► Steph was still arranging his uniform tunic as he crossed the threshold and stepped onto the bridge. The Odysseus didn’t vibrate like the Odyssey had. The Odysseus’ powerful wave drive had the effect of accelerating every atom within its area of influence in precisely the same direction at precisely the same moment, unlike the old chemical propellants used by the Odyssey. Even so, there was a very slight sense of motion that Steph swore he could feel.

The engineers had told him over and over that there was no way he could feel anything, as the drive system simply didn’t have any movement to feel in the classic sense. Acceleration happened in unison, with every object, every particle on the ship moving toward the forward gravity sink as one. Steph had shut the engineers up after winning enough drinks in various wagers on the subject to kill a platoon of Marines. The second they put power to the system, he knew it from wherever he was on the ship. No one had yet figured out how, not that he cared all that much.

So Steph knew as he stepped onto the bridge that the Odysseus was in motion. He didn’t even glance at the captain’s station, but instead headed straight for the helm.

“Commander,” Lieutenant Kinder said as she stepped back from the secondary controls.

“I have the helm, Lieutenant,” he said as he took her place.

“You have the helm, aye.”

Steph stood at his station at the secondary controls, forgoing the padded and bolstered seat that housed the primaries, because it was highly unlikely that he’d need to do any precision maneuvering and he was fine standing for the moment. The course was laid in and executing by the numbers, leaving Steph with little to do but run the normal checks he always made when he took over and then scan the log to see just where they were going.

Ranquil. No surprise there.

He figured the visit was a bit overdue, though he doubted anyone on the Priminae capital planet was complaining much. Given the shake-up following the apparent end of the Drasin threat, they were probably at least as distracted as Earth’s governments were, and with arguably greater reason.

While Ranquil itself hadn’t been significantly touched by the Drasin, despite coming under assault at least twice, the planet was the command and control hub for over a dozen colony worlds, several of which had been entirely destroyed during the early thrust of the war. As far as he was aware, no one from Earth had a lot of contact with the civilian side of things in the Priminae worlds, but if they were anything even remotely like Earth governments . . . well, things were likely a mess there at the moment and probably would remain so for some time.

“Good check, Lieutenant,” he said aloud, nodding to where she was waiting. “Dismissed.”

“Aye sir.”