He hesitated and looked at Apollo’s nakedness again. Slowly he unbuttoned his shorts and let them drop to his ankles. He kicked them off and stopped....“You gonna swim in your drawers?” Apollo asked.Travis shook his head and pushed his briefs down and kicked them to the side. Apollo turned and ran down to the water’s edge and out to his knees. He plunged in and resurfaced a couple yards away, laughing.Travis walked into the water tentatively. When he was knee deep he squatted in the water so that. Techne tore her eyes from the secure room to Meetra. “What now?”“We’ve got a hell of a bargaining chip in our hands,” the Butcher of Malachite said, their voice soft. They rubbed their chin. “With the Praetor and the surviving Hegemonic troopers, and the Quantum Forge and now this woman? We can make some real demands of the Hegemony. Assuming, of course, they give a shit about their people.”“They don’t,” the Hegemonic Knight said, her voice only faintly muffled by the glass.Meetra frowned. “How. "What's happened? Your captain said twenty or twenty-two weeks total, and two of those were bogus weeks, weeks in worm space that don't count here. We've been depending on that, it's critical!" I know, ma'am," he said miserably. "But that was before you ordered the captain to rein in the engines." I? I ordered no such thing!" Well, ma'am, maybe it wasn't you then, maybe Ms. Heisinger or Mr. Igwanda, he wasn't very specific—"But she'd already reached the door of her cabin where they were talking. We won't be able to lock on for another hour at least. There's always the radio of course, but..." No, maintain radio silence," Warren ordered. "I don't want the greenies or the EastHem's knowing that we're out here if we can avoid it. We'll just wait until the receiver is back in sight and send the report then." Aye sir," the communications officer said.Mermaid's velocity continued to increase as the fusion engines burned and pushed them higher and higher above the planet. Mike in the.