“Out,” he said, slapping at the com with his fingers. Then he turned back to the main display. He breathed deeply, staring down at his hands, making a conscious effort to hide his anxiety. He was the captain, the one all his people would look to for strength, for confidence. He was also a veteran of sorts, but like most of the officers in the Confederation navy, his experience had been limited to policing actions and minor fights with renegade forces. He had never stared down another battleship, never faced the prospect of a battle of equals, of two ships maneuvering, firing…a fight where only one vessel could prevail.

A duel…

He imagined two dandies from a lost era, swords in hand, fighting one on one. And like them, he realized, the cause of the dispute didn’t matter, not now. The politicians and analysts would unwind what had caused an Alliance ship to be here, whether the Union had managed to gain an ally in the coming war…or if the Alliance was simply probing for weakness. The high command would decide how to respond to the longer term threat, what forces to deploy and where. None of that made any difference to Barron and his people, no more than the original insult that might have caused his imagined duelists to meet. No. Causes were irrelevant, right and wrong meaningless concepts. Now, there was only victory…or defeat, death.

He stared at the screen, imagining the space between the enemy ship and Dauntless, the vast, frigid, black emptiness.

A duel in the dark…

“Commander…” His voice was softer than it had been, calmer. His people needed to see him totally in control, no matter how tense he truly was. “I want all gunnery stations to run full testing procedures.”

“Yes, Captain. Implementing testing now.”

He looked over at Travis’s station. The officer was sitting straight, almost as if a metal rod had been affixed to her spine. He knew she had to be as edgy as he was, but if anything, she hid it better than he did. He was grateful to have her aboard, to know he had a first officer he could count on no matter what happened. Travis was capable…no, far beyond capable. If they made it through this battle, he knew he would lose her soon. It was only just. She deserved her own command. She rated it in every measurable way…and if she’d had any family influence at all, if she’d come to the service anything but a penniless refugee from a hellish world, she would already be wearing a captain’s stars.