The waiting is going to drive me out of my mind, Weston thought, watching the numbers fall. His mind reeled under the pressure, something he’d never felt before. In the Archangels, there had been waiting, but it had always been waiting for the order to fly. Not this…this unending battle.

That’s what it was. Once battle was joined on Earth, it generally ended in minutes. The winners won and the losers died—or some of the winners won, at least. The distances involved here were just dragging it on and on into a never-ending war.

Weston rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock—over six hours since the first shots had been fired, more than eight since they had left orbit of the planet. He was getting tired; he could feel it. The ebb and flow of the fight wasn’t conducive to maintaining a healthy alert.

“Return fire!” Waters snapped.

Weston bolted straight up in his seat, spotting the sweep of the energy signature coming from the starboard. “Turn us to port and fire all keel thrusters!”

“Aye, Captain!” Daniels snapped.

The Odyssey twisted away from the sweeping beam, catching only a glancing shot along the rear habitat before Daniels had the big ship climbing over the beam.

“Damage to the rear habitat!” Lamont snapped. “Teams en route. We’re venting air, Captain.”

“Lock out the sections,” Weston ordered. “We can’t afford to lose too much atmosphere.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Lamont checked some of the readings. “Sections are now closed off.”

“That was just a glancing blow, Captain,” Waters said. “We’ve got a reading on the laser…”

“Adjust our plates to compensate,” Weston said. “Which ship fired that?”

“The angle indicates Bandit One, Captain.”

“Very well. Maintain general settings on our port side and adjust all armor to starboard, to the new settings.”

“Aye, Captain,” Waters said. He hesitated before speaking again. “The general deflection settings just aren’t going to do the job.”

“I think, Mr. Waters, that you may rest assured that you have just made an understatement of epic proportions,” Weston said. “Have we managed to paint either of them yet?”

“Uh…no, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Keep trying.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Move it, you monkeys!” Chief Corrin growled as she and her team roughly shouldered their way through a group evacuating their section before the doors slammed down. “Get your butts to your secondary stations and out of our way!”

The crewmen and women scattered and started moving out as Corrin and her team set up by the bulkhead that led to the damaged section.

“We’ve got a vacuum on the other side,” one of the team reported.

“All right, check your seals. Lock this section off. We’re going in,” Corrin ordered. “Have an E-med team standing by.”

“You got it, Chief.”

They sealed the room, each person checking their own suit seal and then the seal of the man or woman next to them.

“We’re good to go, Chief.”

“Clear the room,” Corrin ordered, features setting under her helmet.