“Fine,” the Viking said. “Fine. But when that’s over, I want you to come down here and tell these doctors to stop poking me with things before I poke them with something they don’t want to be poked with.”

Rogers swallowed the comment that was in his head, opted to say nothing at all, and switched off the display.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s send McSchmidt off.”

Using the outboard cameras to give him a panoramic view, Rogers watched as a small capsule slowly floated away from the Flagship. From the chaos of war to the quiet, silent peace of space, McSchmidt’s casket gently drifted away, leaving behind the people he’d worked with and the memories he’d shared with them. It was a time for silence, for respect, for contemplation. A time for—

“Fire,” Rogers said.

A plasma cannon blast turned McSchmidt into space debris.

“Asses to ashes,” Rogers said ceremonially. “And good riddance.”

“Good riddance,” intoned everyone on the bridge before going back to work as though absolutely nothing interesting had happened.

“Captain,” the communications tech said. “I’ve got a request for launch clearance coming from hangar 17. Should I patch it through?”

“Go ahead.”

“This is the FSS Craven, requesting permission to take off from hangar 17. Transmitting the projected course now.”

Boy, that voice sounds familiar, Rogers thought. “Approved. Put it on the screen.”

A civilian ship came out of hangar 17, floating gently away from the ship before engaging its engines. It made a hard bank and blasted off toward the nearest Un-Space point between a couple of asteroids large enough to have noticeable gravity.

“Farewell, valiant warriors!” Klein said over the radio.

“Hey,” the pilot said, somewhat shakily. “There aren’t any pirates where we’re going, are there? I don’t like pirates.”

Frowning, Rogers keyed in the code for engineering.

“Hey, Hart,” he said. “What’s the name of the pilot you hired for Klein?”

“The name?” Hart said. Rogers heard some typing. “Dorsey. He was the only one who answered the ad.”

“Dorsey!” Rogers screamed.

“Rogers!” Dorsey screamed back over the radio. “Aahhh!”

The ship took an erratic turn, then another, starting to zigzag all over space, which, as it turned out, was not the way to carefully navigate through a pair of large asteroids. The Craven slammed into the side of one of them and vanished in a small cloud of dust.

Rogers blinked, staring at the spot where the Craven had crashed. What in the world had just happened?

“Um,” Rogers said. “Can we maybe get a rescue crew out there?”

“Not right now, sir,” came the voice of one of the techs. Rogers turned to see him pointing at his screen, but the display was too far away for Rogers to make out.

“Why not?”

“We’ve got bigger problems.”

Rogers frowned. “Put it on the big screen.”

The screen blipped for a moment, and then all of a sudden Rogers found himself staring at a fleet of ships that was definitely not Meridan. They had all just come out of the other Un-Space point and were now, according to the display, visible on both optical and radar sensors. There was no spoofing that.