The sun was already well up and throwing flat white light across the ocean's surface in a wide, unbroken sheet while the waves hit the base's coastal rock in the steady, indifferent rhythm they had been keeping up for longer than the base had been there, each one rolling in and breaking and pulling back, being replaced by the next before the sound of the previous one had fully finished.
Inside the room, the balcony was open to all of it.
Team Laps stood in a line behind the sofa, backs straight, shoulders squared, prepared to receive whatever came next without visible reaction.
Irhaal was at the far left with her silver hair pulled back.
Gorran filled the right end of the line in the way Gorran filled most spaces he occupied, which was entirely and with structural authority.
Naf stood between them, almost comically short in stature compared to everyone in the room
Naya stood nearest to Gorran with her hands folded at her front.
