Gracen shrugged. “Know thine enemy, I suppose. Where better for them to learn to stick it to us?”

“Do we honestly have to keep training the people doing the sticking?”

“Ah, but if someone else did it, we wouldn’t have such detailed files on them,” Gracen said.

Weston chuckled as he conceded the point. “Touché, I suppose, Admiral. Still, in any case, I think I’ll remove myself from the chopping block and retire for the evening. I have a big day tomorrow.”

Weston excused himself from the party, navigating the long corridors to his quarters. Although he knew that this first mission was just a shakedown cruise, he was glad to get away from the postwar politics. Even though there was still a space race of sorts, the Eastern Block was nowhere near the development of transition technology. The Odyssey was built primarily as a test bed for a host of new technologies and to defend the outer system facilities against potential Block attacks. With the addition of the transition drive, the mission became much more, however. Weston didn’t hope to find anything specific, but the scheduled experiments would cover everything from long-term physical effects of space travel to looking for life in various star systems.

He entered his quarters and collapsed on the bed. Diplomacy. Up until now it hadn’t been that much of a factor in his career; leading the Archangels had been mostly a matter of flying and firing, the same as when he was a Marine aviator for the United States.

Luckily, diplomacy would be over once he was out of communication with Earth, and that wouldn’t be much longer, now. A few moments later, the events of the day exacted their toll and Weston fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER 2

“COMMANDER ROBERTS, HAS the ship been cleared for departure?” Captain Weston asked.

“Yes, sir, Station Liberty cleared us several minutes ago,” the imposing commander said, his voice carrying nonetheless. “We received final clearance from the tower during the night, and Commander Harris wishes you luck.”

Weston was satisfied; tower clearance had been the final, official word they needed to begin. “Send him my thanks, Commander. Are we a go for thruster release?”

Roberts tapped out a command on his tablet PDA. “Aye, sir.”

“All right, then. Helm, clear the moorings and take us out. Dead slow.”

“Dead slow. Aye, sir.”

The Odyssey shared space with many of the government construction projects of the North American Confederacy, including the space station that had eventually been built to replace the ISS after the aging construct was finally decommissioned and left to burn up in the atmosphere as its orbit failed. The new Liberty Station was built to last a great deal longer than its predecessor, and as the Odyssey cleared the big station’s shadow, Weston admired the silhouette of the station against the blue and white of Earth below.