Finish the fight in your head first.

He could not do that today. He did not know enough about the fight. He shifted the gear case to his other hand and went on to the airlock.

The security crewman at the docking port checked his orders against a list, checked his face against the file, and stood aside. Nothing about it was unusual except the care she took doing it. A docked ship at her home port did not usually check incoming crew twice. This one did, and the crewman did not seem to think it strange.

The cold hit him a step inside the airlock, and for a moment it was the best thing that had happened all day. Someone aboard kept the docking section the way ships were meant to be kept. It would not last; it never did once he got into the living spaces. He let himself enjoy it anyway.

The corridor beyond was busy without being crowded. He passed a pair of crew in operations gold who glanced at him, registered a new face, and went on without the usual curious look people gave a man with a duffel over his shoulder. A few meters later a Human woman in a plain duty uniform did the same, and he noticed she carried herself like security, though she was not wearing his colors. He filed it away. One person was a habit. Two was a pattern. Three was a ship.

There was an armory access point at the next junction, and he slowed as he passed it, because he could not help himself. Years at an armorer's bench had taught him to read a weapons locker the way his father had taught him to read a pressure door. The hatch was standard. The control panel beside it was not. It was a newer model than anything a border cruiser needed, with a biometric reader he had only ever seen once before, on a flag officer's secure archive, and a second authorization point below it for a second person.

Two keys to open the door. Whatever was in there, somebody wanted to know exactly who had touched it.

He made himself keep walking, though his hands wanted badly to see what was behind it.

The quartermaster's station sat at the end of the next passage, a long counter with a Bolian chief behind it who was broad through the shoulders and in the middle of a conversation with a PADD that did not seem to be going well for either of them. He held out a hand without looking up.

"Orders."

Seravin handed them over and set the duffel down beside his boot. He kept the gear case in his other hand.

The Bolian scrolled. "th'Ishren. Tactical." He paused, scrolled back up, and read something a second time. "Off the Tarvos. Chief Petty Officer."

"Yes, Chief."

"You're one of the new ones." It was said the same way the lieutenant on the starbase had said it, which was to say like a man who had spent the week processing a great deal of paperwork he had not asked for. The Bolian finally looked up. His eyes went once to Seravin's antennae and once to the gear case and then back to his face. "Anything in that case I need to know about?"

"Cleaning kits, calibration tools and spare emitter housings. Nothing that fires." Seravin met his look. "I'd like to speak to whoever runs your armory when there's time. I maintain my own equipment, and usually my team's."

"Do you." The Bolian let that sit a moment, and something like approval moved across his face before he put it away again. "You'll get the chance. Your compartment's in the system. Locker, bunk, storage allotment. Lose any of it and supply will tell you it never existed."

"Understood."

"One more thing." The chief set the PADD down. "Somebody's going to come find you. Before you settle in, before you unpack your cleaning kits. Don't go wandering. Wait for them."

That was not in his orders either. Seravin looked at him for a long moment, and the Bolian looked back without blinking. Whatever it was, the chief knew, and the chief was not going to be the one to say it.

"I'll wait."

He took his duffel, found the compartment where the system said it would be, and stepped inside. It was too warm. He found the environmental panel before he found the bunk and turned the temperature down until his breath almost showed, then set the gear case on the desk and stood in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides.

A ship that listened. A crew that checked faces twice and noticed new ones without staring. An armory with two keys. Five, ten, perhaps more people walking off with their belongings in the same week, and a young woman from the southern tunnels who would not say why, except that they would explain it, and that they were honest.

He did not like walking into rooms he had not planned. He had spent his whole career making sure he never had to.

So you wait. You watch. You finish it when you know enough.

Seravin sat down on the edge of the bunk, facing the door, and waited for whoever was coming to find him.