The debrief ran forty minutes, and Cael spent most of it watching Yuna compose her face into something that wasn't what she was actually thinking.
She gave the operational summary with the precision he'd come to expect from her, the raid outcomes, the civilian extraction numbers, the fauna engagement data, all of it delivered in the clean factual register of a field handler who had been doing this long enough to separate the report from the experience of the report. The coordinator on duty took notes and asked questions, and Yuna answered them, and the debrief concluded.
Afterward, walking back through the staging area toward the equipment return point, she said it.
'You need a weapon.'
He looked at her.
'Not a utility knife,' she said. 'Something built for what you're doing in there.
