Chapter 264 - Roster

Ellie stared at him. She had been writing through two hours of crew assignments without looking up more than twice, and now her pen was still in her hand and she had stopped.

"Aliens," she said.

"Aliens."

"On Proxima b?"

"We call it New Dawn."

She turned to the display. Proxima b was rotating slowly above the table with its survey overlays, and she watched it for a beat longer than she needed to. Then she looked at Chris, who was reading his tablet like it owed him money.

"And when were you planning on telling your crew?"

"Right before we leave," Ryan said, still reading.

"That's the plan," Luca said. "Full briefing, everyone on deck, before we push off."

Ellie's pen stayed where it was. She set the pad on her knee instead of on the table. "Alright," she said.

"Alright?" Danny asked.

"I have about forty questions. But... quite. Carry on."

"Write them down," Luca said. "You'll get answers."

"Spain," Zoe said, getting the conversation back on topic. "Both teams."

"The Sunwalkers," Emily said. "All six of them were solid."

"Yes." He wanted Paco on his ship. He had wanted Paco on his ship ten minutes into the Almeria café. Some teams Luca had to talk himself into. The Sunwalkers he had been talking himself out of overrating for weeks.

"What about Haranekoa?"

"Yes," Luca replied to nods across the tactical room.

"Al-Najma."

"In." The word was out before Zoe finished the name. Tariq was coming. Luca had known that since the Almeria meeting, when Tariq had walked in and the temperature in the room had changed for no reason Luca could name, and Fatima had talked about desert ecology the way some people talked about someone they loved. Luca was trying to build a crew around people like that. He was starting here.

"Next up, Italy. The Argonauts."

They were good people, loud in the way he had missed without knowing he missed it. "Agreed."

"Rome," Zoe said, and one corner of her mouth moved. "That girl really rattled you."

That girl had been a problem in a hotel corridor Luca had walked out of intact, and Zoe knew enough to give him that look across the table, and the specifics were staying with him. He was making a command decision.

"Hard no," he said. "We are not touching that team with a ten-foot pole."

Chris laughed, which was the first sound Chris had made in an hour. Luca took it as agreement.

"Bergjäger, out of Austria," Emily said.

"Waitlist. If we lose anyone from the confirmed list."

"Die Stürmer from Munich," Zoe said.

"Yes." Luca pulled up their roster. "Klaus goes under Chris. Anke and Sven to Danny for the science team. Petra, Lena, and Steffi to engineering."

Ryan went still. Luca was looking forward to the next thirty seconds. Ryan had gone home with Lena after the club and had told them not to wait up.

"Lena," Zoe said pleasantly.

"She's qualified," Ryan said.

"She is."

"Can we move on?"

They could move on. Luca owed Zoe a drink for not extending it.

"The Valkyries, out of Sweden." Gorgeous girls, every one of them taller than Chris.

"Yes."

"Sao Paulo, Guerreiros do Sol."

"Yes, we need them." He looked at Joey. "Maria goes under your department. Medical support staff."

Joey nodded without looking up and wrote her name into his roster. Luca had made the call weeks ago. Joey had never asked for anything and Luca had wondered why he still stuck with them when his talents could be of better use anywhere else.

"João, Paulo, and Thiago for engineering," Luca continued. "Gabriel and Larissa report to Zoe. Navigation, and Gabriel for Outpost Director."

"Gabriel's qualified for that?" Danny asked.

"Read his assessment," Zoe said.

Danny pulled out the documents.

"Furia Andina," Emily said.

"First pass, yes. Rodrigo for internal security under Chris. Luis for commissary. Nelsy for AI integration, and she will work directly with the Colonial AI Core once it is installed. Carla and Elena for the science team. Andrea and Encarna for engineering."

"Rodrigo has a bird," Zoe said, without looking up.

"That's right," Luca said, grabbing the teams dossier.

"The bird's name is Plumitas."

"And?"

"That is all the information we have," Emily said, grinning.

Luca looked at Emily, then Zoe. "He has a bird and nobody asked what kind of bird it is?"

"Rodrigo said low maintenance."

Luca had a sudden urge to facepalm, yet he had also given up trying to draw the line between crew and zoo somewhere around Santiago. "Fine."

"The Colonial AI Core integration is going to be a project," Ryan said.

"That is why Nelsy is there."

Ellie was still writing. She had stopped asking questions somewhere around Italy and started keeping up with her pen. Luca checked her again.

"The Yakuza," Zoe said.

"They're coming," Luca said.

"Are we sure?" Danny asked. "Yamamoto totally bribed us with those kimonos."

"And it worked," said Emily. "Have you checked the fabric?"

The room went briefly quiet. They had never found out their team name and had neglected to ask.

"Kenta and Sato would fall under Chris," Luca continued. "For internal security and the armory. Rina goes to Chris as well. She will help run the fitness and wellness program for the crew."

"Aya goes to the kitchen as one of the chefs. Aiko under Zoe for navigation. Takashi under Emily for crew support."

Zoe made the note.

"The Chinese and Korean teams," Emily said. "Second round. Not enough time to vet them properly before departure."

"Flag them, I'll let Izumi know."

"The Rising Sun."

"Yes." Luca liked Arash. It was simple. Arash had met him outside a Tehran hotel with a hooded Saker falcon on his arm and had told him three thousand years of Persian falconry had not been changed by the System, only given a purpose, and Luca had thought the falcon was cool. The falcon's name was Davar. She was coming too. "Arash and Leila under Emily. Farid to Ryan. Reza and Shirin to Zoe as pilots."

"Another bird," Zoe said.

"Another bird."

Chris set his stylus down. "The Rising Sun and Israel Vanguard on the same ship."

The table paused.

"I talked to both teams directly," Luca said. "In Tehran and in Jerusalem. And look, I get the history. But the ayatollah's been gone for five years. Persia's a UER territory now. Arash grew up in a country that's been secular since he was sixteen." He paused. "They both want the same thing. They want to level, they want to develop their professional classes, they want to not die on some backwater portal doing it. Arash said it was fine. Noa was fine with it."

"And if they're wrong," Chris said.

"Then first incident, same consequence as any other first incident. I am not running a ship where two of my teams are on different rulebooks."

Chris nodded once and wrote it down.

"Both teams know that going in?" Emily asked.

"Both teams know."

"Israel Vanguard," Emily said.

"Noa under Emily. Avi, Erez, Shai, and Yael under Ryan. Tamar goes to Zoe, pilot."

"That gives me four pilots on navigation," Zoe said. "Larissa, Aiko, Shirin, Tamar."

"Good."

Ryan set his tablet down. "The horses."

"What about them."

"We're bringing them, right?"

"Yes we are," Zoe cut in, from Luca's other side.

"No."

"What?"

"No. We are not bringing the mustangs."

"And the jaguars."

How was this a question. Mustangs had not been on the agenda. Mustangs had not been on any agenda Luca had ever written in his life. "They are not even claimed. Nobody really owns them. We have a ship. There are twenty-two of them. Do you have any idea how much oxygen twenty-two horses consume?"

"Yes," Zoe said pleasantly. "Danny ran it. It's fine."

Danny shrugged.

"It is not fine."

"It is fine." Ryan was looking at his tablet again, which meant Izumi had sent him the same numbers, which meant everyone at this table except Luca had already decided the horses were coming.

"You could ride the lead mare, if she lets you," Zoe added. "They're getting restless, nipping at Izumi's people and trying to sneak into the dropships."

"We're bringing the saddles anyway," said Ryan and Chris grinned.

Luca looked around the table. His officers had unanimously and without his consent decided that the Triumph of Darron was going to Proxima b as a mobile zoo.

"Did anyone even name the two jaguars?"

"We wanted to," Zoe said.

"But?"

"Figured we'd wait for Sabrina, since she's Colombian."

"What? How does that even--," Luca started. "You know what? We will revisit this."

"Luca," Emily said sweetly, placing her hand on his thigh beneath the table. "It is decided."

It was decided.

Zoe kept her eyes on her tablet. "The Rifters out of Nigeria?"

"Zayaan's coming. He goes to the kitchen, as one of the chefs. Emily was right about that call." He looked at her. She kept her eyes on her binder and kept working. She had already started drafting the invite language for Zayaan in the margin, pen pressing down hard enough to mark through the page. "Ryan takes four more from their engineering and tech roster."

Ryan pulled up the assessment and started reading.

"And the Frozen Fangs," Zoe said.

Luca had wanted the Frozen Fangs from the moment Ivan had sat down at the bar and had started asking operational questions instead of pitching. Dmitri built tables. Anya played violin. Polina ice-skated. Irina had said "Ballet" across the table without any particular emphasis and nobody at that table had laughed. These were the people Luca wanted at his back when he walked into the Vault.

"Yes," he said. "Dmitri and Ivan for internal security under Chris. Anya under Danny as an applied geologist. Polina for nanotechnology, Irina for avionics. Both under engineering."

Chris nodded.

Ryan stopped writing and looked at the ceiling. He was running the totals.

"How many does that put us at?" Luca asked.

Emily had already run them. "Ninety-six confirmed crew, plus seventeen buffer invites." She set her pen down. "We have quarters for eighty."

Ninety-six. Luca turned it over. He had his number.

"We run round one," he said. "We invite the teams we have confirmed. We fill to capacity. The rest go on the backup list. If anyone drops out before departure, we call down the line. Bergjäger, Valkyries, whoever is next."

"So we cut," he said. "Right now, in this room."

Zoe groaned. "We like all of them."

"We knew this was coming," Emily said. "Science and engineering first. Support roles second. Everything else falls in behind."

"It is not about who is good," Danny said. "It is about overlap. Who brings something nobody else already covers."

"Then let's start there."

The Goa Strikers came up first. Four of them, solid energy, no gaps in the room when they showed up.

"Second round," Emily said. "Their coverage overlaps with three teams we are already keeping."

"First on the backup list," Luca said. Nobody argued.

The Valkyries were already on the waitlist, and Ryan made one more try anyway.

"They ski," he said.

"Ryan."

"I know," Ryan said. "I know. They stay on the waitlist."

Bergjäger stayed there too. Their engineering was strong, and it overlapped with the Rifters and Die Stürmer. Good crew, wrong fit for round one.

Haranekoa was harder.

"Mostly ecological engineers," Emily said carefully. "The Sunwalkers cover it."

Zoe set down her tablet. "I hate this."

Luca hated it too. Iker and his crew had flown down from Bilbao for a coffee meeting in Almeria and answered every question he had in full and then some, and now they were going into the buffer column.

"We are not cutting them," he said. "We are inviting them and seeing what happens. The evals will do the work. Medical, psych, combat. Not everyone who says yes is going to make it through the intake."

"And if they do?" Emily asked.

"Then we have a different conversation. Maybe we kick Ryan off the team."

"Hey!" cried Ryan indignantly.

Les Aventuriers came up. Pierre's team. Eight of them, French, perfect, with atmospheric analysis and geological survey coverage that lined up with the mission almost exactly.

"No," Luca said.

Pierre's black eye had healed by Paris. Nothing else had.

On paper, Les Aventuriers were one, if not the best fit on the list.

The list kept shrinking.

By the end, the room had sobered more than it had all morning. The decisions were real now, and so were the cuts.

"Ninety-six crew candidates," Emily said. "Plus the nine of us. We are targeting eighty."

"Sixteen wash out," Zoe said.

"Sixteen percent," Danny said. "For this mission? That is conservative."

"Before the invites go out," Danny said, "we need to talk about NDAs."

The table came back to attention.

"We are bringing a hundred people to the Genesis Platform. All intake, training, and combat readiness assessment happens there before anyone so much as looks at the ship. Nobody boards until we are ready to leave. Some of them will not make the final cut. All of them will know too much."

"System-enforced," Emily said. It was not a question. "Under the Triumph Initiative. A legal NDA does not mean anything when everyone in the room can level past the consequences."

"How long should we make it?" Luca asked.

"Five years, enough for what we need to do and come back. Covers the mission and gives us protection coming back."

"And if someone breaks it?"

Chris answered before anyone else could. "It has to hurt. Loss of levels. XP handicap. Something that makes them think twice before they even consider it."

"Five levels," Ryan said. "And fifty percent XP for the remainder of the term."

Danny set his tablet down. "Five levels. Do you understand what five levels means to someone who's been grinding for three years?"

"Yes," Chris said. "That's the idea."

"These are people we are inviting onto our ship," Danny said. "People we are asking to trust us with two years of their lives. And we are leading with a threat."

"We are leading with a guarantee," Chris said. "The guarantee that nobody else on this ship is going to get burned because one person decided their conscience mattered more than the mission." He didn't raise his voice. "Five levels means they think about it. Twice. Before they even consider opening their mouth."

Ellie had stopped writing. She was watching Chris the way you watched someone who had just said something you weren't sure you agreed with but couldn't actually argue against.

"He's right," Luca said. "I don't love it either. But what we're carrying is too big. Not just the Varnathi. The FTL drive. The colonization plan. The asteroid base. Any one of those gets out early and we lose the window before we've even left. Five levels is what keeps this crew a crew and not a leak waiting to happen."

The table held the quiet for a moment.

"That is the point," Emily said. "If the penalty is not real, the NDA is not real. They need to understand what they are signing before they set foot on our ship."

"Ten thousand CP per contract," Luca said. "System-enforced NDAs are not free. A hundred people, that is a million contribution points out of the Initiative's balance."

The table went quiet for a beat.

"Guys," Danny said. "That is going to be expensive."

"It is," Luca said. "We are not trying to keep this secret forever. We are buying time. Five years gets them out of stasis, settled, and past the point where someone can pull the plug on the whole thing before it starts. After that, the secret gets out on our terms." He paused. "And if someone breaches early or the secret's out, the System claws back a portion of the CP. We are paying for a window."

"So we'll do a five-year term," he said. "System-enforced under the Triumph Initiative. Five levels and a fifty percent handicap on breach." He looked at Emily. "We'll draft it now and see who's left after the bootcamp."

"Forty crew cabins on Deck Three," Danny said. "Sort by team or by sex?"

"By sex," Emily said. "Most of these teams are already mixed. We cannot keep the teams intact in one room and split by sex at the same time, so sex comes first. Roommates get worked out from there. Same team where we can, compatible personalities where we cannot."

"Agreed," Zoe said.

"If people want to switch rooms once we are out there, that is their business," Luca said. "As long as it does not affect the work."

"It will not," Emily said. "And it is not our job to police it. They are adults."

"Sabrina and Eleanor," Emily continued, "get officer quarters on Deck One."

Chris looked up from his notebook. He had been quiet since the morning session. "You realize what a hundred people, two years, no civilization, and the same faces every single day actually means."

Luca realized. He had been thinking about it since the crew list hit fifty names. Not the drama or the petty grievances that built up in close quarters until they curdled into something that couldn't be fixed. All of that was manageable.

"Sex," Luca said. "You're talking about sex."

"I am talking about sex," Chris confirmed.

"Nobody is babysitting anyone," Luca said. "Forty cabins, one planet, two years. It is going to happen. We are not going to stop it, and we are not going to pretend we think we can. What we are going to do is make sure Chris's people are there when something goes wrong, and something will go wrong."

"Consent protocols," Chris said. "Clear reporting structure. Chain of command doesn't protect anyone from accountability. I want that in writing before we leave."

"I am Chief of Staff," Emily said, "not Chief Babysitter. I am not policing who likes who. But we also need a code of conduct. Not a list of rules. A framework. What happens when two people get involved and then don't. What happens when a shift lead is sleeping with someone on their rotation."

"Put it together," Luca said. "Both of you."

"Already started," Emily said.

"Of course you have," Ryan muttered.

They broke for lunch around one. Izumi had sent someone up with sandwiches, which was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for Luca. Halfway through his second sandwitch, he realized he had no idea where on this ship they had been warmed. Neither kitchen was yet operational.

"Conditions," Ryan said. "What do we need from them before the invite goes out."

"Psych evaluations at Genesis," Luca said. "Non-negotiable. Karen's team is already setting up. They run before orientation, before anyone sees anything."

"Same for medical," Joey said. "Full workup. Allergies, underlying conditions, anything that could become a problem in the field. We need the complete picture." He paused. "I want to run those here. On the ship."

Luca looked at him. "You're going to need to set up in the hangar. I don't want anyone past the ramp until the NDAs are signed."

Joey nodded. "Hangar works."

"Anyone who withholds something and it surfaces later is off the mission," Chris said. "No discussion."

"Put it in the conditions document," Luca said.

Emily was typing.

"Combat readiness assessments," Zoe said. "Everyone fights. Science team, kitchen staff, does not matter. If we land on that planet and something goes wrong, I need to know nobody is going to freeze."

"Erik will run those," Luca said. "Three weeks before departure. Full rotations, portal scenarios, the works."

"And they agree to all of it before they get the invite," Emily said. "Not after. I do not want anyone surprised."

"Agreed." Luca looked around the table. "Anything else?"

"Baggage," Danny said. "What do they bring?"

"Weapons and armor get checked in at Genesis," Luca said. "The armory handles all of that before anyone boards. Uniforms and day-to-day supplies we provide."

"And what of personal effects?" Ellie asked. She said it a little carefully, like she was aware it wasn't strictly her meeting. "A guitar, perhaps. Small comforts?"

"We've already thought of everything," Luca said. "The ship has everything they'll ever need."

Ellie looked at him. "It's not the same." She wasn't pushing, exactly, but she wasn't backing down either. "A personal item goes a long way when you're that far from home. Something that's yours. Something that doesn't belong to the mission."

"We can put something in the invitation letter," Emily said. "Keep it small and personal. One bag. Whatever matters to them. A guitar is fine. An MP3 player, a movie collection, a box of books. As long as it fits."

Nobody argued with that. Luca didn't either.

"One more thing," Luca said. "They have to join the company. Everyone who comes aboard joins the Triumph Initiative."

Ryan opened his mouth. "That's—" he started.

"Not going to work," Chris finished. They looked at each other, which was unusual enough that Zoe noticed.

"People are too attached to their own companies," Ryan said. "Their own flags. The Sunwalkers are the Sunwalkers. Die Stürmer didn't fly in from Munich to become someone else."

"It is non-negotiable," Luca said. "They keep their identities, their callsigns, whatever matters to them. But on this ship, under this mission, they are one company. One chain of command. Not eight teams with eight different loyalties." He let that land. "And I am implementing a tax."

"What?" Danny said.

"No way," Ryan said, at the same time.

"A mission contribution levy," Emily said, already typing. She had clearly heard this before. "Ten percent of credit earnings, paid into the Initiative pool. It funds our infrastructure, equipment replacements, and our company store purchases."

"That's still a tax," Ryan said.

"It is," Luca agreed. "And they are going to be making more credits on this mission than they have ever seen in their lives. They will not notice the ten percent. What they will notice is that when a piece of equipment fails in the field, it gets replaced, and nobody has to argue about who pays for it."

"Invites go out tomorrow," he said. "Conditions attached. Whoever accepts and clears the evals, completes training, that is our crew." He looked around the table. "NDA is last. Right before departure. They do not learn what the mission is until we know they are staying." He let that settle. "Ninety-six candidates. Eighty spots."

Ellie set down her pad. She had been writing through all of it without stopping, and now she folded her hands over the pad and looked at him.

"I'll go first. The medical eval. Schedule me first."

Luca looked at Joey.

"Ok," Joey said, looking at Luca.

"Ok," Luca said.

"Can we do it now?"

"Yes," Joey said.