► Aymes made his way to his private office and quarters, sealed the rooms against intrusions short of emergencies from the command deck, and took a seat behind the desk that dominated the first room. His orders were straightforward enough. The Cohn was being dispatched as a combat scout into territory the Empire was considering for expansion.

The mission’s qualifiers made the situation both confusing and more than a little disturbing. According to his orders, the area had recently repelled Imperial forays intended to pacify the region, but Aymes couldn’t remember the fleet losing any ships in the recent past. Certainly not to fighting of any significant length. Now such data were rarely released to the citizenry of the Empire, of course, but generally the fleet got a heads-up somehow—even if just through rumor.

There wasn’t even a hint that the Empire had been involved in fighting recently, to say nothing of having been repelled.

Aymes had to look up the last time the Empire had been beaten back from a region it had marked for expansion. That particular incident had occurred almost three centennials prior and involved the loss of eighty-nine heavy cruisers and over two hundred destroyers along with various support vessels.

He didn’t know what was going on along this particular spiral arm of the galaxy, but it was quite clear that he wasn’t being told everything.

Not that he should expect anything else, of course.

Aymes and his fellows served at the pleasure of the Imperial family and, ultimately, the empress herself. If they decreed that the information he be given be censored, it was certainly not for him to object.

Best run the crew through a few drills on the way though. They’re all the best at what they do, but a little practice will save them from sucking vacuum.

►►►

AEV Odysseus, Sol Space, Passing the Former Orbit of Mars

► “Number-three gun to port,” Eric ordered. “Fifteen degrees up, load for effect.”

“Loaded for effect, fifteen degrees up, aye.”

Eric accessed the ship-wide intercom. “All hands, all hands . . . we are currently passing the orbit of Mars. I’m asking for a moment of silence and respect for what we lost here, and what we nearly lost on Earth. The Odysseus will fire a single salute as we pass. If you have prayers to say for the lost, now would be the time.”

He keyed off the ship-wide and gestured to where Milla Chans was standing at her tactical station post. “You may fire as we pass, Lieutenant.”

“Aye Capitaine,” she said in her quiet voice. “Firing one in twenty seconds.”