Chapter 15: The Hollow Moves His Pieces

The Epoch's End ran silent.

This was not a tactical choice. The command vessel had not broadcast on any frequency in eleven days — not because Admiral Veth's standing orders required emissions discipline, though they did, but because the ship's commanding presence preferred silence the way other commanders preferred reports. Information arrived at the Hollow's attention through a chain of intermediaries who had learned, through attrition and example, to carry only what was material and to present it without inflection.

The briefing officer whose name was Carys — she had been promoted three times in eight months and understood that each promotion represented a narrowing of the distance between herself and the thing that occupied the command deck — arranged her databoards in the order she had been taught and waited for the Hollow to acknowledge her.