“I suspected as much,” Marcum sighed. “Very well, Captain Wolfe … you will be reassigned to Black Fleet and put on the bridge of a starship again. You’ve got a couple weeks here and then I need you on your way to New Sierra. There’s a lot you need to be brought up to speed on, and I want you there to meet the Icarus when she finally makes it back so you can debrief Captain Wright. She’s kicked up a hell of a storm and it won’t be long before the Darshik come at us again.”

****

“Icarus departing!” the Marine sentry bellowed from the top of the gangway as Celesta walked through the starboard boarding hatch, drowning out the computer’s identical announcement.

She was dressed impeccably in her dress blacks and had instructed all her officers to do the same as they departed the ship. Once they disembarked, the crews on the New Sierra Platform would probably drag her over to an enclosed heavy maintenance berth so they could begin to address the hull damage. All told, the Icarus had come through another battle relatively unscathed save for a missing RDS pod. As she walked off the gangway and stepped onto the platform, she was greeted by Admiral Pitt and a handful of other officers, but no Marine guards or platform security. She took this as a good sign.

“Welcome home, Icarus,” Pitt said loudly, walking forward and returning Celesta’s salute before offering his hand. “And congratulations on a successful, if off-script mission, Captain. We’re still reviewing the data your com drone brought back, but we’ll get to all that in debrief.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” she said. “To be perfectly honest, I half-assumed I would be arrested on sight.”

“It was either give you a medal or arrest you,” Pitt said with a straight face. “Obviously the details of your mission have been deemed classified. We’ll discuss it later.”

“Did the New York make it back?” Celesta asked.

“Yes … barely,” Pitt nodded, indicating she should follow him. “She’s still being evaluated as to whether it will be easier to fix the damage or scrap her. Captain Lee did a fine job keeping the ship out of Darshik hands and his crew alive. The damage to the ship was nothing short of shocking considering there were so few casualties aboard.”

“That’s something at least,” Celesta said, wanting to say more but not able to as they were walking along an unsecured corridor.

“All I can tell you is that you’re being commended for your quick thinking,” Pitt said. “We’ll debrief you tomorrow to get the missing details from you and your crew while memories are fresh, but then you’ll likely be cooling your heels for a few days. Admiral Marcum wanted to be here when we really started digging through your mission data.”

“Where is the admiral?” Celesta asked idly.

“Recruitment mission,” Pitt said cryptically.