Page 295 of Commander’s Mate

I leaned my head against the wall.

“Good. Because I have forms.”

His mouth moved.

“Do not laugh.”

“I would not.”

“You are.”

“A little.”

I held up the revised family-contact protocol.

“Read.”

He took it.

He read all of it.

Not pretending.

When he finished, he signed command approval.

No argument.

That felt better than praise.

Breskaa had taught us what Ursaga could not.

Breaking a chain was an event.

Freedom was a process.

Chapter Forty-Two

Harper

The first recovery council lasted four hours and accomplished one thing.

We stopped calling it intake.

That sounded small.

It was not.

“Intake sounds like a prison,” Ari said.

She had been the woman who once believed clean clothing created sexual debt.

Now she sat across from three Farseek officers and corrected their vocabulary.

I loved her.

Tivid opened the terminology file.

“Alternative?”