"Yes," Redana says, distantly, staring a hole through a countertop. "Yes, that's a good idea. I know that. All the information's [i]there[/i], Redana," she adds, reciting by rote. "All you need to do is take it apart, evaluate each piece of the whole, and for Athena's sake, [i]apply[/i] yourself. So. There's the Alcedi, and they're good... sailors. So they can sail the ship good. And then there's the hoplites, and they can handle the security on board the ship, as long as they're only supposed to be in one place, so maybe if we have, like, an obvious way in, we can just have them wait there for boarders? And we have the Priests of Hermes, who keep [i]looking[/i] at me and asking me what the [i]ordained[/i] configuration is, because I'm supposed to know, because I did the same sem-- I did [i]two[/i] semesters of naval command in case of Outside Context Problems causing an actual honest-to-Olympus [i]war[/i] out here, and sometimes it's the really strong ships that can remain powerful and strong and unbroken that hold together an engagement, and sometimes it's the fast ships that can evade SP and carve apart leviathans bite by bite that turn the tide, and all this is useless anyway because I'm not trying to prove why Decadion's[1] ridiculous 'jousting lance' strategy is no longer viable in the current engagement environment I'm trying to make sure you don't [i]all die in space[/i] because I wanted society to be [i]better[/i][3]!"

Is Redana shouting? Redana's shouting. At herself. Dolce's faded into the background; there's just her and the specters of tutors in the shadow of Athena. The white of her eye overlarge, she takes the work of hours, her sketch of the heavily-armored [i]Plousios[/i], and she crumples it into a torn mess in one hand, because what good is it, anyway?

What good is she, anyway?

And there's no Bella here to put her hand on Dany's hand and give her a gentle purr. How pathetic is she, missing a crutch like that? You fell for it, honey, and here you are aching for an actress's affection! An actress who tried to [i]hurt[/i] you! Who never... who [i]never[/i]...

She unclenches her fingers and splays them across the crumpled, torn page. "...I'm not your god," she mutters, once again not to Dolce. "I'm just a girl who's not smart enough for this."

***

[1]: Opinions vary as to whether this admiral was a subversive genius, a lunatic who fundamentally didn't understand the subtleties of space combat, or simply had the misfortune of having his treatises survive to a different age of the universe. Regardless, "you should never be close enough to see your opponent until the battle is decided" and "it is not the wind even when it is the wind" are both hotly-contested koans from his work[2].

[2]: "[i]I don't have to win, I just have to make you lose,[/i]" on the other hand, is largely considered to be his last transmission, added posthumously to the Book of the Drake.

[3]: And yet she uses her society's spaceships. [i]Curious.[/i]