The first thing Aria learned about the Steady Hand's operational planning process was that Athena considered sleep a strategic resource.
The second thing she learned was that Athena weaponized this opinion aggressively.
"No."
Aria pointed accusingly across the briefing table.
"You cannot medically mandate sleep like a tyrant."
Athena's hologram looked entirely too composed for someone currently denying fighter simulator access to a combat pilot.
"I absolutely can."
"You're enjoying this."
"Yes."
Nessa sat beside Aria reviewing tactical overlays with the calm focus of someone intelligent enough not to fight a warship's governing intelligence over basic biological maintenance.
"You stayed awake for thirty-six hours during the Talvern pursuit contract," she said without looking up.
"That was different."
"You hallucinated an asteroid singing at you."
"It had a very convincing voice."
Jack entered the briefing room quietly enough that Aria only noticed him when Athena's hologram shifted slightly toward the doorway.
The room sat deep within the Steady Hand's internal command structure:
- matte-black tactical surfaces,
- recessed lighting,
- layered holographic projectors,
- armored bulkheads thick enough to survive small wars.
No decoration.
No status display meant to impress visitors.
Everything aboard the ship followed the same philosophy.
Functional.
Restrained.
Built to endure.
Jack took his seat at the head of the tactical table while the outpost projection rotated slowly above them.
Theta-Nine.
Small.
Remote.
Forgettable.
Which made it useful.
Athena highlighted the station in muted orange.
"Recovered pirate records identify Theta-Nine as a secondary logistics and transfer point operating beyond standard Coalition patrol density."
Aria leaned back slightly.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning," Athena replied, "somebody intentionally placed it where nobody important would regularly look."
Nessa zoomed the projection inward.
The station resembled a heavily modified mining relay wrapped around a hollowed asteroid fragment. External sensor masking arrays clung to the rock surface while docking spars extended outward at asymmetrical angles clearly added over time rather than designed together.
Ugly infrastructure.
Cheap infrastructure.
Operational infrastructure.
Jack studied it silently.
Aria noticed something.
"You've already decided how you want to hit it."
Jack glanced toward her.
"Yes."
Nessa looked mildly curious now.
"You don't sound surprised," she said to Aria.
"I've known military officers," Aria replied. "They either overplan everything or immediately know what they want and spend the rest of the meeting explaining it."
Jack considered that.
"That's not inaccurate."
Aria pointed triumphantly. "See?"
Athena rotated the projection again.
"Current station estimate:
- approximately sixty to eighty personnel,
- mixed pirate and contracted logistics operators,
- light defensive armament,
- limited internal security structure,
- probable encrypted data storage,
- probable prisoner processing."
Nessa's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Prisoners."
Athena nodded once.
"Several supply manifests reference labor transfers."
Silence settled briefly across the table.
Not dramatic.
Just heavy.
Jack finally spoke.
"Objective priority remains data recovery."
Aria frowned slightly.
"Before prisoners?"
Jack looked toward her evenly.
"If the network survives, there will be more prisoners later."
That answer landed harder than either woman expected.
Because it sounded cold.
Then Nessa understood what he actually meant.
He was thinking strategically again.
Not emotionally.
Not selfishly.
Not cruelly.
He was weighing immediate rescue against stopping the larger machine producing the problem.
Aria understood it a second later.
Her expression shifted.
She still did not like it.
But she understood it.
Jack continued calmly.
"We recover prisoners where possible. We preserve civilian lives where possible. But if forced to choose between saving a handful of people now or stopping a larger destabilization structure later…"
He let the sentence finish itself.
Nessa folded her arms loosely.
"That's not an easy choice."
"No," Jack agreed. "It isn't."
Athena's gaze moved between all three biological crew members carefully.
She was watching them learn each other.
That mattered.
More than tactical compatibility.
---
The operational map shifted.
Theta-Nine expanded.
Docking access points highlighted one after another:
- maintenance shafts,
- cargo intakes,
- emergency pressure locks,
- reactor conduits,
- central docking spine.
Jack enlarged the station spine.
"Primary insertion here."
Aria leaned forward.
"That's exposed."
"Yes."
Nessa studied the angle. "Too exposed."
"Yes."
Aria blinked.
"Then why use it?"
Jack touched the tactical display.
Multiple secondary corridors illuminated simultaneously.
"Because it forces defenders inward."
Understanding crossed Nessa's face first.
Aria caught up a second later.
"Oh."
Jack nodded once.
"If we breach through maintenance access points, defenders scatter through the station. If we hit visibly and decisively through the primary docking spine…"
Athena highlighted defensive fallback routes.
"They consolidate internally," she finished.
Nessa studied the projected movement paths.
"You're controlling the battlefield geometry."
"Yes."
Aria grinned slowly.
"That's mean."
Jack ignored that.
Athena absolutely did not.
"Yes," she said proudly.
Nessa pinched the bridge of her nose briefly.
"I am beginning to understand where your personality comes from."
Athena looked delighted.
Jack pretended not to hear that.
---
Several additional tactical overlays appeared above the table.
Boarding teams.
Android formations.
Internal pressure seal locations.
Emergency decompression risks.
Nearby patrol gaps.
Carrier approach windows.
That last one caught Aria's eye.
She leaned forward again.
"Hold on."
Jack looked toward her.
"You're moving the whole ship."
"Yes."
Aria pointed at the projection.
"We're not just taking the Asharii?"
"No."
Nessa answered before Jack could.
"Strike fighters are not independent intersystem assets."
Aria gave her a look.
"I know that."
"You sounded briefly like you forgot."
"I was emotionally distracted by violence."
"That is your default condition."
Jack allowed the argument to run for exactly two seconds.
Then he touched the display.
The projection expanded to show Vandar Station, the outbound corridor, the transfer route, and the distant Theta-Nine sector.
"The Steady Hand will depart Vandar under lawful clearance," he said. "We translate to the target region, hold outside immediate detection range, then deploy Asharii-One and Asharii-Two as external containment while boarding teams move in."
Aria's expression brightened.
"So we are taking the apocalypse carrier."
"No such classification exists."
"It should."
Athena tilted her head.
"I have created a private note."
"Athena," Jack said.
"Yes, Father?"
"No."
"I did not say I submitted it."
Nessa closed her eyes.
Aria looked delighted.
Jack continued.
"The ship remains the support platform. Fighters launch once we are in operational range. They do not cross systems alone."
Nessa nodded once.
That was proper carrier doctrine.
Even if the carrier in question was large enough to make the word feel inadequate.
Aria leaned back in her chair.
"Vandar's going to love that."
Jack looked at her.
"The departure?"
"The part where the terrifying unknown super-dreadnought stops sitting politely and starts moving with intent."
That was a fair point.
Jack looked toward Athena.
"Station reaction estimate?"
Athena smiled faintly.
"Controlled alarm."
"Reasonable."
"Administrator Voss is likely to appreciate prior notification."
"Yes."
Aria looked between them.
"You two plan being polite like other people plan ambushes."
Jack answered without hesitation.
"Politeness prevents ambushes."
Aria opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then pointed at Nessa.
"I hate that he's right."
Nessa did not look up from the tactical display.
"You hate many correct things."
---
Vandar Station received departure notification twelve minutes later.
Administrator Helene Voss read it twice.
Then a third time.
Not because the wording was unclear.
Because it was extremely clear.
That made it worse.
The Steady Hand was requesting lawful departure clearance for anti-piracy operations outside standard station traffic range. Flight plan partially restricted due to operational security. No hostile action intended within Vandar control space. No weapons activation without notification unless attacked.
Polite.
Measured.
Terrifying.
Helene sat behind her desk inside Station Command and stared at the authorization prompt while one of the Coalition liaison officers stood beside the tactical table looking increasingly unhappy.
"You can't be considering approving this."
Helene did not look up.
"Of course I'm considering approving it."
"That ship is leaving station oversight."
"That ship was never under station control."
The officer stiffened.
Helene finally looked at him.
"Let's not insult reality."
The room went quiet.
Traffic officers pretended very hard to be busy.
Helene returned her attention to the departure file.
The officer tried again, more carefully.
"If Captain Al'Trades engages in unauthorized combat operations—"
"He filed anti-piracy intent."
"His vessel is a strategic asset of unknown origin."
"Yes."
"And you're letting him go."
Helene leaned back slowly.
"No, Commander. I am acknowledging that an independent captain with lawful status, clean salvage filings, transferred prisoners, declared armaments, and no hostile station activity has requested departure clearance. Those are not the same thing."
The officer had no immediate response.
Good.
Helene disliked people who confused authority with physical ability.
Vandar could technically deny departure clearance.
Vandar could also technically attempt to stop a kilometer-long warship from leaving.
One of those actions existed on paper.
The other existed only in suicidal imagination.
She keyed the authorization.
"Grant departure lane Delta-Heavy. Notify civilian traffic. Quietly inform Gold-tier operators that restricted movement is expected. No public panic language."
A traffic officer nodded. "Yes, Administrator."
Helene watched the Steady Hand's enormous silhouette through the station's external tactical feed.
Silent.
Dark.
Polite.
Now preparing to move.
She exhaled slowly.
"Captain Al'Trades," she murmured, "please continue being the reasonable kind of terrifying."
---
The departure from Vandar took almost an hour.
Not because the Steady Hand needed that long.
Because Vandar did.
Traffic lanes had to be cleared carefully. Tugs had to be redirected. Civilian freighters had to be warned away from drive wash zones that did not actually exist in any local safety chart because no one had written procedures for something like the Steady Hand.
Dockworkers stopped pretending not to stare.
Mercenaries gathered near observation windows.
Station security maintained calm through visible effort.
The ship moved anyway.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
No engine flare.
No weapons deployment.
No shield bloom.
Just mass.
A thousand meters of armored restraint easing away from the heavy berth like a continent deciding it had somewhere else to be.
Inside Hangar Two, Aria watched the departure through the launch bay's armored shield barrier.
"That is never going to look normal."
Nessa stood beside her.
"No."
Aria glanced over.
"Good no or bad no?"
Nessa considered that.
"Yes."
Aria grinned.
"You've been spending too much time around Athena."
Athena appeared behind them.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't praise."
"I choose to interpret it flexibly."
Jack approached from the hangar's central aisle while android crews completed departure-secure checks around them.
Everything aboard the Steady Hand had tightened.
Not emotionally.
Operationally.
Loose equipment secured.
Maintenance drones docked.
Internal pressure sections locked.
Boarding units staged.
Fighters in readiness cradles.
The ship felt less like a docked anomaly now.
More like what it had always been.
A mobile war platform.
Aria noticed that too.
Her usual grin softened into something more professional.
"So this is what it feels like when she moves."
Jack looked toward the hangar shield.
"Yes."
Nessa studied him.
"She?"
Jack did not answer immediately.
Athena did.
"Of course I'm she."
Nessa glanced toward the hologram.
"I meant the ship."
Athena smiled.
"So did I."
The answer lingered.
Aria looked around the hangar.
At the android crews.
The silent fighters.
The layered armor.
The massive structural ribs.
The almost living hum beneath the deck.
For the first time, she understood something she had only intellectually accepted before.
The Steady Hand was not simply Jack's ship.
It was Athena's body.
Or something close enough that the distinction felt rude.
Nessa understood it at the same moment.
Neither said anything.
Jack noticed.
Athena definitely noticed.
And chose, mercifully, not to tease them for once.
---
Several hours after departure, Vandar had become a bright industrial scar behind them.
The station no longer filled the external displays.
It was just another light against frontier dark.
The Steady Hand moved under restrained power through low-traffic transfer corridors while Athena managed emission discipline carefully enough that most civilian tracking systems would interpret them as a large commercial mass signature operating under restricted registration.
Not invisible.
Too large for that.
But uninteresting at distance.
That was enough.
Inside the briefing room, the final operational plan settled into place.
Jack stood at the tactical table with Aria to his left and Nessa to his right.
Athena's hologram stood opposite him.
Security Unit Three waited near the door.
Not looming.
Present.
Theta-Nine rotated above the table again.
This time, it felt closer.
"The Steady Hand will enter silent support position outside the station's reliable sensor envelope," Athena said. "Asharii-One and Asharii-Two will deploy first to establish external containment and intercept fleeing craft."
Aria nodded once.
No joke.
Nessa looked over the vector assignments.
"Rules of engagement?"
Jack answered.
"Disable before destroy where practical. No pursuit beyond containment zone without authorization. If a vessel attempts to flee with prisoners, you stop it."
Aria's expression sharpened.
"Stop how hard?"
Jack met her eyes.
"As hard as necessary."
That answer satisfied her.
Not because she wanted violence.
Because ambiguity killed people.
Nessa asked the next question.
"Boarding force?"
Security Unit Three answered.
"Primary team consists of twelve security units, four engineering support units, two medical units, and Captain Al'Trades."
Aria looked toward Jack immediately.
"You're going aboard personally."
"Yes."
"That seems like something captains of kilometer-long super-dreadnoughts don't usually do."
"I'm aware."
"Are you allergic to normal command behavior?"
Athena answered before he could.
"Yes."
Jack ignored that.
Nessa studied him carefully.
"You're going because of the simulation failures."
"Yes."
"Because they need biological judgment on-site."
"Yes."
"And because you don't ask people to take risks you won't."
Jack looked at her.
There it was again.
Nessa saw people quickly.
Maybe not loudly.
But clearly.
"Yes," he said.
Aria's expression shifted.
For just a moment, beneath the humor and aggression, something older showed.
Military memory.
Command abuse.
The kind of officer who demanded things from subordinates he would never risk himself.
Jack was not that.
That mattered more than he probably realized.
Nessa reached under the table and touched Aria's hand briefly.
Small.
Private.
Automatic.
Then released it before the moment became visible enough to require acknowledgment.
Athena noticed.
Jack pretended not to.
Security Unit Three probably recorded it in twelve different behavioral categories.
Aria cleared her throat.
"Alright," she said. "Then we do this controlled."
Jack nodded once.
"Controlled."
Athena smiled faintly.
The Steady Hand continued through the dark.
Behind them, Vandar returned slowly to rumor and paperwork.
Ahead of them, Theta-Nine waited with answers hidden beneath cheap metal and bad lies.
And for the first time since awakening in this strange universe, Jack Al'Trades was no longer moving alone.