She knew this situation was impossible. The hyperlanes were empty. That was the whole point. She couldn’t rattle off all the science involved, but she did know that lightspeed collisions in established lanes simply could not happen. It was “mathematically absurd,” to hear the engineers talk about it.

Hedda had been flying in deep space long enough to know that impossible things happened all the time, every damn day. She also knew that ten seconds was no time at all at speeds like the Legacy Run was traveling.

You can’t trust hyperspace, she thought.

Hedda Casset tapped two buttons on her command console.

“Brace yourselves,” she said, her voice calm. “I’m taking control.”

Two piloting sticks snapped up out from the armrests of her captain’s chair, and Hedda grasped them, one in each hand.

She spared the time for one breath, and then she flew.

The Legacy Run was not an Incom Z-24 Buzzbug, or even one of the new Republic Longbeams. It had been in service for well over a century. It was a freighter at the end of—if not beyond—its operational life span, loaded to capacity, with engines designed for slow, gradual acceleration and deceleration, and docking with spaceports and orbital loading facilities. It maneuvered like a moon.

The Legacy Run was no warship. Not even close. But Hedda flew it like one.

She saw the obstacle in their path with her fighter pilot’s eye and instincts, saw it advancing at incredible velocity, large enough that both her ship and whatever the thing was would be disintegrated into atoms, just dust drifting forever through the hyperlanes. There was no time to avoid it. The ship could not make the turn. There was no room, and there was no time.

But Captain Hedda Casset was at the helm, and she would not fail her ship.

The tiniest tweak of the left control stick, and a larger rotation of the right, and the Legacy Run moved. More than it wanted to, but not less than its captain believed it could. The huge freighter slipped past the obstacle in their path, the thing shooting by their hull so close Hedda was sure she felt it ruffle her hair despite the many layers of metal and shielding between them.

But they were alive. No impact. The ship was alive.

Turbulence, and Hedda fought it, feeling her way through the jagged bumps and ripples, closing her eyes, not needing to see to fly. The ship groaned, its frame complaining.

“You can do it, old gal,” she said, out loud. “We’re a couple of cranky old ladies and that’s for sure, but we’ve both got a lot of life to live. I’ve taken damn good care of you, and you know it. I won’t let you down if you won’t let me down.”

Hedda did not fail her ship.

It failed her.