From the bridge, the Gatrao cloud filled most of the forward viewport. It was vast and slow and beautiful in some way, deep reds bleeding into a sullen orange where the denser gas caught the light of stars buried somewhere inside it. It looked like weather. It looked like you could fly straight through without thinking about it, which is exactly why Lindsy had spent three days making sure they wouldn't. He had been in clouds like this before, in another life. The ones that looked the most inviting always turned out to have teeth.

“Bringing us into the arc now” Lindsy said from the navigation station. “Edge of the outer envelope in ninety seconds.” she paused for a moment. “Once we’re inside the visual is going to get worse before it gets useful, so I'd rather everyone hear it from me now than wonder about it when the viewport goes the color of a bruise.”

“Go ahead” Zedd said. He had taken the center of the bridge in his chair. Arms across his chest, he split his attention between the cloud ahead and the woman who was flying them into it. He trusted her routing completely. He still wanted to watch.

“Remember we're taking the southern arc, not the direct corridor” Lindsy said, as much for the rest of the bridge as for him. “The corridor would have saved us alot of time but it runs through the densest part of the cloud. And dense means blind. The arc keeps us along the thinner outer layers where the sensors can still see far enough ahead to matter. We get to keep our eyes, mostly.” She adjusted the heading by a fraction most people would never have noticed. “The mining lane having been the other option. Anybody else working from the same salvage data would think to use it. And I would rather not arrive at someplace expecting privacy and find we were predictable.”

“Predictable gets people killed out here” zedd agreed.

“It does” she did not look up. “Crossing into the envelope now.”

The viewport changed. Clean dark open space gave way to a slow swallowing red, stars disappearing one by one as the gas thickened around the hull. The ship bridge lighting shifted automatically to compensate, throwing everything into a dimmer, warmer cast. Something in the structure of the ship's low harmonics started up. The shields held steady pressure against the particulate drag, almost felt more than heard. Vibrations came up through deck plating as well.

“Drift on the hull, port side, within tolerance” Lindsy reported. “Gas density running about eight percent higher than token data projected. Not enough to change the route. But enough that I'm going to watch it.”

Zedd let that pass without comment. She was already doing what he would have asked for if she hadn’t done it, reading both the ship and the crew flying it at the same time, folding both into one continuous stream of information. He had hired a navigator and he kept remembering he got significantly more than that

He moved a few steps towards helm, lowering his voice slightly, though not so much that it became private on an open bridge. “How long in the cloud?”

“On the arc, fourteen hours to the far side, assuming the density holds and nothing in here has an opinion about us being here.” She brought secondary display onto a shared screen, the route a thin confident line threading along cloud's outer curve, a denser core mapped in angry red next to it. “Two fallbacks built in. If drift climbs past fifteen percent over projection, I'll move us out towards edge of the envelope, it'll add two hours but take pressure off shields. If something bigger comes up, and by bigger I mean another ship, we go fully dark and hold in this pocket there”. She touched thinner region one third of way along arc. “This cloud hides us just well as it hides anyone else. That cuts both ways. I’d rather it cut in our favor.”

“You think there’s going to be someone else in here”

“I think we paid almost nothing for coordinates that brought us here, which means the people we bought them from still have them, so does anyone they sold them to,” She laid logic out like she laid out a route. "While I am not expecting company, I am refusing to be surprised by it. The difference is about four hours of contingency planning.”

“That’s the difference I pay you for” Zedd almost smiled.

“And the far side. The signature.”

Still reading where the token said it would be, she was quiet for a moment, a particular stillness she had when she confirmed a thing she’d already confirmed twice. "Massive. Damaged. Low power.” The nebula had scattered any finer details so she couldn’t say much more than token already said. Not from there. “We’ll have a cleaner picture about six hours in, once we’re past densest stretch and the sensors get room to breath.” She looked up, finding him across dim red bridge. “Whatever it is, it's exactly where it's supposed to be, and its not moving, for what that’s worth.”

“It’s worth something.” Zedd looked at the cloud ahead, the slow churn of it, with things waiting somewhere on other side they hadn’t named yet.

“Keep us on the arc” he said. “Same as you planned it. If the cloud decides to change mind about us, you change route, and tell me after. I'd rather you fly it than ask me about it.”

“Understood.” A smile appeared in corner of her mouth.

“First time a Captain ever told me to re route first and report second.”

“I hired you to keep us out of trouble.” It's hard to do that if I'm waiting to agree with you while in the middle of it.

This time, Lindsy had a fill smile as she continue along their route. "Bringing us to heading nine four seven......