The Captain's Request

Captain Abara listened to everything without interrupting, which was how Ines knew it was true.

Kestrel's World was not empty. It had never been empty. The first crew had known, and had chosen to come anyway, and had put the only person who could say so to sleep where no one would wake her.

“I'm not asking you to lie,” the captain said. “I'm asking for three hundred days to find a way to tell eleven thousand people the truth without breaking them.” She paused. “And I'm asking you to keep her alive.”