Chapter 26: The Ark Councils Begin to Fracture

The supplement went out at 09:41, seventeen minutes after the primary package, riding the same relay architecture through Casca's secondary node at Ark Fenwick. Pip sat back against the port gunwale with the secondary communications unit in her lap and watched the confirmation hash resolve on the small screen — a string of characters that meant nothing to look at and meant, in practical terms, that she had now done this twice and could not argue either time was an accident.

The cutter from the northeast was gaining. Thresh had adjusted course twice and it had adjusted with him, which settled the question of whether it was a coincidence.

"How many nodes in Casca's network?" Karev said. He was at the bow, scanning the northeast quarter with the methodical patience of a man cataloguing a situation rather than panicking inside it.