“I’ll poke around and see if I can uncover any details on the heist crew,” Lexi said as she stood. “I’m not as good as Kee, but maybe I’ll spot something that she overlooked. I’ll at least see if the rumor mill has anything.”

“Thank you.”

Lexi left with a wave, and I returned my attention to my terminal. The prelaunch checks came back green. I hit the ship’s intercom. “Launch in five. Eli and General Fletcher, confirm readiness.”

A minute later, both Eli and Torran confirmed that their teams were ready for launch. I went through my mental checklist one last time, but I couldn’t think of anything else I needed from the station. At the five-minute mark, I lifted away from the deck and eased Starlight out into space.

It took nearly forty-five minutes before traffic thinned enough that I felt comfortable turning on the autopilot. There were two wormhole traversals during this section of the trip, and the first wasn’t until early tomorrow morning.

In three days, we’d be on Valovia.

I had not ventured into Valovian space since the war, and I’d never been through the wormhole that led to Valovia itself. Now I had less than twenty-four hours to resign myself to the fact that I was leading my crew back into enemy territory. The thought sent nervous prickles down my spine.

I’d already added Lexi to the duty roster, so I decided to see if I could give Anja a hand with the maintenance. With all of the extra parts, she’d need all the help she could get.

And I needed the distraction.

By dinnertime, I was tired, sweaty, and filthy, but Anja and I had made significant progress on the most important fix, which involved replacing worn parts in the heating and cooling systems. I hadn’t let any of the ship’s routine maintenance get dangerously behind, but I hadn’t exactly been swapping out parts early, either.

If nothing else, this job would give Starlight’s Shadow a much-needed round of upkeep.

When it became clear that the fix was going to take longer than expected, I’d asked Eli to cook dinner.

In my bedroom, I stripped off my clothes and put them directly into the refresher. I set the cleaning cycle to run, then quickly showered and changed into clean clothes. I felt better after the shower, but my body was a collection of aches.

My arms trembled from holding parts in place for hours, and I’d put too much stress on my bad knee while trying to contort myself into the tiny maintenance crawlspaces with Anja. My knee had been so much better that I’d forgotten that Havil hadn’t been able to completely heal it. I hoped I hadn’t undone any of his work.