Saraf and Milla nodded, accepting the captain at his word, for the moment. The trio took the next-available lift directly to the bridge, stepping into the Odyssey’s command center less than thirty minutes from the system’s gravity threshold.

Two minutes after the Odyssey completed its transition, a now familiar state of controlled chaos ruled on the bridge. Weston examined sensor reports from all decks while Commander Roberts coordinated system-wide checks to ensure no damage had occurred and been missed. All of the bridge crew was frantically trying to catch up with the data pouring in from the sensors, and Milla was trying fervently to calm down Titualar Saraf, who had just experienced her first transition.

Weston, for the most part, ignored the conversation going on behind him. The words were flying back and forth a bit too fast for the translators to adequately keep up with the conversation. Short buzzwords and phrases echoed back to him, eliciting the occasional grin around the bridge—“appalling,” “unnatural,” and “insane” being the bridge crew’s favorites.

After the brief downtime caused by the transition, the sensor resumed feeding real-time data to the bridge terminals, resulting in a rapid cooling of humors around the bridge.

“Sir, we’re reading the residuals of a firefight from in-system.” Commander Roberts was the first to speak.

“Signature?”

“Two. The first matches the Drasin vessel we encountered earlier. Number two falls within estimated parameters for the fleet we found destroyed.”

Milla’s attention swiveled to lock onto the conversation and reports echoing across the bridge.

“Get their locations and plot us a safe course to observe the battle.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Milla took a step forward, her face tight. “Observe?”

Half turning in his seat, Weston caught a glimpse of outrage on her face. “Yes, observe. This isn’t our war, Ithan Chans. If we can avoid fighting it, we will.”

Beside Milla, Titualar Saraf just stared at the screens, her color gone a pasty white. The Drasin in one of the core worlds was worse than a nightmare; it was Armageddon.

“There are men and women—humans—fighting and dying out there, Captain Weston!” Milla pressed.

“Your military?” Weston asked

“Of course.”

“Then it’s their job to fight and to die, if the need should arise. It’s not our job,” he replied evenly, gritting his teeth against the words. He didn’t like that fact any more than Milla did, no matter what she may think, but there it was.

Milla was outraged, barely able to keep from shouting, “You fought the Drasin at Port Fuielles.”

“We defended ourselves at Port Fuielles. They initiated combat, most likely believing that we were one of your ships. This is a different matter.”

Milla was searching for something else to say when Commander Roberts called the captain’s attention back to the battle.

In what might charitably be called a “bunker” on the fourth planet of the system, a group of uniformed people watched with frozen hearts as the drama above them unfolded on the screen in front of them.