“Good.” Anpaytoo still had a pinched expression, and the silence was heavier than ever.
Allie fought an urge to fidget.
“Do you have children?”
“Me?” Incredulity made Allie’s voice sharp. “No. I am definitely not old enough to be a mother. Definitely not.”
Anpaytoo nodded. “At least you are wise enough to know that. Any brothers or sisters?”
Allie frowned. Okay, maybe they were doing the traditional meeting of the potential in-laws thing, but that generally happened over a meal and a lot of alcohol. “No,” she said slowly.
That earned another slow nod as Anpaytoo seemed to think about the answer. “How did your mother feel when you went into the military?”
For one sweet moment, Allie considered telling the woman to stay the fuck out of her business. Fortunately, her better judgment vetoed that idea. She didn’t want to put Shank in the middle of any fight she started with his mother. “First, I was drafted, so I didn’t really go in as much as I got dragged. Second, I don’t actually know. My mother didn’t want a family, so she signed over custody to my father. It was the two of us.”
Anpaytoo drew in a quick breath, and Allie’s temper frayed a little more. Her father had been a wonderful parent, and she didn’t appreciate any suggestion that he had failed or that he’d needed a woman to teach him how to raise his daughter.
“Your father then. How did he feel?” Anpaytoo asked.
“He wasn’t pleased. Is this going somewhere? Because maybe we can get there faster.”
“Fine.” Anpaytoo came around the console to stand in front of Allie. She was tall enough that Allie had an instinctive urge to step back, but she didn’t. “I had to watch my oldest walk away from us and into a world that doesn’t make any sense.”
“His choice,” Allie said. She was not going to ever side with Anpaytoo against Shank, so she had no idea where this conversation was going.
“True. However, you’re going to shortly have another choice.”
Even though Allie knew she was being manipulated, she couldn’t help asking, “What choice?”
Anpaytoo turned and circled back around the console. “Chetankeah, my youngest, is old enough to make his own choices and young enough to still be thoughtless about the consequences of those same decisions. Shank’s worst mistake led him to make one error after another until he placed himself against all of Command, a position from which even I cannot save him. But Chetankeah spent so many years following his older brother that he doesn’t listen to me when I try to point out the logical consequences of following Shank now.”
Allie whistled long and low. When Anpaytoo turned to glare at her with fury, Allie ducked her head. Whistling probably hadn’t been the best reaction. “He wants in on the rescue mission?”
Anpaytoo gave a mirthless laugh. “Yes. The one with no exit strategy.” Her lips were pressed together in a tight, thin line, and Allie felt a flash of involuntary sympathy. Allie’s father had lived his whole life knowing Allie would have to serve her tour in the war, but Anpaytoo had always expected to protect her children from it.
“How can I help?” Allie asked. She didn’t miss the small twitch of surprise in Anpaytoo’s face.
“He will look to either you or Copta to be in charge of the ship. Both of you are strong enough to hold it, although my own preference would be for Copta’s more mature approach.”
“Right. Got it. I’m immature.”
There was a flash of annoyance, and then Anpaytoo turned away for a second. When she turned back, her emotions seemed tucked away from sight. “Chetankeah will see the two of you as the people to convince. Don’t let him involve himself in a legal problem he can’t escape from.”
“You think we’re lost.”
Anpaytoo’s gaze went to the ceiling. “I think that if I could help, I would. But there is nothing I can do to change the balance of power.” She looked at Allie with an expression that seemed infinitely older. “The five of you have put yourselves up against Command. To count coup is part of our culture. Men will race up to the enemy, stand against him, and prove their worth by having the nerve to touch him before escaping without injury. In doing so they damage the enemy spiritually—they steal the courage and will to fight. But the risk is always there. Sometimes you choose an enemy too large, and there’s no way to escape.”
“So we die?”
“Or you get arrested or you end up back on Command ships under orders or you simply vanish. You chose to count coup against an enemy you cannot defeat, and I am forced to watch from the sidelines as I lose one son to this madness.”
Allie caught the back of a chair and held on. She couldn’t even hope to understand the feelings ripping through her. How dare this woman even suggest they were doomed before they ever started? “If you feel like this, why are you helping us get a ship?”
“My son is going to die. Should he die locked in a cage, or should he die free, fighting next to the woman he has chosen, a woman who clearly cares enough for him to follow him on a fool’s errand? This is the last thing I can give Shank, but I won’t send Chet out to die with his brother. If I have to make an enemy of my younger son, I will. I will lock him in the brig until you leave, and I will deal with his anger later.”
“But if we say no, you get to avoid that.” It was a cold piece of logic. Anpaytoo was giving up on one son and trying to save the other. It made Allie’s gut ache. “He can’t come on the rescue,” Allie said. “The bats know the rest of us served on theCandirutogether. Not many people know this, but the bat ambassador was on our ship. He met all of us, so if the bats catch us, that’s a way to explain what we’ve done. If we have someone new on the ship, I don’t know how they’d react.”
Anpaytoo closed her eyes, and the hand she used to cover them was shaking. “Fair enough,” she said in a calm voice as she nodded.
