Thoreaux said nothing, only let his eyes fall to the Whip.
Pro looked down too, pausing when he saw the weapon. When he looked back, a shocked smile had come to his face. "You're kidding me, right? You thought I was going to hurt you?"
Thoreaux closed his eyes and took another deep breath. When he let it out, he steadied himself, realizing he wasn't in danger and he might not even be demoted. "I disobeyed a direct order. I endangered everyone in your council."
"You saved our lives," Prometheus finished. "If it wasn’t for your courage, the AllMother and I would be dead. You disobeyed an order that would have destroyed everything she's built. That's why I called you here. That, and to apologize for being stupid."
Thoreaux didn't know if he'd ever heard a leader talk this way. He was stunned.
"Here, sit down." Pro threw a pillow off the couch to make room, then reached over and guided his second to sit down. "You look like you might faint."
Thoreaux sat and looked at him. "I'm all right."
"Need water? This Primus has everything you could want in here. She even has booze if you want a drink."
"Yeah, some water," Thoreaux said. He hadn't realized how stressed he'd been. How deeply his parents' legacy had been burned into his mind, and that he'd felt he was following in their footsteps. He’d thought everyone else saw it too.
Pro returned with a cup of water and handed it to him.
Thoreaux drank it greedily, his hand shaking as he did. "Thanks," he said after finishing.
"Any time you’re sure I’ve made the wrong decision, I need you to take action. I can't guarantee I won't do it again. I'm going to make decisions that appear rash and overly dangerous. Sometimes they will be, but that's my blind spot. My whole life, I've been the best at what I do. A killer, I guess, but the best at it. Now that I'm in this new body, everything feels limitless. I need you to cover my blind spots. I need you to disobey me if it's going to save us. That doesn't mean the two of us are always going to agree in the end about who made the right call, but I trust you to do what you think is right. That's what I need."
Thoreaux grabbed his right hand with his left, hoping to stop the shaking.
"I know about your parents," Pro said. "Some people on Earth, they put stock in family lineage. Even after everything I did as a Titan, the greatest families wouldn't sit with me at dinner. Not because they didn't like that I’d killed people, but because my bloodline wasn't on their level. I don't care about what your parents did. I only care about what you do, and right now, you saved us all. There are thousands of people back on Phoenix who will continue living because of what you did."
Thoreaux nodded. “I had to do it, Pro. I hope you know that. It wasn't that I don't trust you. It wasn't that I thought you were going to get the AllMother hurt. No man is big enough to foresee everything. I didn't do it to disobey. I did it to help."
Pro went to his knees in front of Thoreaux. "I'm asking you to see my blind spots. If we're going to survive this, I need you. Relm, Faitrin, Servia—they all serve a purpose in this war, but perhaps yours is the most important. Temper the worst parts of me. Save me from myself, Thoreaux. Do you accept me as your leader?"
Thoreaux nodded.
"As your leader, I'm asking you to leave your family's legacy behind and help me win this battle. Will you do that?"
"If that's what you need, I will do it," Thoreaux answered.
There was a bang on the door, and they both glanced at it. The panel to the right showed it was Servia.
"The Commonwealth's message," Thoreaux said.
Pro nodded, then stood up, walked over to the door, and pressed his hand to the panel. The ship hadn’t been reprogrammed for voices yet, only body signatures.
"It's here," Servia said as the door opened. "Their message."
"Have you watched it?" Pro asked.
She shook her head. "No one has. We've been waiting for you."
Pro looked at Thoreaux. "You ready?"
Thoreaux didn't glance at his hands. The shaking had settled. "I'm ready," he answered, hoping he was.
Alistair had needed to accomplish an incredible number of tasks in the past twenty-four hours. He'd taken two stim packs, which the medbay had willingly given him. Everyone on this ship might hate him, thinking him evil incarnate, but they understood he could have them killed with a word.
Talking to Thoreaux had been a priority, and he was glad he'd done it. He hadn't known his second had been so worried. Alistair wouldn’t hurt anyone in this group unless they stood between him and his wife. He knew he'd have to talk to Thoreaux again because he wanted the man to truly trust him. If he was going to make it back to Earth, Thoreaux had to watch his six. It was the only way. He had to become what Ares had once been for him.
There would be time for another conversation. A lot depended on what happened with the coming message.
His whole council was here except for Relm. He would watch the bridge, ensuring that if an insurrection happened, Alistair would know in time. The AllMother and Faitrin were waiting as the other three entered the room.
Alistair looked at Faitrin, the only one in the room who could harmonize with the ship's AI system. She also seemed to have adopted the AI system she'd brought from Terram. The two of them were friends, from what Alistair could tell.
"You ran the security tests? No code in this message that could take out the ship?"
Faitrin nodded. "And I had Jeeves double-check it. The message is clean."
Jeeves was what she called the AI now. Alistair had never heard
