Lanis mutely surveys the aftermath of the engagement between the Human and Bellitran fleets. The initial elation of victory has turned sour, as if she’s bitten into a sweet apple only to find that its core is rotten. The scale of the carnage that Terra Fleet has enacted from its kilometer-long ships is unreal, like a sim or a dream: but there it is, in neat points of data and incoming streams of after-action reports, magnified into near-tactile actuality by the Agni’s sensor arrays and bulbous optics.

  Besides the Trixilii admiral’s ship, the opposing Bellitran League fleet is now a sprawling collection of slag metal and reactor core plumes. Traces of unrecognizable Trixilii biological matter, charred and then frozen in space, begin their years-long drift toward the oblivion of deep space or the gravity well of Scoria’s distant sun. A few Bellitran escape pods have made it to the surface, but the looming presence of the carrier-ship Guanyin promises a swift end to those who fled. The weak-boned Trixilii are in for an uncomfortable few hours on the high gravity moon. They could surrender, of course—but that is not the Bellitran League’s way.

  Only our Heracles is truly damaged. Better even than we hoped for, Ether reflects, surveying the destruction Fleet has wrought with her own mixture of uneasiness and awe.

  I suppose we can thank the Dwellers for that, Lanis responds. She remembers the excitement, verging on giddy disbelief, of Terra’s engineers when the Dwellers began sharing facets of their ancient defensive technologies. There were simulations and trials, of course, but this is the first time they’ve been put to the test of a Bellitran penetration round.

  And all it took was four months of convincing.

  Lanis feels the acid in Ether’s remark and twists her mouth in a bitter, answering smile. Come on, Ether — let’s not “dwell” on it. She feels Ether’s eye-roll and long-suffering groan. The truth is, Lanis is constantly dwelling on those four months. If only she had managed to convince the aliens sooner; if only they hadn’t made her undergo all those damn tests...

  She unconsciously clenches her jaw as she remembers sitting on the cold floor of the Dwellers’ ship like some indentured Zen monk, two of the tall aliens shuffling around her in their bronze-colored exo-suits, as if performing some kind of interpretive dance, hour after hour, day after day, their dappled, moth-like wings quivering as they measured her strength, compound eyes glittering in the strange infrared light—

  STOP, Ether says firmly, shaking Lanis from those nightmarish memories.

  Lanis’ shoulders droop within the weightlessness of the Navigation pod. Beyond her despair at Scoria’s ruin, she also feels an anger, mixed with bitter resignation, at the now-destroyed Bellitran fleet’s idiotic refusal toward the Agni’s attempt at negotiation. Perhaps this was all simply inevitable, but the fulfilled desire to avenge Scoria has turned to ash in her mouth.

  We need allies, not enemies. Maybe the Dwellers were right. Maybe we should have stayed on Terra — let them try to deal with the Rot’s resurgence on their own, Lanis thinks, using the Dwellers’ preferred term for the Warp-bound entity that she and Fleet first knew as the Anomaly.

  I don’t think that was ever an option, Ether answers, recalling Admiral Ren’s face, flushed with rage, when she learned of the Dwellers’ proposition that Humanity simply consign itself to Terra.

  Lanis only managed to gasp out a few questions during her time on the Dwellers’ ship. It was simply too exhausting, and usually futile, to form a meditative image over the course of an entire day while the aliens tried to psychically worm their way inside her mind’s defenses, only to then have the question ignored. It was their way of testing her—and, by extension, Fleet’s entire Navigation Corps, along with Humanity itself.

  “How will you deal with the Rot?” she had finally managed to psychically blurt, a hammer-blow of a question born of bewildered indignation.

  The answer was difficult to bear, the full force of a Dweller psychic image blasted into her from a nearly forehead-touching distance:

  By returning it to death, wherever it appears, one of the giants had thought-screamed, pushing an overwhelming image of flame along with the answer.

  Lanis wishes she had felt reassured. But despite the awe-inspiring power of the Dwellers’ Spire-ship and their formidable technology, she knows they are not omnipotent. If they were, they would have defeated the Rot long ago — or detected its creeping re-emergence into realspace. Instead, it took the wave-like ripples of Lanis severing its hold over an entire system to draw their attention.

  The Spire-ship is still just a ship, huge and advanced though it may be. The Dwellers are mortal, if ancient. Their technology does not make them invulnerable, as the Heracles’ pierced hull proves. However, Lanis believes it may certainly make them overconfident.

  They may not have admitted it, but they’d need humanity’s help. So Lanis proved to them, week after grinding week, that humans could indeed traverse Warp space safely again in their own peculiar way, one that didn’t include sentient sacrifice, torture, or the imprisoned souls of one’s ancestors.

  And don’t forget your AI! Along with a heap of Fleet implants. Ether reminds her.

  Lanis smiles Of course. How could I ever forget about you?

  A communication from outside the Navigation pod suddenly intrudes upon their shared remembrance: “Admiral, shall we commence de-integration? It has now been nearly twenty hours,” a familiar voice says.

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  Has it truly been that long? It’s so easy to lose track of time in this state, Lanis thinks to herself, nodding within the pod and responding in the affirmative. The thought triggers a cascade of alerts across the terminals of the fifteen Fleet technicians gathered around her Navigation pod.

  An array of bionic alerts bubbles across her awareness. She signs off on each, feeling Ether slowly unlatch herself. The liquid within the pod turns a brighter shade of ochre as its composition changes, and Lanis tastes saline and heparin as her subclavian port is flushed of dextrose by the medical-savant portion of the ship’s mind. She feels Ether wave goodbye as the AI retreats, turning her attention toward a running conversation with the Agni, one that Lanis has felt as much as understood.

  Lanis knows that the Fleet AI is still perturbed by Ether’s presence within its core. It’s an unusual arrangement; after all, it should be the Agni alone, not Ether, who is fully integrated with its Navigator. But it was Ether, not the Agni, who trained alongside Lanis during her time with the Dwellers and who still bears the scar-marks within her artificial mind from her battle with the Anomaly. The Agni may be purpose-built to command a starship, but it is Ether who shares a bond with its Navigator.

  Lanis suddenly feels alone in her mind, Ether’s presence dissipating like a fog, a third eye, a lover’s embrace, and then the weighty tug of gravity as the Navigation pod drains and her bare feet touch the floor. There’s the familiar sliding sensation of the neural shunt being withdrawn from her temple, tubes exiting her nostrils and mouth, her silver subclavian venous port de-accessed. A gush of warm water erupts from overhead, washing away the clinging pod-gel in a brief, angelic shower. Then the pod door slides open.

  She feels a little unsteady, but she’s already supported by two Fleet technicians in blue-and-white uniforms. “Take your time, Admiral,” one of them says, wrapping a towel around her shoulders and guiding her to a seat.

  Lanis takes a deep breath, blinking in the soft light of the Agni’s Navigation chamber, some five levels below the command bridge, cavernous and pristine. She tentatively opens and closes her mouth, then blows her nose into the towel.

  “Thanks, Ash,” she says, smiling at the ex-Versk technician.

  She glances back at the Navigation pod that she’s just exited. The nightmare trauma from the Demeter has never completely left her, but the primary pod of a capital ship is nothing like the auxiliary one in that prior-generation transport. Whereas the Demeter’s claustrophobic pod felt like an armored bulkhead extension, cramped and utilitarian, the Agni’s is a transparent column of glass and light more than five meters tall and three across, with hardware hanging from its roof like the tendrils of a silver jellyfish. Around her are more than a dozen Fleet personnel whose sole purpose is to monitor her integration levels with Ether and the Agni. Their stasis pods, into which they’re plunged into unconsciousness during Warp jumps, are built into the walls of the cavernous chamber like brood cells in a honeycomb. She supposes that makes her their queen.

  “How’s Ether doing?” Lanis asks after she’s taken a few deep breaths.

  “She’s fine,” Ash responds, glancing at one of the terminals along the wall. “Bothering the Agni, by the looks of it.” She tilts the holo-pad over Lanis’ head, rechecking the readout of her brain and vitals.

  Fleet suits Ash, Lanis thinks, watching the newly-minted lieutenant take her readings. There had never been any question of her joining, of course, and there are several other ex-Versk and Murkata AI technicians aboard the Agni and scattered across the other Fleet ships. There are lines on Ash’s forehead that weren’t there when they first met, but she still has the same short curly hair and the same quirk to her mouth when she’s satisfied with Lanis’ vitals.

  “Right, everything looks good. But how do you feel?” she asks, tearing her gaze away from the holo-pad and squinting with concern at her Navigator.

  “Surprisingly good. I was exhausted right after the jump, but now…” Lanis slowly flexes her hands. “I almost feel like I could jump again.”

  “Let’s not put that to the test,” Ash scoffs. “You should get some rest. Standard Fleet protocol is a minimum ten hours between jumps—”

  “We both know those don’t apply to me,” Lanis interrupts, but then nods reassuringly as Ash begins to scowl. “But yes, some rest does sound lovely. And some food. Right after I visit the command bridge. I want to see what our shuttles found on that ship.” Lanis stands and stretches, shifting her weight. She isn’t joking; it’s a bit mad, but she really does feel as if she could jump again.

  “And will you be getting dressed, Admiral, or are we visiting the command bridge in your current state?”

  “Oh. Right,” Lanis mumbles, noticing for the first time that a tech beside Ash is demurely holding out a Fleet vice-admiral’s uniform. “I suppose I should. For appearance’s sake.”

  There are more than a few suppressed chuckles from the gathered techs, and Lanis doesn’t want to know what Ether’s saying to them. Ash shakes her head, smiling in understanding, and pats her Admiral’s shoulder. “Like I said, let’s not indulge our overconfidence, shall we?”

  Maybe it would be easier to be like Admiral Atsuya, Lanis thinks as Ash helps her into her uniform. In contrast to Lanis, Atsuya will remain integrated with the Agni on a continual basis until they’re safely back orbiting Terra. This is a common practice among captains and fleet admirals: some go months, or even years, without de-integration, though one has to build up to such marathon sessions, proving to oneself, and to Fleet, that one’s ego and sanity can be retained. Atsuya, as a veteran commander within Mars Fleet and with two years of training aboard the Agni, has just enough experience to manage.

  However, inevitably an indefinable line is crossed, and de-integration becomes more dangerous than remaining connected to the ship’s AI. Muscles atrophy despite the pod’s neuromuscular stimulation. Bones become brittle. Human and ship minds intertwine ever more deeply.

  The pod becomes a sepulcher.

  At one time, that was Lanis’ dream: to achieve a sort of sainthood, ensconced within a ship. Unfortunately, the idea no longer sounds quite as appealing now that she’s had a taste of life outside Fleet.

  Lanis fights down the thought of Mirem as she wriggles into the uniform, Ash tugging at it to make her more presentable. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat first?” Ash asks quietly, straightening one of Lanis’ epaulets, a badge of rank that both of them still find slightly comical.

  “Later. I need to stretch my legs first.” Lanis gives a half-hearted twirl, as if to prove all her faculties are intact, only stumbling slightly. “Let's go to the command bridge first. I need to see what they found on that Bellitran ship.”