Two others were possible kills, though they had not been able to confirm those. And that left three of the Drasin still out there, looking to kill the men and women of the Odyssey.

And the entire people of the planet on which he stood.

Tanner hissed in frustration, fists clenched, nails biting into his palm. “Very well, Ithan. Thank you.”

“Find them for me, Mr. Waters.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the young man said, his eyes staring at his displays as he tried to ignore his mounting dread.

It had been over a half hour since the enemy had gone to stealth, their last vectors indicating they had broken up their formation in a possible search pattern. In that time, Captain Weston had brought the Odyssey above the system ecliptic and slowed it to a relative stop with an asteroid belt only a few thousand kilometers under her keel.

With luck, even if they were spotted, they’d appear to be a rogue rock that had been knocked from the Trojan point by a comet or other stellar event.

“Pulse transmission!” Lamont yelled as the event was communicated to her from the electronic warfare people.

“Locate it!”

“They’re working on it, sir,” she told him tightly, waiting.

Always the waiting.

Finally, Lamont shook her head. “Couldn’t do it, sir. We’ve got a tangent, but it’s fuzzy.”

“Damn,” Weston muttered. “All right…Helm, I want our nose pointed down that tangent—softly.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Softly, sir,” Daniels responded, taking the controls and tapping out a few puffs of the propellant.

The big ship came around on its axis, slowly pointing its nose along the direction they’d been given.

“Anything on the main passives?”

“Negative, Captain.” Waters shook his head. “It’s all quiet.”

“Ahead, dead slow, Lieutenant.”

“Dead slow. Aye, Captain,” Daniels repeated, easing the thrusters on.

A low rumble shook the ship as it fought against its own inertia to start moving, then died out as they came underway.

“Keep your eyes on those sensors.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

Weston leaned back in his chair and wished that he were back in a fighter, where things were simpler.

“Dammit, I wish we were out there doing something.”

“Shut up, Paladin,” Racer said, checking her cards before tucking them into the oxygen hose of her flight suit. “We go out when we go out, you know that.”

“I know, I know,” the sharp-faced man said. “It’s just the waiting…It gets to me.”

“Gets to everyone, Alex,” Stephanos said, looking up. “Don’t worry, we’ll get our shot soon enough.”

Alexander “Paladin” Kerry nodded in agreement, glancing over at Samuels. “You betting or folding?”

She glanced down at her cards, frowning as she tried to remember the pot total. Let’s see, Paladin opened with a two-dollar raise, everyone went in, and Racer saw him and bumped him up another three. Crys and Ice folded. Paladin stayed in…So that brings the total up to…hmmm…carry the three…forty-one bucks.