Luca woke up sore.

  Every muscle in his body ached as if he'd spent the night fighting instead of making small talk. His neck was stiff. His shoulders felt like someone had replaced them with concrete. Even his jaw hurt, probably from smiling so much.

  Sunlight streamed through the hotel window and painted golden stripes across the bed. Emily was warm against his side, her breathing slow and even, her blonde hair spilling across his chest. She'd stolen most of the blankets at some point during the night. Typical.

  Luca shifted carefully, trying not to wake her, and stared at the ceiling.

  The gala. Right.

  It had started so well. The speech, the crowds, the champagne. Pierre showing up had been a complication, but they'd gotten through it. Emily had stayed close. The crew had held together. Everything was going fine.

  Then Anderson had gotten back on stage.

  Luca closed his eyes and let the memory play out. The President's voice had carried across the museum as he announced the new UER Parliament. Regional representation based on Territory Control Tower coverage instead of national borders. A fundamental restructuring of global governance.

  The room had gone cold. Not in an obvious way. No shouting, no dramatic exits. Just a subtle shift in the atmosphere, like watching storm clouds gather on the horizon. Conversations died mid-sentence. People started checking their phones. Small groups formed and reformed, hushed voices exchanging words Luca couldn't hear.

  The gala had been about them for maybe four hours. Then it became about politics.

  Karen had gathered the crew within minutes of Anderson's announcement. Her expression had been calm, but Luca had seen the tension in her shoulders. They'd left through a side entrance, avoiding the press, piling into SUVs with IFC security.

  Ryan had complained the whole way back. Something about afterparties and missed opportunities and how they could have absolutely crushed whatever scene was forming downtown. The three girls who'd hit on Luca were probably there. So were a hundred other teams looking to network and party with the Triumph crew.

  Karen had shot that down immediately. Not tonight. You're going back to the hotel.

  So they had. But neither of them had been tired. Too much adrenaline and champagne, too many hours of fake smiles. They'd raided the suite's minibar and spent an hour decompressing with the crew before Emily had dragged him back to their room.

  Her green dress was currently hanging from the chandelier. Luca's pants were somewhere. Probably.

  And now it was morning, and everything still hurt.

  Emily stirred beside him. Her eyes opened slowly, catching the sunlight. She blinked up at him with that soft, sleepy expression that made his chest feel tight.

  "Morning," she murmured.

  "Hey." Luca brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Sleep okay?"

  "Mm." She stretched, her body pressing against his. "You're warm."

  "And sore." Luca grimaced as his neck protested. "I think formal wear is actually a form of torture."

  Emily laughed softly. "Poor baby." Her hand found his chest, tracing lazy patterns. "What time is it?"

  Luca checked the clock on the nightstand. "Almost eight. Karen said she'd pick us up at nine."

  "Procurement meeting." Emily's eyes brightened slightly. "Finally, something useful."

  "You're excited about logistics?" Luca groaned. "Of course you are."

  "Someone has to be." She poked his chest. "You'd forget to pack food entirely if I wasn't around."

  "That's why I have you." Luca pulled her closer. "My personal logistics officer."

  They lay there for another few minutes, neither wanting to move. The sunlight crept higher. Traffic noise drifted up from the street below. Washington was waking up around them, and they had a schedule to keep.

  Emily kissed his jaw. "We should shower."

  "Together?" Luca raised an eyebrow.

  "If you want to be late." Her smile was knowing. "Karen will kill us."

  They were twenty minutes late for breakfast.

  Breakfast had been strange.

  The hotel restaurant had screens mounted on every wall, and for the first time since they'd landed on Earth, the news wasn't about the Triumph crew. Every channel was covering Anderson's announcement. Footage of demonstrations in Paris, Berlin, S?o Paulo. Crowds waving national flags and holding signs. Formal protests filed in a dozen capitals. Talking heads arguing about sovereignty and cultural erosion and the death of the nation-state.

  No riots yet. But the nationalist politicians were out in force, their faces red with outrage as they talked about traditions being trampled and identities being erased. One commentator kept using the phrase "bureaucratic imperialism" like it was going to catch on.

  Luca had eaten his eggs and tried not to think about how their gala had been hijacked for this.

  Karen and Sabine appeared in the lobby when the crew exited the restaurant. Karen's expression suggested she'd expected exactly this level of punctuality. Sabine just looked tired.

  "Good morning," Karen said. Her tone was pleasant and rather chipper. "I trust everyone slept well?"

  Then her gaze landed on Ryan, and her smile vanished.

  Ryan was wearing jeans and a hoodie, his hair still damp from the shower. He also had a spectacular black eye, the bruise spreading from his cheekbone to his eyebrow in shades of purple and green.

  "Hello, Ryan," Karen said.

  "Hello, Karen."

  "Care to explain why you felt it necessary to punch a mission candidate in the mouth last night?"

  Ryan's expression remained completely innocent. "He was speaking funny."

  Zoe snorted. Danny turned away to hide his grin. Even Sabine's lips twitched.

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  Karen's eyes narrowed. "Pierre Beaumont is a qualified team leader with exactly the kind of expertise we need. His atmospheric analysis credentials alone make him valuable. And you punched him. In the face. At a public function."

  "To be fair," Ryan said, "it was after the gala. We were outside."

  Karen pinched the bridge of her nose. Luca tried very hard not to laugh. He failed.

  "This isn't funny, Luca," Karen said.

  "It's a little funny," Emily said quietly.

  Karen shot her a look. Emily's expression was serene, but Luca caught the slight curve of her lips. She wasn't exactly broken up about Pierre getting punched either.

  "We will discuss this later," Karen said to Ryan. Her tone suggested the discussion would not be pleasant. "For now, try not to assault anyone else on our recruitment list."

  "No promises," Ryan said cheerfully. "Please tell me there's coffee where we're going."

  "There will be coffee," Sabine confirmed. "Among other things."

  The SUVs took them across Washington to a federal complex. Gray concrete, narrow windows, security checkpoints every fifty meters. The sign out front read Defense Logistics Agency, United Earth Republic Division.

  Luca counted three armed guards before they even reached the lobby.

  "Cozy," Ryan muttered.

  Karen led them through security with her IFC credentials, and they followed a series of identical hallways until Luca's heightened perception could no longer keep track of which way they were facing. The whole building had that musty government smell.

  They ended up in a conference room on the fourth floor. A long table with too many chairs. A screen on one wall that probably connected to something classified. And one man waiting for them, rising from his seat as they entered.

  "Patrician Stevens." He shook Karen's hand. "Thank you for coming."

  "Gregor." Karen's smile was professional. "Allow me to introduce the Triumph crew. Captain Luca Rossi, Chief of Staff Emily Berrow, and the rest of their officers."

  Gregor Atkins was somewhere in his fifties, gray at the temples, with the kind of face that suggested he'd spent decades dealing with spreadsheets and supply chains. He wore a plain suit, no rank insignia, no obvious weapons. A civilian contractor, then.

  "Please, sit." Gregor gestured at the chairs. "Can I get anyone coffee?"

  Ryan's hand shot up. "God, yes."

  Gregor stepped out, and a few minutes later they were all settling in with cups of coffee that tasted like it had been brewed sometime during the last administration. Luca took a sip and tried not to make a face.

  "So," Gregor said, pulling out a tablet. "Director Marisol Vintar asked me to facilitate this meeting. I understand you're planning a long-duration mission and need to discuss food procurement."

  "That's right," Emily said. She'd shifted into her professional mode, posture straight, voice crisp. "We met with Dr. Levi last night about hydroponics for fresh produce. This meeting is about everything else. Preserved goods, emergency rations, bulk staples."

  "For approximately one hundred crew members over a two-year period," she added.

  Gregor's eyebrows rose slightly. Karen's remained steady.

  "Two years," Gregor said. "That's ambitious. Are we talking military-standard MREs, or something more comprehensive?"

  Luca jumped in before Emily could answer. "Not military-standard. Our last supplier was terrible. Everything tasted like cardboard."

  "Worse than cardboard," Ryan added. "Cardboard has texture. These were just sad."

  "The crew's morale is important to us," Emily continued. "This isn't a military expedition. We're not asking people to suffer through two years of emergency rations."

  "Understood." Gregor made a note on his tablet. "We do have several vendors who specialize in gourmet freeze-dried meals. Gourmet Expeditions is probably the best known. Higher quality, better variety, but significantly more expensive than standard military grade."

  "Cost isn't the primary concern," Luca said.

  Karen's eyebrow twitched. Luca pretended not to notice.

  "In that case," Gregor said, "I can arrange for sample shipments from several vendors. You'll want to test them before committing to a bulk order. Different suppliers have different strengths. Some are better with proteins, others with the vegetarian options."

  "That would be helpful," Emily said. "We'll also need bulk staples beyond the MREs."

  She pulled out her own tablet and started listing requirements. Bulk rice. Pasta. Legumes. Freeze-dried vegetables and fruits. Frozen proteins in vacuum-sealed packaging. Baking staples, oils, and spices.

  Karen's eyebrow rose higher as the list grew longer.

  "We'll need industrial freezers," Ryan added casually. "Several of them. Big ones."

  Karen turned to look at him. Luca caught the question in her expression but watched her file it away without asking.

  Gregor was typing rapidly, running calculations. "Give me a moment." His fingers moved across the tablet screen. Numbers appeared, rearranged themselves, multiplied. "For one hundred personnel over two years, you're looking at roughly sixty-five metric tons of dry goods. Fifty to fifty-five metric tons of frozen storage. That's approximately three hundred cubic meters of dry and frozen goods combined."

  He paused. More typing.

  "The MREs are the bulk of it. If you're going with gourmet options, you'll want three meals per day per person. That's roughly two hundred twenty thousand MREs over the mission duration. At current packaging densities, that's another eight hundred cubic meters of storage space."

  Luca exchanged glances with Emily. Those numbers tracked with their own estimates.

  "That's a lot of food," Gregor said. His tone was neutral, but Luca caught something in his expression. Curiosity, maybe. "If you're planning a two-year mission with gourmet MREs providing three meals daily, you'll have sufficient caloric intake without the bulk staples. Why the redundancy?"

  Luca shrugged. "Emergency reserves. We're going to another star system. If something goes wrong, we want alternatives."

  "The shelf life on MREs should be long-term, right?" Emily added. "We can keep them in reserve for genuine emergencies while using fresh produce and bulk staples for daily meals. Better for morale and nutrition."

  Gregor nodded slowly. His expression remained professionally neutral, though Luca could practically see the questions forming behind his eyes. A civilian analyst working for UER procurement, processing the math.

  He didn't press.

  "I can work with your requirements," Gregor said finally. "The gourmet MRE vendors will need lead time for an order this size. Bulk staples are easier to source, but frozen storage logistics will require coordination with your quartermaster."

  "We're handling supplies through the IFC; they will coordinate delivery, " Luca said, motioning toward Karen.

  "Excellent." Gregor made another note. "I'll put together a preliminary proposal with vendor options and pricing. Director Vintar has authorized expedited processing, so we can move quickly once you've made your selections."

  "Thank you," Emily said.

  Gregor began packing up his tablet. The meeting felt like it was wrapping up, which was fine with Luca. Government buildings made him twitchy. Too many locked doors and security cameras.

  Karen stood, and the crew followed her lead. Handshakes were exchanged. Gregor promised to have preliminary numbers within forty-eight hours. They filed back into the hallway, retracing their steps through the maze of identical corridors.

  The February air hit Luca's face as they stepped outside, cold and sharp after the recycled atmosphere of the building. Gray skies pressed down on Washington. A light rain had started, more mist than actual drops, but enough to make everything feel damp and miserable.

  The crew huddled under the building's awning, waiting for their vehicles.

  Karen, noticing the crew's collective frowns, pulled her coat a little tighter and offered a sympathetic smile. "I had planned for you all to meet some promising teams in New York tomorrow morning, but given the weather, maybe there's an alternative."

  "What do you mean?" Emily asked, glancing up at her.

  Karen brushed a stray raindrop off her cheek. "There are a couple of really interesting teams based in Puerto Rico. One group has been working to revive the pharmaceutical industry there, and the other has been involved with restoring the Arecibo telescope. Both groups are highly skilled and might be just the type of people you're looking for."

  "Puerto Rico?" Zoe's eyes lit up, and a smile played on her lips. "That sounds warmer than here."

  Luca felt a hint of relief just thinking about it. "Definitely a plus over New York right now." He glanced over at the crew huddled together under the awning, doing their best to keep warm.

  Danny looked up, intrigued. "The Arecibo telescope. That's the giant radio telescope, right? The one that collapsed?"

  "Exactly," Karen said, nodding. "They've been working to rebuild parts of it and keep the facility operational. The teams there are sharp and have been involved in advanced projects since the System arrived. They'd bring a lot of expertise to the Triumph."

  Emily tilted her head thoughtfully. "And the pharma industry? What's the story with them?"

  Karen explained, "They're focused on everything from modern drug synthesis to exploring new applications of traditional medicines. Since the System, they've seen a resurgence in interest, and they've developed skills in biochemistry, material analysis, and even environmental science to support their work. Honestly, they'd be a fantastic addition if you're serious about pushing research on alien biology."

  The crew exchanged looks, the rain now seeming even less inviting.

  "Well, Captain?" Ryan grinned, raising an eyebrow. "Do we chase the cold in New York or head somewhere warm?"

  Luca chuckled, a glint of anticipation warming him up from the inside out. "I don't know about you guys, but I'd take Puerto Rico any day. Besides, after that procurement run, we could all use a change of scenery, and a little sun wouldn't hurt."

  Zoe clapped her hands, her face lighting up. "Finally, somewhere with real weather. Not just recycled air and gray skies."

  Emily looped her arm through Luca's, giving him a grin. "So, it's settled? Puerto Rico?"

  Luca nodded, feeling the decision sit right. "It's settled. Puerto Rico, here we come."