“Sorry, sir.” Daniels took a few seconds. “We’re at about ten percent, sir. We burned about a third of that so far. Mostly during the initial burn at port speed.”

“Thank you, Daniels. Begin plotting a retro-burn and take us into the Trojan Belt.”

Silence answered him and Weston knew that several eyes had swiveled to watch him as Commander Roberts stepped over.

“Uh, sir, we have a rendezvous to make; you heard the commodore,” Commander Roberts reminded him under his breath.

“Yes, I did, but it’s going to have to wait,” Weston said, gazing at him evenly.

“Yes, sir.”

Roberts retreated and Weston felt the shudder run through the deck plates as the Odyssey’s course altered and her retrofiring sequence was initiated. Ahead of them loomed the huge face of Jupiter, marked as it had been for centuries by the violent storm in its southern hemisphere. The Odyssey arced off to one side, heading for one of the Trojan asteroid belts that hung ominously on either side of the huge planet.

Bermont sighed as he settled back into the relatively comfortable couch that lined one entire wall of the crew lounge.

There was a screen embedded in the upper wall across from him that showed the rather impressive image of Jupiter from a link to the exterior cameras. It was nice, he supposed, but definitely not his thing.

He glanced around the room and noticed that a few groups had formed in their off-duty hours, including a couple of tables that seemed reserved for the glory boys of the Archangel Fighter Wing. He shrugged and dropped into an empty seat at a table populated by men in similar uniforms to his own.

Behind him, Bermont listened to the flyboys laughing over something he hadn’t heard.

“The main difference between a fighter pilot and God is that God doesn’t think he is a fighter pilot,” said a man leaning over in his direction, grinning.

Before Bermont could say anything else, someone else cut in. “Yeah, but Archangels are slightly more humble than most fighter pilots.”

Most of the men around the table seemed to think that was quite funny.

The Archangels were willing to settle for being God’s right hand rather than the Big Guy himself.

Bermont chuckled with the rest and introduced himself. “Bermont.”

“Savoy” was the return response, the two shaking hands. “Tech geek.”

Bermont noted the ranger tab on the man’s shoulder, along with several rockers and a bud on his chest, and didn’t even consider making any of the normally requisite geek jokes. Maybe he would later, when he knew the man, but he tried not to make a habit of annoying anyone who could both survive SEAL training and program a video recorder. They tended to be creative when it came to getting even.

He noted Savoy’s eyes skimming over his own uniform and couldn’t quite stop from smiling when the man looked confused at the total lack of insignia. Unlike the American elite units, JTF2 didn’t much go in for things like identification. Until they’d been swept up into the North American Confederation Armed Forces (NACAF), Bermont’s normal uniform was a black SAS sweater, BDU pants, and boots. No rank, no insignia, no medals.