If Alliance discipline waned, if those who followed her failed to meet the demands of the way, her people would fall again, the shame of the past repeated. She imagined her children, grown but not warriors, soft instead, enslaved, tormented, as the people of Palatia had been. Her son, crucified, nailed to a large tree as an example to the other workers of the cost of rebelliousness. And her daughter, beautiful, but the fire in her sparkling eyes extinguished by the servitude and brutality of that was her life.

She didn’t like the mission, not at all. She hated the idea of war with the Confederation, and the thought of allying with the Union, even for a short time, turned her stomach. But the way didn’t require her to like her duty, it only required her to do it.

“Commander, we’re getting probe data. No contacts yet.”

“Very well, Optiomagis. Continue probe sweeps and passive scanners. And prepare to initiate thrust at twenty percent.”

“Probes continuing into the system, Commander.” A short pause. “Engine room reports ready for thrust on your command.”

She stared at the main display for a few seconds. She didn’t really expect to find anything in this system. The primary was a massive blue star, an O type, she recalled from the mandatory astrophysics training she gotten in the Academy. Ishelar was a stellar curiosity, a rare hypergiant, but that was the extent of its utility. A young star, it was doomed to an early death as its enormous mass and high core temperatures caused it to exhaust its nuclear fuel at a rapid rate. There were three planets orbiting the star, Kat didn’t need her probes to tell her that…the system had been charted centuries, even millennia before. But none of the hot, rocky worlds had ever been deemed suitable for colonization or mining, and so Ishelar remained a system whose only utility was the ancient transwarp lines ran through it.

“Initiate thrust at twenty percent, Optiomagis. Let us be cautious until the probe data is more complete.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Kat stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the knot in her gut. She wasn’t thinking about the Ishelar system and the vast emptiness she knew she’d find there. She was worried about the next jump…and whatever awaited Invictus beyond the border, in Confederation space.

*   *   *

“I’m definitely getting a reading from the transwarp gate, sir. Looks like a ship coming through.” Stan Poole paused, staring at his instruments. There was surprise in his voice, and on his face as he turned toward the ship’s commander. “And from the readings, I’d say it’s a big sucker.”