“Yes, sir.”

Weston smiled, kicked off the fighter, and floated toward the wall. “I’ll let you two get acquainted, Lieutenant. Treat her well, as she’s an old friend of mine. I’d like to have her back in one piece.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Jennifer replied, throwing the departing officer a salute as she felt her attention being drawn back to the fighter she was strapping into.

It was good to be home.

Admiral Tanner watched the displays as the first of the orbiters departed the Odyssey and began its downward spiral. It seemed foolish in so many ways, evacuating people from one danger just to plant them smack in the middle of another.

If the Odyssey failed to eliminate the ships, if the Forge failed to finish the work they were so desperately trying to accomplish, if the ground forces now on Mons Systema failed to account for each and every Drasin…

If any one of those things occurred, those people would die here on the planet instead of there, in space.

It hardly seems fair, Tanner thought, that they should survive so much on their own, live through the destruction of their own world, just to die here on someone else’s. So this is war, he thought grimly to himself. Such an innocuous word for something so horrific.

Millennia of peace didn’t prepare a man for this. Tanner wasn’t a warrior; he wasn’t like his old friend, Nero. He was in charge of a mining and exploration fleet, scouring the galaxy for new worlds, new resources, and new things to see. And now he was here, defending a world, with no assets of his own, and forced to rely on gifts from the gods to save his people.

That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work.

“Captain!”

Weston paused mid-step, glancing over his shoulder. He nodded as he saw Stephanos jogging to catch up with him.

“I need to speak with you, Captain,” the pilot said.

“Walk with me, Commander,” Weston said. “I have to get to the bridge. We’ve almost got the refugees off my ship, and we’ve got some tricky maneuvers to plan.”

“Sir, about Lieutenant Samuels…” Steph started earnestly. “You can’t be serious about assigning her to the flight.”

“And why would that be, Commander?” Weston asked smoothly as they walked.

“Sir, Jenny’s a good pilot, but she’s not been drilled with the flight,” Stephanos said. “The Archangels aren’t just any fighter group…”

“I like to think that I know that, Commander.”

Stephanos flushed. “I know you do, Captain, but…dammit, sir!”

“Watch yourself, Commander,” Weston snapped, coming to a stop so fast that Stephanos was past him before he knew it. “You’re overstepping yourself.”

“Maybe I am, sir,” he said, turning back, “but you’re asking me to take a rookie out on a hot run for her first mission. Sir, I’d rather go underpowered than do that. If she messes up, she could take my flight with her.”