"The jump. Did it work? Did we jump? To the right place?" The stars in the display had shifted. Or I thought they shifted. Star fields surprisingly all looked the same. It wasn't like a sci fi movie, where all starships were somehow backlit by a big, vividly glowing colorful nebula. The main display wasn't any help, because I didn't have any reference point. We were a tiny dot in the middle of nowhere before the jump, now we were a tiny dot in the middle of nowhere after the jump. It could be the middle of the same nowhere, for all I knew.

She held her hands up, palms open, then gestured at the confusing displays. "Honestly, I have no idea. Mister Skippy?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I was busy. Yup, it worked fine. Of course it did. I would have told you if it didn't. I've been transmitting our Kristang IFF codes. I don't detect any other ships in the area yet."

"Could they have left already? Because we were late to the rendezvous point?" Simms asked.

"Sure, we were late to the original rendezvous point, this is the alternate point, it's the correct location for this time, duh. This ship's sensors operate at the speed of light, and we just got here, so the, oh, there it is! I have the beacon from the Thuranin star carrier. Pilot, new course is loaded into the navigation system."

"Colonel?" Desai looked back at me.

"Engage." I ordered. I needed to think of something original to say. Warp factor five was not an option, unfortunately. The ship swung around about forty five degrees which made me dizzy, and the engines fired. Fired hard. It was good that everyone was strapped in. Damn, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. It must be worse for our wounded. "Skippy," I grunted, "is this necessary?"

"I'm not showing off, if that's what you're asking. The Thuranin wish to jump away quickly, their message ordered us to rendezvous at maximum speed. We're going to flip around and decelerate soon, so hang on. Also, when we get within half a lightsecond, the Thuranin will take control of our navigation system, to bring us safely onto an attachment point. That is standard practice. I am running this ship's navigation system within one of my subroutines so the Thuranin will think they have full access. But they won't."

"How will we know if the Thuranin accept our IFF codes?" Chang asked.

"They already have. I'm chatting with them, and the local Kristang commander right now. It's a slow conversation, because the signal travels at lightspeed. They accept our story about being thrown off course by a Ruhar stealth mine, they can see the damage to this ship. Don't be alarmed, we're going to cut thrust in three, two, one, now. We'll coast for twelve minutes before we flip over. This, uh, would be a good time to use the bathroom, hint, hint."