Chapter 9: Father and Son at the Edge of Occupied Space

The shuttle from the central station took six hours, which Darian had planned for.

Kael understood this in the way he had learned to understand most of his father's decisions — not as suspicion but as recognition. The six hours were not incidental. The route Darian had selected passed through the Confederation's two outermost waystation rings before dropping below the ecliptic plane entirely, and the approach angle to Installation Verath-9 had been chosen, Kael noted from the navigation display, specifically to arrive at the viewport from below — rising through the dark rather than descending through it. The installation's assembled fleet would be visible from the shuttle's forward cabin for the last forty minutes of approach, growing from points of reflected light to full structural geometry. There would be time to look at them. Time to absorb them. Time for whatever Darian intended to say to find the ground he had spent forty minutes preparing.

Kael watched the waystation rings slide past and did not say any of this.