to do at this moment.

One the communications officer on the bridge of the ship situated Kino in front of a station with a camera so that she could record the message. Kino checked her hair and ran her hand over her face one more time to make sure it was clean, then gave the signal to record.

"Less-Travel Station, this is Kino Mejia, apprentice to First Sandreas, Voice of the Empire, speaking to you from the Imperial Ship Impulse. Your station is currently in violation of Imperial law. Immediately cease all operations and prepare for the Impulse to dock with your station. All shuttles and auxiliary ships must also cease operations. Failure to comply will be regarded as aggression. The Impulse will be making the final jump in within five minutes of you receiving this message. The intended coordinates of our jump are–" Kino rattled off a long string of information provided to her by the navigation officer who stood at her side. "Please have your commanding officer stand by for contact. Thank you for your cooperation."

Kino signaled below the view of the camera to end the recording, and the whole thing was prepared for transfer. Though sending this message would reveal their position, it didn't matter. They were far enough away from anything the Guild had set up that nothing would be able to get to them before they jumped, and they would be jumping right in to the station. All that was left to do was wait the required amount of time: the transit time of the message and the delay they had allowed for the LT to prepare itself for their arrival.

The atmosphere on the bridge was tense. Everyone was ready for the jump, and there was a long countdown running on the large screen. It was still projecting images of the station, but those images were like looking back in time. Everything still looked peaceful, aside from the menacingly large ship.

"Ready?" Captain Wen asked again.

"As I'll ever be," Sid said.

"Yes," Kino said, looking cool and confident.

"Let's jump."

As always, there was no feeling of movement, or of any change at all as the ship's stardrive whisked them forward in time and space. Even though the old momentum of their ship was eaten by the stardrive, and they were given a new one to neatly match the orbit of the station, it didn't feel like anything.

The space looked different, though.

Giving the LT a warning had evidently been a bad idea. Somehow, the ship, the real object of everyone's concern, had vanished.

Sid swore loudly, unable to help himself. Though some of the officers on the bridge looked at him with mild disdain for violating the sanctity of the bridge, the feeling was shared by most people- he could see it on their faces. Sid looked out on the screen at the empty space where the moon sized ship should have been, and he felt a deep fear settle on his shoulders. The beginning of this diplomatic trip, whose goal was to safely stop this ship from being built, was already falling apart. Even Sandreas's plan, to infiltrate and destroy the ship before it could take its maiden voyage, was destroyed. The thing was mobile, and now it was missing.

Kino, in an uncharacteristic move, came close enough so that their shoulders touched. She sent a message to him through the power. It was a little garbled. They didn't know each other well enough that this would be easy. He almost laughed. How much easier had this been with Yan just months ago? And now he had been working with Kino for so much longer, but there was just this empty place in his brain when he thought about her. He didn't understand her inner life enough to process the thoughts she sent to him. That was a wakeup call if he had ever had one.

But he could understand well enough the intention behind her message. They needed to figure out what to do, and fast.

"Technically," Sid began, and he could see Hernan's face twitch out of the corner of his eye. "Building a ship isn't illegal. Only the station is." It was true that the Guild had the license to construct their own ships, according to their own specifications, with whatever stardrives they had. This ship just happened to have stardrives that were not really accounted for. Sid hypothesized that they were the almost burnt out ones that had been rigged together for the test. How long had the Guild been stockpiling old stardrives? They would need to use several to get that ship moving, and it would be a risky thing if one of them failed during the ship's journey.

"So we continue as planned. I won't mention the ship at all," Kino said, adding on to the end of Sid’s statement.

"Everyone will understand that's the purpose of this little visit," Captain Wen chimed in. "No one will be fooled." Wen may have been a competent Fleet captain, but he was not that much of a diplomat. Sid supposed rising through the Fleet ranks only involved being able to strategize and stay in line with other Fleet leaders.

"They don't need to be fooled, they just need to understand what the Empire's intentions are. And the Empire, though it may allow ships to be built, cannot stand for unauthorized station building and mining activities. That is clearly out of the Guild's charter, and we will not allow a precedent to be set to the contrary," Kino said, looking slightly imperious. Her language was formal, and it felt like more spontaneous words than Sid had seen Kino speak in a long time. Maybe even since she yelled at him in the woods. He didn't like to think about that, but he was coming to realize just how many different sides there were to Kino, though she was a mystery on the surface. He just didn't understand what the invisible connection between all these pieces of Kino was.

"Yeah," Sid said. If Kino wanted to continue taking the lead, he was going to let her.

"Get me back on the radio. I want to see who's in charge," Kino said.

Kino sat back down in front of the transmission station. Sid stood right behind her, curling his fingers around the back of her chair so that her back touched his hand. It wasn't meant to be possessive, just enough that they could talk. As much as they could talk, anyway.

"Less-Travel Station, this is the Imperial ship Impulse. Please acknowledge." The Impulse broadcast the message on every standard wavelength, and a few non standard ones, just to be sure that the LT was receiving. They knew that they were, because they had clearly gotten the message about the impending arrival of the Impulse, enough to send the supership running, but the Impulse couldn't be sure exactly which frequency they were listening on.

There were several long moments of radio silence. Everyone on the Impulse waited, bodies tense. In the depths of the ship, soldiers sat in the cockpits of their dogfighters, bays already cleared of air, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. Others watched the LT for signs of their own dogfighters. They space around the station was perfectly still.

"Impulse, this is Less-Travel Station, we are receiving you. Please standby."

Everyone continued to wait. Kino drummed her fingers on her leg.

"How long will we wait?" Sid sent through the power. He wasn't sure if Kino heard his message, because she didn't even send a feeling in response. Aside from the distant mutterings from the back of the bridge of officers going about their equipment checks, words floating like pale ghosts over the surface of his glasses, no one was speaking. He kept half his attention on the big screen. Just like everyone else, he was watching to make sure that the LT wasn't about to launch its own dogfighters.

The radio came to life once again. "Impulse, this is Commander Willis aboard Less-Travel station, please state your business."

"Commander Willis, I am Kino Mejia, apprentice to First Sandreas. Your station is in direct violation of Guild charter and Imperial law. All operations must cease immediately, and you must prepare to be boarded by Imperial inspectors." Imperial inspectors was a fairly soft word for an armed crew of Fleet soldiers. "What is your docking procedure?"

Sid had to imagine that the prolonged silence on the other end of the radio was born of resignation.

"Impulse, we cannot currently allow you to dock with our station."

"If docking the Impulse is not possible, we have shuttles standing by," Kino said calmly. "You do not have the authority to refuse entry, Commander Willis."

There was no one who had the authority to refuse entry to Imperial officials, but that didn't ever stop people from trying.

"We do not have docking space for your shuttles, Impulse."

"Less-Travel Station, what is your specific reason for your refusal to allow us access?"

"This station is Guild property, and under Guild charter there is no requirement that we allow Imperial agents aboard any ship."

"The Guild charter does not include the occupation or construction of stations by the Guild," Kino said. "Therefore, the existence of this station is not covered by the charter, and it can be considered an independent and illegal body."

There was silence over the radio. Sid's hands tightened on the back of Kino's chair.

"Don't say it," he tried to send to her through the power. There was no indication that she received his message at all.

"If you do not cooperate willingly, we will be forced to board you," Kino said. And that was board in the unfriendly way.

There was more long silence. Kino didn't make any move to order the shuttles and dogfighters waiting in the bay out.

"Less-Travel Station, we await your response," Kino said.

"Don't," came the response over the radio. It was a different voice. "This is, uh, Shen, I'm, uh, Willis's second."

"Where did Commander Willis go?" Kino asked. Sid wasn't sure if that was the ideal thing to do, right this second, but he understood the impulse; he had the exact same question.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sid saw Captain Wen smirking at his own second. He covered his mouth with his hand when he noticed that Sid was watching him. His second smiled back and raised an eyebrow. Sid resented whatever mouthed conversation he was having, but it wasn't his business.

"Commander Willis is, uh, indisposed," Shen said. "Um. Sorry, I'm not really, uh, look, could you just tell us what's going to happen when you come on board?"

"Light touch, Kino," Sid sent as a suggestion. Kino sent back a completely garbled sentence and a vague feeling of… It was a positive emotion at least.

"That will depend on your cooperation," Kino said. "But our first priority is to place this station under Imperial oversight. Stations cannot operate without Imperial permission."

"Uh, Ms. Mejia–"

"Apprentice Mejia," Kino corrected. Sid sighed involuntarily, remembered that other people could hear him doing so, and clamped his mouth shut.

"Um, ok, Apprentice Mejia, I, well, some of the crew want to know–" There was the sound of things being knocked around in the background, and the radio abruptly cut out. Sid reached down to flick off their own transmission for the moment so that he could talk aloud.

"This isn't going great."

"It's fine," Kino said. "They're doing all the hard work for us."

"What do you mean?"

"If there's people on there who are so desperate not to get arrested that they'll mutiny, then all we have to do is keep putting on this pressure, and they'll surrender."

"You don't think we should interfere?" Sid asked.

"You don't think sending out our ships would make them panic more?"

It definitely would. Kino wasn't wrong, but Sid was a little bit worried that whatever was happening on the bridge of the station was a little bit more than panic at maybe being arrested. If he was a Guild member, working on a secret project, on an illegal station, full of incriminating files about various activities by Guild members, probably not even limited to just the construction of the supership, he might have something like a kill switch built into his system. And if he was the second on a station where there was a kill switch that the commander might be tempted to use, he might decide that this was the right time to put a knife to his commander's throat. Murder be damned, at least he would get out of it alive.

That was a runaway train of thought. Kino tilted her head backward to look at him. Her eyes were wide and large from this angle, the dark brown irises staring up at him without any hint of emotion. She looked more birdlike than ever.

"Calm down," she said, and flipped the transmission back on. She tilted her head back to its normal angle and looked directly into the camera. They didn't know if the station was actually watching their broadcast or just listening, but it didn't hurt to appear professional. "Less-Travel Station, are you there?"

They waited for a long moment. Sid looked around at everyone on the bridge, taking a poll based on their faces of what each person was feeling. Some of them looked apprehensive or excited, others looked merely curious.

"Less-Travel Station, please respond."

Then Shen's voice came back over the line. "Sorry Impulse, I'm here."

"Is everything alright?" Kino asked.

"Uh, no, but, uh, yeah." Shen's voice appeared on Sid's glasses in fits and stutters. "What's going to happen to us?"

"If you cooperate, we can work out a solution to this problem that is amenable to all parties," Kino said. "I have no desire to see this situation reach an unpleasant conclusion."

Tone it down, Sid thought, but it wasn't a thought directed at Kino through the power, it was just his wish. Why had he let her take the lead? It was happening again, wasn't it? He had done the same thing when he was with Yan– letting someone else take charge.

He was struck by how much he both wished Kino wasn't here, so he could prove himself, and how glad he was that she was here, so she could share the blame if anything went wrong. Perhaps he was just being a coward. He wasn't going to wrestle Kino to the ground to take her spot in front of the camera, though. She could keep it.

"Ok, uh, look, if you come closer, we can dock? But, uh, shit." There was a momentary pause. "Sorry, this is kinda a mess."

"Take your time," Kino said, but from the way her fingers twitched on the fabric of her cassock, Sid could tell she was stressed.

"Oh, fuck, well, uh." How this man, who under stress resorted to incoherent ramblings over the radio, ever became second on anything, was beyond Sid's understanding.

"Less-Travel, could you please tell us what's going on?" Kino asked.

"Not really," Shen said.

"Can the Impulse dock with you or not?"

"Not really."

"Would it be better for us to send shuttles?"

"Sorry, I don't actually have, uh, control of that right now."

"Aren't you on the bridge?" Kino asked.

"I am, but, uh, there's, uh, well, the computer."

"What about the computer?"

"It's all messed up."

"Alright, hold on Less-Travel." Kino flipped the switch on the transmitter, cutting off their communication with the station.

"Wiping data?" Sid asked.

"Probably," Cesper said, leaning over his shoulder. "Not that I'm an expert, but if I was in charge of this station, that's the first thing I'd do if an Imperial ship swooped up on me."

"And what's the second thing you'd do?"

"If I was somebody wanted? I'd escape to a designated meeting point."

Now that was a thought. "Have we seen any shuttles go out?" Sid asked.

"No," one of the officers on the bridge said. "It's been quiet."

"But someone could have left when the supership jumped?"

"We'd see their engines," the officer said. "We would know if anyone had left."

"They might still try to get out of here, though," Sid said.

"Our dogs are ready. If we need to chase someone down, we can," Captain Wen spoke up.

"Good." That didn't solve the real problem, which was getting agents aboard the station, preferably before all its systems deleted themselves to remove incriminating evidence. "Will we be able to get anything off of the computers, even though they're being wiped?"

"It depends on how thorough they are," Cesper said.

"Let's assume they're very thorough," Sid said.

"Then we'd better stay clear of the blast radius," Cesper said. "The only way to make sure no traces remain is to destroy the computers. I think, based on the way things are going, that's not happening."

"Let me get them back on the line," Kino said, interrupting the speculation. She flipped the switch. "Less-Travel, please give us an update on your status."

"I'm, uh, on the bridge. And so are a couple other people. And everyone is sitting tight, mostly. And, uh, the computer is freaking out but, uh. Here, maybe I can open a bay?"

"Are you in danger, Mr. Shen?"

"I don't think so? It's mostly under control. Just let me…" He trailed off. "Ok. Bay 2 is going to open. Uh. Are you sending a shuttle?"

"Hold on, Less-Travel." Kino killed the radio again.

"I'm going over there," Sid said, before anyone could interrupt. "You should stay here," he said to Kino.

"Okay," Kino said. She didn't seem to mind his sudden desire to take charge of his own situation. And Sid was determined to take charge. He wasn't going to continue to let other people tell him what to do.

He turned to Hernan. "Get the advisory team and meet me in…" He looked to Cesper.

"Shuttle bay 4," Cesper provided, peering down at a tablet.

Hernan looked at Sid firmly. "If Sandreas were here," he signed. Yeah, sure, if Sandreas were here, he would have objected to Sid going onto a dangerous, illegal station. Of course he would have. But the good thing was, Sandreas wasn't here, and that meant that Sid got to make the decisions. No one had seriously tried to object, so it couldn't be that dangerous.

"I don't care," Sid signed back. Hernan didn't argue, he just turned and went to gather the appropriate people.

"Cesper, you're with me," Sid said aloud. Kino's lips twisted a fraction of a degree. What was she smiling about? Sid didn't have the patience to worry about it at the moment. "Kino, you tell them we'll be on our way."

"Good luck," she said, twisting around in her seat to look at him full on. "Leave if it gets dangerous."

"I'm not stupid," Sid said. There was only so much that should be said in the bridge of this warship. They had an audience. And the more Kino said things to him, the less tactful he was likely to be. He remembered the conversation about rumors he had with Cesper; he didn't need any more of his own floating around.