Morning came gray and cold.
The mess hall was a long, low building made of scrap iron and recycled ship hulling. The benches were scarred with knife marks from soldiers who had nothing better to do during quiet shifts.
Team Soup had claimed a table near the back. Renna was eating some kind of protein bar while simultaneously trying to braid Maeve's hair. Emric was reading a tactical manual. Lyra was sipping tea. Holden was working through his third cup of coffee and enjoying the fact that nobody had tried to kill him in the last twelve hours.
That peace lasted until the door banged open.
Captain Venus marched in with a piece of paper in his hand, looking profoundly disgusted. He looked around the mess hall, spotted Team Soup, and marched straight over.
He dropped the paper on the table in front of Lyra.
"This landed in the courtyard ten minutes ago," he said. "Delivered by a mechanical bird. The kind of tech that only comes out of the Capital."
