Her eyes stung but she forced down her emotions. She had to be strong for her boys, for Ari, for everyone who needed her.
On her way to the upper deck, she met several soldiers who met her eyes with expressions she couldn’t place. What had she done to warrant this order? Disobeyed StatOp rules? Tick. Broken into their database? Tick. Failed to wait for approval from a supervisor before investigating the mindbase exchange? Tick.
The Command Centre was in a different part of the ship, fortunately well-labelled, because Melati would have gotten lost in the unfamiliar warren of narrow and busy corridors. There were screens on every wall, and voices coming out of every room, giving localities, speed, scan data, talking about hostiles and occupation and other words of war.
She went into the d
