Bright didn't have time for the bullshit.
That was his first thought when Duncan mentioned the nobles' latest campaign during their morning training session. Resource denial. Social pressure. Rumors about Silas. The systematic exclusion that had the rest of the squad strategizing responses and building countermeasures.
Bright listened, nodded at appropriate moments, and mentally filed it under "problems that don't require immediate attention."
It wasn't that he didn't care. He did, in the abstract way someone cares about a problem they've acknowledged exists but can't personally solve. The political maneuvering, the noble house games, the careful orchestration of social exclusion—it was all happening, it was real, it was affecting his squadmates.
But to him, it felt like staying in a dust-filled room.
