Taisen inclined his head in thanks and said nothing further, though something in the careful economy of her answer (a fraction too smooth, a fraction too quick to land on the safest possible sentence) settled into the same part of his mind where he kept every piece of information he hadn't yet decided what to do with. He had expected, going in, that a queen with a broken people and nothing left to lose would eventually look for a way to save herself at someone else's expense; every occupied population he'd ever studied produced exactly that person, sooner or later, and he'd have been a fool to assume Venemis was the exception. What he hadn't decided (what he genuinely didn't know, watching her bow and turn back toward the escort waiting to show her to her quarters) was when, or how, or what it would cost him to be right.
Three days into the Fold crossing, the bridge of the Arctic had settled into the particular hush that came with long transit: quiet consoles, low light, the psychedelic smear of compressed starlight streaming past the viewport in slow, hypnotic ribbons.
Ensign Jonathan Swan found Camaro in the command chair when he came on shift, fingers drumming an unconscious rhythm against the armrest, her attention fixed on the alien woman seated cross-legged at the navigation console: grey-skinned, third eye closed beneath a lidless black film, black robe pooled around her like something poured rather than worn, two purple-skinned guards standing an easy, watchful distance from her on either side of the hatch.
"Sir," Camaro said, rising as he approached.
"Ensign," Jonathan said, waving her back into the seat. "Anything to report?"
"The Queen surfaced from her trance about an hour ago. Took her usual ten minutes, then went back under." Camaro's gaze didn't leave Venemis for long. "Another three-hour stretch of this should put us at the Cell system. Position check while she was up top confirmed we're on the vector she gave us."
"You reported that to the Commander?"
"I sent it up the chain. Whether he's read it is between him and his console." There was an edge in it, thin but unmistakable, and Jonathan felt his own shoulders tighten in response before he made himself let it go.
"Something you need to get off your chest, Ensign?"
Camaro turned to face him fully, holding whatever she was carrying in check with visible effort. "Why hasn't he said one word to this crew about the Beluga? Good people died out there on a plan he never fully explained to any of us."
Jonathan studied her a long moment, his irritation softening into something closer to recognition. "From what Colonel Lyn's told me, the Commander and Admiral Usyk went back further than any of us knew. He's taken this harder than anyone on this ship, including you."
"Then why won't he tell us that?"
"Because some men would rather carry it quietly than perform it for an audience," Jonathan said. "He'll make certain the people responsible answer for it. That's the part he's decided is ours to see."
Curiosity crept in under Camaro's anger, in spite of herself. "How."
"Bring the Arctic to combat-ready status in the next hour, and you'll see for yourself."
Fear moved through her, quick and cold. "I didn't realize we were headed back into it."
"What did you think we were doing out here?"
Her mouth twisted, half a scowl. "I assumed we'd left something behind and were going back for it."
Jonathan let five full seconds of silence sit on her before he spoke again, watching her composure slip a little more with every one of them. "I'll count your grief for the Beluga against the insubordination and let it go this once," he said, evenly. "But I'd think carefully before you air doubts about the Commander's judgment on this bridge again. His fitness to command isn't yours to weigh out loud, Ensign, and neither is his state of mind."
"Yes, sir," Camaro said, chastened but not entirely cowed. "Are we even cleared to engage these people? Last time we were out there, they outgunned us badly enough that gunnery's a generous word for what we managed."
"We're always cleared to defend this ship," Jonathan said. "And given how the blockade reacted to us last time, I doubt we'll have long to wait before that clearance gets used." He allowed himself, silently, the same doubt she'd just spoken aloud (they'd had the Beluga running interference the last time they came through this vector, and they wouldn't have her this time) before he set the thought aside where it could wait until it was useful.
He turned to go, then stopped at the hatch. "One more thing, Ensign. Don't refer to Lieutenant Alita, or Queen Venemis, or anyone else aboard this ship, as an alien anything. It's beneath the uniform you're wearing."
"Understood, sir."
"And for what it's worth: Taisen not laying his tactics out for the whole bridge to see doesn't mean he doesn't have them. Whatever he's built for today, it'll get us through." He drew a slow breath, throat dry, and looked back out at the churn of light beyond the viewport. "Trust him. I've had to learn how. It's not as hard as it sounds, once you stop needing to see the whole plan before you'll follow it."
Behind them, unnoticed, Venemis's fingers twitched once against her knee: the only outward sign, in all that stillness, that she'd heard every word of it.
Venemis waited until the shift changed and the corridor beyond the hatch fell quiet before she let herself slip fully back under, deeper than her usual trance, deep enough to buy herself the cover of a queen too deep in prophecy to be watched too closely.
She had spent three rest periods memorizing the message she needed to send, and longer than that working out how to reach the ship's short-range transmitter without anyone on this bridge noticing her hands. She had planned, all along, to make the attempt only once they'd nearly cleared the Region entirely: close enough to the Cell system that a burst transmission would have almost no distance left to travel, and therefore almost no time in which anyone could intercept or trace it. That had been the safe way. The careful way.