The Hollow Stars - Chapter Two
Mar. 5th, 2004 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosipheleeThere had been Arslans in the League long before the Fleet ever existed.
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Chapter Two: Leviathan
Fleet Super Dreadnought Leviathan, Sirius Space Station, Terran date 03.03.13140
Ria Arslan spared a moment to glance at her reflection before she left the cabin. She flicked her thick plait of golden-brown hair straight so it ran down the exact line of her spine and adjusted her beret slightly before nodding approvingly at her reflection. She looked exactly how she ought, and no one who looked at her would ever suspect she was more than the dedicated and decorated captain she appeared to be. She smiled wryly and murmured, “Fleet to the bone, girl. Fleet to the bone.”
Yet, as she turned on her heel and left the cabin, she thought the second half of the old saying, never to be spoken aloud. Fleet to the bone; League to the marrow. It could have described her entire family. Sometimes she wondered if it had been written about them. There had been Arslans in the League long before the Fleet ever existed.
She moved through the ship at a crisp walk. She was aware that her moment of vanity had made her less early than she would have liked, but she did not hurry. A captain, she believed, should never run; never appear out of control. She could have taken a lift down to the fighter bay, but it was not far. She preferred to walk whenever possible. She liked to see her ship and crew and to be seen.
She took the stairs down and was pleased to see the ratings at the foot of the stairs stiffen and salute as she passed. Ria Arslan had always run a tight ship and had no intention of relaxing now that she had been made flag captain.
The thought of her new command made her want to dance with glee, but she restrained herself. She didn’t want to keep the Admiral waiting. Flag captain to Admiral Chahal of the Home Fleet – it was a prestigious position, and she had earnt it. She had the scars and the sorrows. Still, she was the first in her class to make such a rank. Even Clothilde Chen, who had come third in their year, was still stuck patrolling the star roads.
She was on the engineering deck now, and fell into step with two of the power plant technicians, coming off shift and heading to the common room on the deck below. She greeted them by name and saw their surprise that she knew them – after all, she had only been in command three weeks. She talked with them politely and repressed her smile until they parted. Then she let herself grin. She knew that most of her crews called her a witch for the way she remembered their names and forestalled their problems before they could affect her ship. She wondered if any of them who weren’t League ever suspected that the name was truth and that she really could hear their overspilling thoughts.
She was approaching the bay now and was pleased to see Admiral Chahal coming the other way down the corridor towards her. They would arrive at the same time, both three minutes earlier than the time they had arranged.
“Captain Arslan,” he said in greeting, falling in beside her.
“Sir,” she replied crisply as they swung into the fighter bay. She had never worked with him before although she admired his reputation.
“Setting in alright? Leviathan to your liking?”
“She’s a beauty,” Ria said honestly as she followed him across the bay. She had no idea where they were going or why - it was only half an hour since he had summoned her to meet him here, and he had offered no word of explanation.
“Good, good,” he said. “And you, captain? Happy here?”
“I think I will be, sir,” she said quietly. “She’s a good ship with a good crew. Sir, may I ask where we’re going?”
“Over to the station,” he said. “Far side. Quicker to fly than walk. Taking my cutter.”
If her admiral wanted to waste a flight when they were physically docked at the station, so be it. But she was disappointed. She had thought better of him.
“Of course,” he added as they passed between two empty fighters, “it means no one can follow us or know exactly where we’ve gone. Useful, that, considering.”
That revised her opinion and, worse than that, made her curious. She knew several of the dignitaries who resided on Sirius Station and she wondered if they might be going to meet one of them – Georgios Komiyama or Meir Fellows or even Paris Ngema, the station controller. Perhaps, she thought with a sudden quickening of her heart, Lynx or Tiger or Ocelot might be on-station.
“My shuttle,” Admiral Chahal grunted.
It was a beauty, one of the new Spindrift class, with lines so clean and smooth that Ria, who had been a fine pilot in her academy days, longed to go diving into space; to push to the limits of freedom. She was so absorbed in the shuttle that she didn’t notice the pilot until Admiral Chahal coughed for her attention.
He was Alettan.
He was slighter than she was and shorter but his golden wings rose high above his head, each feather glowing dully in the artificial light in the bay. His hair was the same hue of gold and curled over his shoulders and down his back. His skin was nut-brown with the slight tinge of green that characterised many Alettans. When he grinned at her cheerfully, he seemed barely more than a boy, but she knew that he must be thousands of years old.
She had rarely seen an Alettan off-planet before. She knew they were warriors in their own universe, but on Aletta they were healers. She had never heard of one joining the Fleet. They did not care for the close confines of a warship.
“Captain, this is my pilot, Lieutenant cor Kilahta. Lieutenant, Captain Arslan of the Leviathan.”
The Alettan saluted properly, but into her mind he said, May you walk in the Light, sister-in-arms.
May you never fly by night, sky-brother, she replied courteously as she returned his salute.
“Excellent, excellent,” the Admiral said, oblivious to their silent exchange. “Let’s go, then.”
He and Ria squeezed into the passenger seats, and she was interested to note that he showed her to the seat with emergency controls. She had never flown a Spindrift, but she’d been adept with the old Spinnaker class, which they had been developed from. Obviously, he had been studying her record.
“Usual port, sir?” cor Kilahta asked as he brought to engines up to a soft hum.
“Go ahead,” Chahal said. The privacy screen slid down between them and the pilot. Ria could see cor Kilahta leaning forward, talking through the com, probably to Sirius Station orbital traffic control.
Then the cutter surged forward, moving above its designated path, marked by red lights on the floor of the bay, until they reached their exit point. They dropped into the exit chute, and Ria felt her stomach lurch. She knew that the chute had sealed behind them; that the next seal was opening to the vacuum; that cor Kilahta was controlling the rate of their fall but something in her always thrilled as they fell into the emptiness of space.
They arched up the side of Leviathan, and Ria caught her breath again at the vastness of the ship she commanded. It gleamed silver, slightly blue, in the light from the star around which the station orbited. Next to the immensity of the station at which it was docked, though, it seemed a mere pinprick. This side of the station was the Fleet’s and traffic was relatively light. Ria could watch the side of the station sliding past, pocked with docking bays and exit chutes; with great ships studded across the surface of the station like pins. As they rose they drew away from the station as the spar Leviathan was docked at sloped up to its point. Whenever Ria approached Sirius through non-space she was reminded of the star-shaped decorations her family decked their house on Emli with at Lightfair. It was a mass of narrow points coated in docking bays, massive yet still defensible. Sirius Station had been beseiged more than once in its history.
As they rose from the depths, the traffic became heavier, and Ria saw cor Kilahta sit back from the controls as Sirius OTC took over the flight, his wings twitching slightly.
Then the Admiral said to her, “So.You were with Kleo Laurent in sector seventeen, hmm? Exciting work? Saw some action?”
“A certain amount,” Ria said and hid a shudder with a quick jerk of her shoulders. Sector seventeen was newly settled space and the wilder for it.
“We’re not so rough here,” Chahal growled. “Less fire, more spite. Politics and power.”
Was he warning her? She was an Arslan. She knew the rules of the game. Admiral Laurent would never have… Then she caught herself and quashed the thought. She had known Kleo Laurent since she was seven and her uncle had been executive officer on Laurent’s first command. She had only met Chahal a few weeks ago, and they had barely had the chance to exchange more than brief pleasantries.
“I think it will be very interesting,” she said demurely and struggled for something less inane. She appreciated the effort he was making, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. She could hardly ask which was his favourite Zone team and there was no weather in space to comment on. That only left mutual acquaintances, which in her case inevitably meant…
“I used to serve with a Dukas Arslan.”
“Engineering or com, sir?”
“Engineering. On the Donegal.”
“That would be my fourth cousin Dukas – five times removed. I don’t think I’ve seen him for ten years.”
The admiral looked startled. “I didn’t realise there were that many of you.”
“It’s a large family,” Ria said. She saw cor Kilahta, on the other side of the glass, bite back a smile and knew he was listening.
Then the Admiral said the one thing she always dreaded when this conversation began – the one question which hurt to answer. “I had a com tech called Nerit Arslan, twenty years ago. Now she must have been closer kin, by the look of you.”
“My twin,” Ria said flatly. “Nerit’s dead. Lowry’s Moons.” It was a lie but she chose to believe it. It was better than the truth.
“I’m sorry,” Chahal growled. “She was a promising officer.”
“It was a long time ago,” Ria said. Eighteen years, eight months and fifteen days. She could see cor Kilahta staring at her. He knew. He knew the truth.
Again they were silent. So easy to kill a conversation, Ria thought, so hard to kill a memory. She watched as they rose over the station and was surprised that they did not arch down towards one of the many ports. Instead, they kept flying around the station. They had lost the light from Sirius and now the station glittered in the whiter light from Sirius’s companion star. Ria had never been to the far side of the station, though she knew branches of the government had offices there.
She saw cor Kilahta reach forward for the controls and felt their flight grow smooth as the OTC navigator released them. Now they dived, and she stared as they passed wide windows in the station wall, showing flickers of elegant rooms. Cor Kilahta slowly brought them towards a docking point and the seal opened before them. He settled the cutter down softly, and Ria watched as the seals closed behind them and opened before them. The walls were white with the crest of the galactic government imposed on the centre of each wall. Looking around she saw the crest was marked on every door and even lightly applied to the flexible material of the airlock.
“Sir, where are we?” she asked.
Chahal was already striding to the door. She followed him, and cor Kilahta joined her as they left the cutter. The admiral seemed to know exactly where he was going so she just followed, looking around her for clues. The walls followed the theme from the bay, plain except for the crest. The doors were numbered discreetly and remained closed as they passed. Door after door required Admiral Chahal to press his hand to a security panel, and door after door slid open in response.
At last, they came into a small room where a middle-aged woman sat behind a desk. A few chairs were scattered along the walls, and there was another door behind the desk. The woman looked up as they entered and said, “Tom! She’s with representatives from sector twenty but she won’t be much longer.”
“We can wait,” the Admiral said and took one of the seats. He gestured Ria to another, and cor Kilahta perched on a high, backless stool, his wings sweeping back behind him. They did not speak but Ria was aware of cor Kilahta’s gaze upon her, as if he was judging her.
The door behind the desk opened, and two men came out. Neither looked happy. The smaller of the two looked at them as they were waiting and sneered.
“Admiral Chahal,” he said in stiff greeting. “A pleasure.”
“Senator Sierota,” Chahal said. “Senator Maxwell.”
They inclined their heads at each other and then the two men turned to go. Ria began to speculate wildly.
As the two men left the room, she heard Sierota say mockingly, “Well, if it wasn’t Long John Silver and his pet parrot.”
Ria saw the flash of annoyance in cor Kilahta’s eyes and let her temper rule her. Senator Sierota suddenly cried out as he tripped on the smooth floor. His arms wheeled before he regained his balance, and his narrow face flushed with mortification as he rushed away.
Ria stood and stared at the woman in the doorway. The burst of power that had tripped the senator had come from more than one source. The tall blonde woman in her tailored suit had power, but as Ria looked more closely she saw it was buried deep. There were plenty in the galaxy who possessed just enough magic to cause small accidents and to turn luck in their favour. Unless they were subjected to some trauma, the power was unlikely ever to flower.
She smiled at them in greeting, but the smile did not reach her blue eyes. “Come in,” she said.
Ria followed the others into the room, teasing her memory to discover why this woman looked so very familiar. As soon as the door closed behind her, the woman spun to face them and said, “That odious little man. Tommy, I’m sorry.”
The admiral caught her hands as Ria struggled to keep her eyebrows down. “Don’t be. You’re not responsible for him and his like.”
“Ultimately, though, I am,” she said wearily. “What can I do for you gentlefolk today?”
“I came to introduce my new flag captain,” Chahal said. “What’s wrong, Kerry?”
With that Ria put it all together – the crest, the senators, the name, the familiarity. She had seen this woman’s image a thousand times. Admired her from afar. Her name was Kerry Tregellas.
The Galactic President.
“I still haven’t heard from Caro,” the President said. “Tommy, is there any news from that sector?”
“It’s a safe sector,” he said. “She’s young, Kerry. She may just have forgotten to call home.”
“Caroline might forget,” Tregellas said sharply. “Arwen Lecoutier would not. I’m a nervous mother, Tommy. I know it. But something is wrong.”
“It’s one of the safest sectors of space,” Chahal said patiently. “There’s little harm that could come to her. It’s only a few days away from Sirius.”
Kerry Tregellas frowned and then smiled. “Then it’s close enough and safe enough for me to go there to look for my daughter. Will the Fleet help me or do I have to go alone?”
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Chapter Two: Leviathan
Fleet Super Dreadnought Leviathan, Sirius Space Station, Terran date 03.03.13140
Ria Arslan spared a moment to glance at her reflection before she left the cabin. She flicked her thick plait of golden-brown hair straight so it ran down the exact line of her spine and adjusted her beret slightly before nodding approvingly at her reflection. She looked exactly how she ought, and no one who looked at her would ever suspect she was more than the dedicated and decorated captain she appeared to be. She smiled wryly and murmured, “Fleet to the bone, girl. Fleet to the bone.”
Yet, as she turned on her heel and left the cabin, she thought the second half of the old saying, never to be spoken aloud. Fleet to the bone; League to the marrow. It could have described her entire family. Sometimes she wondered if it had been written about them. There had been Arslans in the League long before the Fleet ever existed.
She moved through the ship at a crisp walk. She was aware that her moment of vanity had made her less early than she would have liked, but she did not hurry. A captain, she believed, should never run; never appear out of control. She could have taken a lift down to the fighter bay, but it was not far. She preferred to walk whenever possible. She liked to see her ship and crew and to be seen.
She took the stairs down and was pleased to see the ratings at the foot of the stairs stiffen and salute as she passed. Ria Arslan had always run a tight ship and had no intention of relaxing now that she had been made flag captain.
The thought of her new command made her want to dance with glee, but she restrained herself. She didn’t want to keep the Admiral waiting. Flag captain to Admiral Chahal of the Home Fleet – it was a prestigious position, and she had earnt it. She had the scars and the sorrows. Still, she was the first in her class to make such a rank. Even Clothilde Chen, who had come third in their year, was still stuck patrolling the star roads.
She was on the engineering deck now, and fell into step with two of the power plant technicians, coming off shift and heading to the common room on the deck below. She greeted them by name and saw their surprise that she knew them – after all, she had only been in command three weeks. She talked with them politely and repressed her smile until they parted. Then she let herself grin. She knew that most of her crews called her a witch for the way she remembered their names and forestalled their problems before they could affect her ship. She wondered if any of them who weren’t League ever suspected that the name was truth and that she really could hear their overspilling thoughts.
She was approaching the bay now and was pleased to see Admiral Chahal coming the other way down the corridor towards her. They would arrive at the same time, both three minutes earlier than the time they had arranged.
“Captain Arslan,” he said in greeting, falling in beside her.
“Sir,” she replied crisply as they swung into the fighter bay. She had never worked with him before although she admired his reputation.
“Setting in alright? Leviathan to your liking?”
“She’s a beauty,” Ria said honestly as she followed him across the bay. She had no idea where they were going or why - it was only half an hour since he had summoned her to meet him here, and he had offered no word of explanation.
“Good, good,” he said. “And you, captain? Happy here?”
“I think I will be, sir,” she said quietly. “She’s a good ship with a good crew. Sir, may I ask where we’re going?”
“Over to the station,” he said. “Far side. Quicker to fly than walk. Taking my cutter.”
If her admiral wanted to waste a flight when they were physically docked at the station, so be it. But she was disappointed. She had thought better of him.
“Of course,” he added as they passed between two empty fighters, “it means no one can follow us or know exactly where we’ve gone. Useful, that, considering.”
That revised her opinion and, worse than that, made her curious. She knew several of the dignitaries who resided on Sirius Station and she wondered if they might be going to meet one of them – Georgios Komiyama or Meir Fellows or even Paris Ngema, the station controller. Perhaps, she thought with a sudden quickening of her heart, Lynx or Tiger or Ocelot might be on-station.
“My shuttle,” Admiral Chahal grunted.
It was a beauty, one of the new Spindrift class, with lines so clean and smooth that Ria, who had been a fine pilot in her academy days, longed to go diving into space; to push to the limits of freedom. She was so absorbed in the shuttle that she didn’t notice the pilot until Admiral Chahal coughed for her attention.
He was Alettan.
He was slighter than she was and shorter but his golden wings rose high above his head, each feather glowing dully in the artificial light in the bay. His hair was the same hue of gold and curled over his shoulders and down his back. His skin was nut-brown with the slight tinge of green that characterised many Alettans. When he grinned at her cheerfully, he seemed barely more than a boy, but she knew that he must be thousands of years old.
She had rarely seen an Alettan off-planet before. She knew they were warriors in their own universe, but on Aletta they were healers. She had never heard of one joining the Fleet. They did not care for the close confines of a warship.
“Captain, this is my pilot, Lieutenant cor Kilahta. Lieutenant, Captain Arslan of the Leviathan.”
The Alettan saluted properly, but into her mind he said, May you walk in the Light, sister-in-arms.
May you never fly by night, sky-brother, she replied courteously as she returned his salute.
“Excellent, excellent,” the Admiral said, oblivious to their silent exchange. “Let’s go, then.”
He and Ria squeezed into the passenger seats, and she was interested to note that he showed her to the seat with emergency controls. She had never flown a Spindrift, but she’d been adept with the old Spinnaker class, which they had been developed from. Obviously, he had been studying her record.
“Usual port, sir?” cor Kilahta asked as he brought to engines up to a soft hum.
“Go ahead,” Chahal said. The privacy screen slid down between them and the pilot. Ria could see cor Kilahta leaning forward, talking through the com, probably to Sirius Station orbital traffic control.
Then the cutter surged forward, moving above its designated path, marked by red lights on the floor of the bay, until they reached their exit point. They dropped into the exit chute, and Ria felt her stomach lurch. She knew that the chute had sealed behind them; that the next seal was opening to the vacuum; that cor Kilahta was controlling the rate of their fall but something in her always thrilled as they fell into the emptiness of space.
They arched up the side of Leviathan, and Ria caught her breath again at the vastness of the ship she commanded. It gleamed silver, slightly blue, in the light from the star around which the station orbited. Next to the immensity of the station at which it was docked, though, it seemed a mere pinprick. This side of the station was the Fleet’s and traffic was relatively light. Ria could watch the side of the station sliding past, pocked with docking bays and exit chutes; with great ships studded across the surface of the station like pins. As they rose they drew away from the station as the spar Leviathan was docked at sloped up to its point. Whenever Ria approached Sirius through non-space she was reminded of the star-shaped decorations her family decked their house on Emli with at Lightfair. It was a mass of narrow points coated in docking bays, massive yet still defensible. Sirius Station had been beseiged more than once in its history.
As they rose from the depths, the traffic became heavier, and Ria saw cor Kilahta sit back from the controls as Sirius OTC took over the flight, his wings twitching slightly.
Then the Admiral said to her, “So.You were with Kleo Laurent in sector seventeen, hmm? Exciting work? Saw some action?”
“A certain amount,” Ria said and hid a shudder with a quick jerk of her shoulders. Sector seventeen was newly settled space and the wilder for it.
“We’re not so rough here,” Chahal growled. “Less fire, more spite. Politics and power.”
Was he warning her? She was an Arslan. She knew the rules of the game. Admiral Laurent would never have… Then she caught herself and quashed the thought. She had known Kleo Laurent since she was seven and her uncle had been executive officer on Laurent’s first command. She had only met Chahal a few weeks ago, and they had barely had the chance to exchange more than brief pleasantries.
“I think it will be very interesting,” she said demurely and struggled for something less inane. She appreciated the effort he was making, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. She could hardly ask which was his favourite Zone team and there was no weather in space to comment on. That only left mutual acquaintances, which in her case inevitably meant…
“I used to serve with a Dukas Arslan.”
“Engineering or com, sir?”
“Engineering. On the Donegal.”
“That would be my fourth cousin Dukas – five times removed. I don’t think I’ve seen him for ten years.”
The admiral looked startled. “I didn’t realise there were that many of you.”
“It’s a large family,” Ria said. She saw cor Kilahta, on the other side of the glass, bite back a smile and knew he was listening.
Then the Admiral said the one thing she always dreaded when this conversation began – the one question which hurt to answer. “I had a com tech called Nerit Arslan, twenty years ago. Now she must have been closer kin, by the look of you.”
“My twin,” Ria said flatly. “Nerit’s dead. Lowry’s Moons.” It was a lie but she chose to believe it. It was better than the truth.
“I’m sorry,” Chahal growled. “She was a promising officer.”
“It was a long time ago,” Ria said. Eighteen years, eight months and fifteen days. She could see cor Kilahta staring at her. He knew. He knew the truth.
Again they were silent. So easy to kill a conversation, Ria thought, so hard to kill a memory. She watched as they rose over the station and was surprised that they did not arch down towards one of the many ports. Instead, they kept flying around the station. They had lost the light from Sirius and now the station glittered in the whiter light from Sirius’s companion star. Ria had never been to the far side of the station, though she knew branches of the government had offices there.
She saw cor Kilahta reach forward for the controls and felt their flight grow smooth as the OTC navigator released them. Now they dived, and she stared as they passed wide windows in the station wall, showing flickers of elegant rooms. Cor Kilahta slowly brought them towards a docking point and the seal opened before them. He settled the cutter down softly, and Ria watched as the seals closed behind them and opened before them. The walls were white with the crest of the galactic government imposed on the centre of each wall. Looking around she saw the crest was marked on every door and even lightly applied to the flexible material of the airlock.
“Sir, where are we?” she asked.
Chahal was already striding to the door. She followed him, and cor Kilahta joined her as they left the cutter. The admiral seemed to know exactly where he was going so she just followed, looking around her for clues. The walls followed the theme from the bay, plain except for the crest. The doors were numbered discreetly and remained closed as they passed. Door after door required Admiral Chahal to press his hand to a security panel, and door after door slid open in response.
At last, they came into a small room where a middle-aged woman sat behind a desk. A few chairs were scattered along the walls, and there was another door behind the desk. The woman looked up as they entered and said, “Tom! She’s with representatives from sector twenty but she won’t be much longer.”
“We can wait,” the Admiral said and took one of the seats. He gestured Ria to another, and cor Kilahta perched on a high, backless stool, his wings sweeping back behind him. They did not speak but Ria was aware of cor Kilahta’s gaze upon her, as if he was judging her.
The door behind the desk opened, and two men came out. Neither looked happy. The smaller of the two looked at them as they were waiting and sneered.
“Admiral Chahal,” he said in stiff greeting. “A pleasure.”
“Senator Sierota,” Chahal said. “Senator Maxwell.”
They inclined their heads at each other and then the two men turned to go. Ria began to speculate wildly.
As the two men left the room, she heard Sierota say mockingly, “Well, if it wasn’t Long John Silver and his pet parrot.”
Ria saw the flash of annoyance in cor Kilahta’s eyes and let her temper rule her. Senator Sierota suddenly cried out as he tripped on the smooth floor. His arms wheeled before he regained his balance, and his narrow face flushed with mortification as he rushed away.
Ria stood and stared at the woman in the doorway. The burst of power that had tripped the senator had come from more than one source. The tall blonde woman in her tailored suit had power, but as Ria looked more closely she saw it was buried deep. There were plenty in the galaxy who possessed just enough magic to cause small accidents and to turn luck in their favour. Unless they were subjected to some trauma, the power was unlikely ever to flower.
She smiled at them in greeting, but the smile did not reach her blue eyes. “Come in,” she said.
Ria followed the others into the room, teasing her memory to discover why this woman looked so very familiar. As soon as the door closed behind her, the woman spun to face them and said, “That odious little man. Tommy, I’m sorry.”
The admiral caught her hands as Ria struggled to keep her eyebrows down. “Don’t be. You’re not responsible for him and his like.”
“Ultimately, though, I am,” she said wearily. “What can I do for you gentlefolk today?”
“I came to introduce my new flag captain,” Chahal said. “What’s wrong, Kerry?”
With that Ria put it all together – the crest, the senators, the name, the familiarity. She had seen this woman’s image a thousand times. Admired her from afar. Her name was Kerry Tregellas.
The Galactic President.
“I still haven’t heard from Caro,” the President said. “Tommy, is there any news from that sector?”
“It’s a safe sector,” he said. “She’s young, Kerry. She may just have forgotten to call home.”
“Caroline might forget,” Tregellas said sharply. “Arwen Lecoutier would not. I’m a nervous mother, Tommy. I know it. But something is wrong.”
“It’s one of the safest sectors of space,” Chahal said patiently. “There’s little harm that could come to her. It’s only a few days away from Sirius.”
Kerry Tregellas frowned and then smiled. “Then it’s close enough and safe enough for me to go there to look for my daughter. Will the Fleet help me or do I have to go alone?”
