The ship waits.
There is no sense in shallowing into another nuclear ambush. When the deep settles, the mech wing will get a chirp out, which will make its way to them; else...silence will eventually be its own message.
It's a grim mood. The shipself performs its self-repairs; the company's signals officers dig afresh into the available intelligence. News of a scorched and angry shipself will undoubtedly have raced ahead in all directions; the time has come to follow it with pointed enquiries, seeding the bitter knowledge that the pirates, wittingly or not, have turned a routine shipping protection contract into something more personal and vengeful.
"There is only so long we can wait here," the Captain says to the company's assembled officers. "The shipself has nearly completed its work, and every hour is one that the vermin burrow further from our sight, and time for them to set more traps."
Two Marks is permitted to attend, as a courtesy, there being no fixed procedure saying that an attached civilian accountant should be permitted or not. She sits at the far end of the briefing table from the Captain, hands folded on the table in front of her, chin raised and expression a cool, collected mask. Hren sits three seats over from the Captain, the nearest thing the shipself has to a direct human representative in the room — unneeded as such, given that the room is the ship's, and it is ever-present, but accorded formal courtesy.
She would rather be beside her wife. She feels half-melted, oozed from her shape by internal miseries.
"Deepnavigator," the Captain says, in a kindly way she wishes he would not. She understands all the necessities and practicalities.
"Captain," she says, hands clenched tight together in her lap to prevent their tremble. "Shipself and I stand ready to depart when the company requires."
He looks at her for a long moment, then passes on to the assurances of the mech wing leaders that their pilots are more than ready to be unleashed on their adversaries, the signals officers' reports, and the assurances of the other bridge crew.
The remainder of the meeting is endless. She hears none of it, and sees only the spot on the table immediately in front of her, only dimly inferring when it ends from the surrounding commotion of people rising and chattering and leaving the room.
Afterward, as Hren stands in an inter-deck elevator and finally, tiredly rests her chin on her chest, her wife's hand tucked into her elbow, Hosch-Twelve abruptly muscles through the closing doors at the last second, and stands, as the shipself starts the elevator, to the stiff attention of someone very full of something they wish to say.
"No, thank you," Hren says, in the direction of the deck.
"Listen, shipling—" Hosch-Twelve starts anyway.
"No, thank you," Hren repeats, stomach a brutally hard knot within her. She doesn't believe that Hosch-Twelve has changed her opinion in the least, and if it has undergone any reversal, it would revert the second she knew Nene's feet were safe on the ship's decks again; so this is just a sop to Hren, a show of kindness to be seen to have bestowed.
Hosch-Twelve gives a disparaging little sigh. "You just—" she says, and Hren need not look to know the precise cast of superiority and scorn touching the officer's expression.
Two Marks lets go of Hren's elbow, takes two precise steps, and interrupts Hosch-Twelve by shoving her hard in the chest. "Speak to my wife," she says, dark as a bruise, "and I'll fight you."
Hosch-Twelve, stubled against the wall, gapes. "You'll fight me?" she says, in the brutally honest disbelief of pure surprise; "You'll fight me? Apparat, I'm a senior mech pilot—"
"You heard," Two Marks says steadily. "You disrespect my wife. You disrespect me. You disrespect your fellow pilot—"
Hosch-Twelve's eyes skitter from Two Marks to Hren and back.
"You don't want to fight me," she says.
"Clearly, for all the talking your mouth is doing, you don't want to fight me," Two Marks retorts, and Hren really ought to untangle her tongue and put a stop of some kind to this, even before Hosch-Twelve snorts and twists fluidly off the wall.
"You think parading round with us makes you a force, groundlet? You want to fight? Shipself, in the absence of our Apparat lawyer, mark you a duel on the logs, would you? Me and the accountant, weapon of her choice."
Hosch-Twelve drops a sneering little bow.
"Petty expense taxation exemption log, spot audit, Form Number Three," Two Marks says, straight and unyielding as a knife.
"...What," says Hosch-Twelve. "No. That's not a weapon. What?"
Legally speaking, the shipself chirps, Two Marks is perfectly entitled. And I've already logged it!
"And you were perfectly happy to fight my wife with weapons you knew she couldn't use," Hren says, her voice coming out of her in a raw, ugly way that startles her. "Shipling."
"Befucked," Hosch-Twelve says, almost under her breath, and ducks hurriedly out of the elevator the moment the doors open.