Nine Hibiscus hesitated. She had done many things she’d regretted, as a pilot and a captain and as Fleet Captain of the Tenth Teixcalaanli Legion—uncountable things, she was a soldier, it was the nature of being what she was to commit small atrocities, like it was the nature of stars to emit radiation that burned and poisoned as much as it gave warmth and life. But she’d never ordered her ship to fire on her own people. Never once yet.
