As she activated the shower, letting the recycled water cascade over her, she wondered about the new ships with the integrated diamond crystals and heat-dispersion systems. The ones with the triple redundancy built in, armored bulkheads, and energy shields that were supposed to be ten times as dense as the ones the Carlache produced.

Those would be interesting to see in action. And even more interesting to work on.

Milla hoped she could see one before it was broken up for scrap.

They weren’t likely to actually need such things, and warships were illegal in peacetime.

Milla shucked her clothing, taking advantage of the downtime to use a cleanser. As she was finishing up, the lurch of the ship let her know that the Carlache had made the jump to dimensional space.

They were underway.

The thrum of the ship’s engines echoed in her ears as she got dressed. We should be about three days out from the nearest outer colonies. I think I’ll recommend to the captain that we test the systems before entering a possible danger zone.

The next two days, Milla tested and retested the prototype systems they had just installed on the cruiser until she and the captain were satisfied that the weapons would perform as intended. Commander Rath tended to avoid the subject as much as possible. Rath had been the first officer of an exploration ship, and while a few offensive devices were always present, actual weaponry was quite foreign to the ship. Most of the equipment that could be used to defend his ship had multiple purposes. The laser drills, explosive charges, and even the hand weapons were primarily used as tools rather than defensive items. The new systems were another matter entirely, and no one pretended they had an alternate use. His vessel had become a warship almost overnight, and while the explorer within him resisted the changes, his warrior side had adapted too quickly for comfort.

The Carlache decelerated into the colony three days after they had left Ranqil. After their arrival, the captain called Milla to the bridge.

“Lieutenant Chans, I want you to examine the data we are gathering on what’s left of the colony.” The captain’s voice twitched, and she thought he was going to break down and weep. A moment later she saw why.

The sensors were reporting back the state of the planet, and for a moment, she hadn’t seen what the captain had. When she did, she paled until her ivory skin turned a ghastly white.

The planet was there and the sensors even registered life that seemed almost normal.

But the entire upper register of the life-detection gradient, the part that indicated human life, was dead.

There wasn’t a single human alive in the entire system. Or if there was, something was eclipsing their readings.

But Milla knew that nothing could fool the sensors like that. Not while leaving a clean slate in the upper register.