The woman turned to Milla when Hilliard was out of ear-shot. “Can they be trusted? The Others are oath breakers. You know that.”

Milla took a deep breath before she continued. “I don’t know, but we have little choice, I’m afraid. And the oath breaking was a long time ago.”

“Oath breakers are oath breakers.”

“Perhaps. But as I said, they rescued me, and now they are saving you and your people. That should earn them at least the benefit of the doubt from us.” Milla’s face was earnest.

The older woman sighed after a moment, relenting. “Perhaps you are right.” She paused a moment. “What is your name? I am—or rather, was—Titualar Saraf. Now, I suppose, it’s just plain Saraf.”

Milla looked around her. “Not to these people. You are still the titualar of this system to them. I am Ithan Milla Chans of the Ranqil merchant fleet. I was on an interception mission when the task force I was assigned to was destroyed by a Drasin battle fleet.”

“The Drasin are that powerful?”

Milla nodded grimly. “They are more powerful than that, I fear. They annihilated our force with ease; our vessels had no chance against them.”

“Then we are lost. They will overrun our defenses, finally. Over eight millennia of peace and we end like this.” Saraf looked resigned.

Milla shook her head violently, refusing to accept that death was inevitable. “It is not over yet. The Five have several fleets of next-generation starships nearing completion. They should put us at nearly an equal footing with what I have seen of the Drasin fleet. The era of peace has come to an end, but not our civilization.”

“What of your friends? I wasn’t aware that any of the Others had achieved dimensional travel?” Seraf nodded to the soldiers.

“They haven’t. Their technology is a puzzle to me. In many ways, their equipment is vastly inferior to ours. They have no knowledge of field manipulation or dimensional access. Their computers are almost laughably slow, and their medical technology is archaic.” Milla stopped for a moment, her voice drifting away as she thought about the wonders she had seen. “Yet, they translated our language in less than a day. They have software that is superior to any I have seen and have the capability to jump between the stars in an instant.”

Saraf looked toward the door that hid Savoy and the others from her sight. “Instantaneous star travel? Impressive, I admit. But I doubt if they will be of much help now that the Drasin have come.”

Milla laughed mirthlessly, her tone a bitter, yet somehow satisfied sort of sound that Saraf didn’t recognize. “There was a Drasin vessel in your system when we arrived. A vessel of the same class that survived a full assault by six of our heaviest reconfigured combat vessels. Their one vessel, smaller than one of our trade ships, destroyed it in less than ten minutes of actual fighting. From a military standpoint, I don’t think that the colonies have seen this much combat power, in one place, in the last twelve thousand years.”