Page 241 of Commander’s Mate
I wanted more of that.
Maybe that belonged in the registry too.
Not every survival need fit a field.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Zared
Dreadnought Eight came out of faster-than-light travel with half its hull scorched and every surviving Farseek aboard it cheering over open comms.
The sound hit Dreadnought One like weather.
Warriors ran to docking stations.
Engineers abandoned meals.
Medics stood in corridors crying.
For ten minutes, command discipline became a suggestion.
I allowed it.
Dreadnought Eight had been missing since the fall of Farseek.
We had not known whether it had been destroyed, captured, or stranded.
Now it was here.
Damaged.
Under-crewed.
Alive.
Admiral Degatu stood beside me in the docking bay as the boarding tube locked.
“You are smiling,” he said.
“No.”
“You are.”
“I am displaying command approval.”
“Your teeth are visible.”
The hatch opened.
Commander Jalen Voro stepped through first.
He had lost an eye.
He had gained a mechanical left hand.
He looked beautiful.
Degatu crossed the bay and embraced him hard enough to make both men grunt.
