{Katarina}
All Katarina could do from that point was wait.
She was good at waiting. It was, in fact, one of the few things she'd done in both lives without ever getting tired of it. You set the thing in motion, you stepped back, and you let other people walk the path you'd already mapped.
The trick was never to look like you were waiting. To fill the wait with so much real work that you forgot, occasionally, that you were holding your breath.
It was late. The lamp on her desk had burned down to the steady part of the night where the estate went quiet, and the canyon wind did the only talking.
She had the launch logistics spread in front of her, the real launch.
[... I'll be honest, when I thought of moving up the launch, I may have failed to take into account the massive boost in work that would result. Oh well.]
Behind her, in the bed, Vessa was asleep.
