Page 38 of Every Almost

"Elena, it sounds amazing, but it would require a complete refit, a complete overhaul of the Emberkind. I don't know, but I think the Coalition would never?—"

"The Coalition will agree because I'm going to make them agree," Elena interrupted, her eyes boring into Reyna. "Please, Rey. Trust me on this. I need my second." Elena stopped, her expression going softer as she looked at Reyna. "I need my friend."

With just those few words, all of the reasons this wouldn't work morphed into challenges to overcome instead of causing her to step away. She steeled her gaze on her captain, ready for the next step.

"I'm with you, Elena. Through and through." Elena smiled, placing her hand on Reyna's shoulder and squeezing it gently. Then Reyna watched as her expression turned to intense focus.

"I need Jere. Where is he right now?"

Reyna pulled out her datapad, finding Jere's contact card and running his locator system to ping his current location. "It looks like he's on a research station, serving a posting in the Thyros sys?—"

"Get him on comms. Now."

"Now?"

"At the latest tonight."

And then Elena was off and running. Reyna just stood in the now empty corridor and watched her captain sprint toward a future that hadn't existed thirty seconds ago.

"Okay, sure thing, Captain. I'll make sure all that works out just perfectly!" Reyna shouted down the corridor, the sound trailing Elena but probably not landing in her ears. "Just like I always do," Reyna mumbled to herself, but she couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face. "I'm going to have to make this work, aren't I," she trailed off to herself as she walkeddown the corridor, already calculating the refit timeline on her datapad before rounding the corner to get to her office.

In the days that followed,the trio of Elena, Reyna, and Jere were given their first opportunity to work together as a unit since they'd been split up after Novahall.

If Reyna was being truthful, it was also the last time she ever underestimated the power Elena Voss had when she made the decision that something was going to exist. Elena didn’t fail to provide the command authority, the strategic framework, and the political instincts needed to make this a success, likely stemming from those generations of knowing how the Coalition worked and processed. And Jere, greeted back into their midst with such gusto, even virtually, provided the passion and the knowledge of individual species needs, especially when it came to particular habitat requirements, that turned the whole wild idea into a viable plan. Reyna made all of what Elena initiated and Jere depicted work, meshing all of their contributions together into a single, salvageable manifest, and she was damn good at that.

Reyna was able to take Elena's specialized vision and Jere's specialized science and turn them into everything they needed to make this happen. This included everything from logistics and timelines, to resource allocations and operational procedures. Reyna's special talent was that she could see the problems before they existed, channeling her inner room scanner, and have solutions for every single one of them before anyone even noticed they were possibilities. When Elena's ambition outpaced reality and Jere's enthusiasm went beyond the stars, Reyna took her job seriously as a reality check and hauled it back in. But forcertain aspects, such as when Elena and Jere wanted to build a specialized humidifier for the Wetland Wing they were planning, and it was clear it would exceed the budget, Reyna made it a priority and found the budget.

Because that was their motto for this project: the animals came first.

That didn't mean that when both Elena and Jere got so excited about a particular design, planning to include some of the heaviest and sometimes most rare materials in the galaxy, that they forgot the ship still needed to actuallyfly, Reyna took them down a peg and reminded them. Firmly.

"We can't allocate seventy percent of environmental power to the habitats," she'd explained one day when Elena and Jere were discussing all they could do with a fully customizable and adaptable atmosphere generator right in the cargo hold.

"And why the hell not?" Elena and Jere said, simultaneously, indignantly.

Reyna stared at their stoic faces, hoping if she gave them a moment, they'd come to the realization on their own. As the staredown continued, she realized that, no, they needed a push. "Because we need tobreathe?" Reyna actually posed it as a question because she had a hard time believe they'd gone that far down the rabbit hole that they'd forgotten basic living needs.

Both Elena and Jere's eyes grew wide as realization dawned on them.

"... oh," Elena said first.

"Yeah," Jere followed.

"Yeah. Oh."

"Well, at least the animals would be happy!" Jere added.

"Even I draw the line at accidental manslaughter due to unsupported life needs aboard my ship, Jere," Elena stated. Jere nodded.

"Fair."

And that was how it went. They worked across distances that changed frequently, they worked through communication delays where sometimes responses took upwards of five minutes, which sometimes frustrated Elena to no end as she'd be moving along with her plans, and right in the middle of Step 8, Jere's responses would come through on Step 3. Not to mention their competing schedules, between Elena's captainship, Reyna's requirements to run the Emberkind smoothly, and Jere's continuing mobile outreach.

But they found a rhythm. Elena would present, Jere would explain, and Reyna would refine. And slowly, piece by piece and refinement by refinement, a proposal came to be through all their work, and even Reyna knew it was solid.

In fact, the Coalition agreed. Granted, it wasn't easily. It wasn't without negotiation, compromise, and Elena having to pull every Voss family connection she had with Reyna sitting beside her, all the data at her fingertips for any objection that arose.

When the time came, the final approval was from Admiral Vondra, the Lithyn sector commander who had been overseeing the Emberkind's region of operations for almost two decades. The trio would find out later that it was Vondra herself that kept the Emberkind in commission and would never allow it to be taken out of work.