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“For just long enough to make slag out of us,” Jorgen said grimly.

“Did you…foresee this?” Rinakin asked, looking to Jorgen. “In your plan to starve him of acclivity stone?”

“This was poorly handled,” Goro said, hovering toward the group of other kitsen gathered on the tabletop. “Elder Itchika and I are greatly displeased to have beencut outof the decision to strike in secret against the enemy. Why weren’t we consulted about moving the timeframe up so quickly, or the decision to strike in the nowhere, instead of against the facilities in the somewhere as we’d decided?”

“How can we call this an alliance,” Cuna said, “if one of our members acts with such distrust toward everyone else?”

I sank down in my seat, sick to my stomach. Jorgen would never have moved up the attack without talking to our allies. His hotheaded star pilot, though, was another matter. Scud, I was such a fool.

Jorgen stood up and didn’t even glance at me. He’d shoulder this. As he so often suffered because of me. Everything I’d done seemed right, even in hindsight. Refurbishing M-Bot, running off to Starsight, staying in the nowhere…even this action, which had achieved our goals with the mining facilities without loss of life.

Yet in each case, I’d left Jorgen to make excuses. To pick up the pieces. To figure out how to lead while I just did my thing. He was right about me. In that moment, I felt I didn’t deserve to be in that seat—I didn’t even deserve to be in the room.

“No, Rinakin,” Jorgen said to them. “I didn’t anticipate that this would happen. You’re right—and Goro, you are right that we have acted brashly by not consulting you. We were wrong, and I beg your forgiveness.

“We’re new to this. That’s the problem, my friends. Too new. We are children, essentially, trying to fill adults’ shoes for the first time. My people spent decades on the very edge of annihilation. Back then, we didn’t take time to develop proper plans, because if we did we’d be dead before we could execute them.

“That same sense rules us still. That sense of panic, that sense that we need to act now, as soon as an opportunity arises, lest we lose our chance. We need to grow up. We need to learn and do better. But I only ask that you accept that we are nottryingto alienate you. We’re learning, all the time, and as fast as we can.”

The others at the table considered his words, and I could see them softening. How did Jorgen always know the right things to say? How did he know when to be firm, and when to apologize? The others saw him shouldering the responsibility for what I’d done, and they accepted his apology.

“I suppose we can understand this,” Goro said. “None of us have ever fought atrulygalactic war. Even on my homeworld, ithas been decades since a real war has happened; we have known only skirmishes.”

“You can be forgiven,” Rinakin agreed, “for not anticipating what would happen in a war on this scale. We areallnew to this, and the plan with the mining stations looked good to us all; we would not be nearly so upset if we’d simply beentoldwhen you decided to move the timetable up.”

“We promise,” Jorgen said, finally looking at me. “No more surprises. Wewillgrow up, my friends.”

A platform hovered up beside Goro’s. Itchika, the aged kitsen with white on her snout, still wore her formal robes. She was an elected official, I’d come to understand. Not like an empress—they’d moved beyond that—but still something of a voice for the old ways.

“We too appreciate your honesty, Admiral,” she said to Jorgen. “But there is a beast we must consume, as my people say. A topic that must be addressed. Our planet, Evershore, is exposed. As is ReDawn, the homeworld of our allies, the UrDail. Your people, however, have a mobile planet—with a defensive shell around it. You can afford brashness, for if the enemy comes in force, you can escape. We cannot. Our people could be annihilated.”

The conference room fell silent, and I felt even more sick. Because this point also was true. I wasn’t used to the idea of our people being free, like Jorgen had explained, but I didn’t believe that was what had driven me to act. That didn’t change the fact that yes—if the Superiority came in force against us, we could escape. Detritus being mobile meant that our people were actually more free than any other.

“We couldn’t escape forever,” Jorgen said. “Winzik cannot allow us to continue as a threat to his rule. Besides, we wouldn’t just leave you.”

Rinakin tapped the table softly, perhaps his version of clearing his throat to draw attention. “No one is accusing you of cowardice, Admiral. But if it came down to your people or ours, surely you would escape. It is a simple truth. I say this not as an accusation, but as astatement we should acknowledge. Detritus is not in the same position as the rest of us.”

“Besides,” Cuna noted, “you’re…well, you’rehumans.You’re used to living with destruction and war.”

Remarkably, the UrDail and the kitsen seemed to agree, unfair though the statement was. I didn’t think humans werenaturallymore aggressive. We’d just been…I didn’t know how to describe it…

A soft click sounded from the side of the room. Then a quiet groan as somebody stood up. A short somebody, bowed by age. Gran-Gran?

Another click echoed in the conference room as she stepped forward along the table. The way she walked—frail, but determined—somehow conveyed the contradiction at the core of Gran-Gran’s soul. An aged woman, weak of frame, yet bearing power and authority.

On one hand, she was a nobody. An old woman, outcast for most of her life because of her son’s betrayal. Except even back then, people had stepped aside for her. Even then, they’d known and remembered. She wasn’t just Gran-Gran. She was Rebecca Nightshade. The last living woman who knew life among the stars. The last crewmember of the ship that had brought us here.

“Do you know,” she asked, “the story of theDefiant?” She turned, her eyes closed, yet seeming to address everyone in the room—kitsen, UrDail, human, and lone dione.

“We do not know your story, honored elder,” Hesho said softly behind his mask, from where he hovered near my seat. “But I would hear it, if you would offer it to me.”

Gran-Gran smiled and tilted her face upward, toward the stars, as she walked. “We are the people who disobeyed. We are the humans whowould notgo to war, the last time the tyrants who led our various peoples banded together and tried to conquer the galaxy. Those are the warriors under whom you UrDail suffered long ago.

“Well, those humans, they demanded that every battleworthy ship join the armada and support them in their foolish war. Butwe, we turnedaway.Some of us of Chinese descent, others Colombian, others American, others Scandinavian—and many scattered peoples between. We had previously traded together, traveled together, but on that day we truly became one.

“A wise soldier chooses her battlefield, and we did not want this one. Werejectedthe call to arms, and so the first people we defied were our own leaders. That is the soul of theDefiant.It is not just that we fight, my friends. It is that wechoose whento fight. We will not be forced—not by tide nor tyrant—to raise arms in a battle we do not support.” She opened her eyes, milky white, and looked around the room in strength. “But once we do fight—once you have convinced us the cause is just—we donot back down.”

She stopped near the kitsen platforms. There, Gran-Gran nodded, chin still high. “We will not abandon you, my friends. I, the last of theDefiant’s crew,swear it.If you fall, we shall join you, so that together we may curse the fire and ash that sear our flesh from our bones. Dead, but not broken. If we instead choose to run, as my ancestors did, then we will only do so if we can bring you with us. For though we are not one people, as we unite together, we become sisters in arms. You donot fight alone.”