She nodded. “Crystal.”

“Good.” He glared at her. “Nervous?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Also good,” he said. “Don’t lose those butterflies. They’ll keep you alive long enough to become an old-timer like me.”

She risked a smile at that, since Michaels wasn’t even twenty-eight yet.

“But when we engage the interface, watch out for your nerves,” he told her. “You can mess up your stabilizers pretty bad if the plane can’t figure out what direction you want to jump. So nerves are okay; just don’t let them screw up your flying.”

Samuels nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He clapped the canopy with his hand. “Then I’ll let you get back to communing.”

“Sir?” She looked confused.

“Talking to your plane,” he smiled. “We all do it, Lieutenant. Stark-raving lunatics, the lot of us.”

“Yes, sir.” She grinned in response. “I think I’ll fit in fine.”

“I’m sure you will, Lieutenant. I’m sure you will.”

Captain Weston stepped back on the bridge twenty minutes to the second after he’d left and shot Commander Roberts a look as he crossed the deck to the central chair.

The commander rose without comment, nodding respectfully as Weston sat down, then excused himself and left the bridge.

“Enemy status?”

“Still on the predicted course, Captain,” Waters replied. “We’re now within one AU of the task group.”

“Understood,” Weston replied. “Lamont, inform all decks that we’re going to drop all nonessential power consumption until further notice.”

“Aye, Captain. Powering down all nonessentials,” Lamont replied, tapping the order.

The lights dimmed immediately, as did many of the displays littering the bridge. In a few moments, they were sitting in near darkness, only the low-powered red lamps joining the dim glow of the combat displays as they counted down the time to intercept.

Weston reached down to the arm of his chair, feeling out the controls by touch, toggling the ship-wide communicator.

“This is the captain speaking,” he said, looking ahead at the display. “I’d like to say a few words to everyone, so if you can…take a moment to listen.”

The ship hushed, everyone looking up at the speakers in the walls and ceiling.

“In…a little over thirty minutes, we’ll be going into battle once more. The enemy has proven itself to be ruthless, having destroyed at least two entire worlds—that we know of—and has obvious designs on a populated planet in this system.

“I…We won’t stand by and simply allow this. I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop it, but I do know that to let it simply…happen…would be a crime in itself.”

Commander Roberts looked up as he finished stripping off his uniform, his hand a few inches from the shower controls, and continued to listen to the captain.

“We’ve already become more involved in this war than I would have liked, but each time, we have proven that we are not playing out of our league, as many might have believed. Further, and more important, we…You have proven that you are exactly what Earth believed you to be when they assigned you to the Odyssey…that you are the very best that Earth has to offer.”