He glanced at the plot. The contact time was still about an hour away. First reasonable time for conventional engagement was almost that long away as well, but he had a surprise for the targets that would hopefully set them back on their heels.

Taking his own advice, Eric went down a couple decks and got himself a cup of coffee and a light meal. He’d initiated this personal habit quite some time before, showing himself to his crew when they knew there was a fight brewing. The captain calmly munching on a snack in the cafeteria went a long way to establishing the mood for everyone else.

In his thoughts, though, he was far from calm.

Oh, Eric certainly wasn’t panicking or anything of the sort, but there were issues to consider. The situation they were dealing with was becoming clearer, to be sure, but so much information was still murky as hell.

They now had enough intel to link these Imperial types to the Drasin. Between the scans from the Drasin megastructure and the swarm from Earth’s last encounter, he was pretty sure he could sell that idea to an international court. Now that the Empire had fired first on the Odysseus and on the Priminae, who were allies, it didn’t even matter if they had anything to do with the Drasin.

They’d fired the first shots of a war in which he intended to fire the last shots.

What was making this complicated was the fact that Eric knew Earth wasn’t ready for a prolonged fight. He’d rather have played shadow games a bit longer while more Heroics and Rogues were put into space and their crews brought up to spec.

Ask me for anything but time, he mused as he considered the problem.

His personal computer beeped, reminding him of the hour and pulling Eric from his reverie. He finished the last few bites of his snack, drained the coffee down to the grounds, then got to his feet and headed for a refill.

Either way, he had a bad feeling about what he was going to do.

It just wasn’t going to stop him from doing it.

►►►

► Steph couldn’t help but think of himself in terms of his call sign when flying. He felt an itch somewhere along the back of his neck, as though someone were watching him, while he made a minute course adjustment and did his periodic checks. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, knowing that while there were people behind him, any such motion would be pointless. He’d already checked several times, and no one was staring at him.

He was almost beginning to feel downright paranoid about the sensation by this point, however, and it was starting to show in his flying. Steph purposely took a few deep breaths, pushing the paranoia away, and saw the rough edges fade from the Odysseus’ flight profile.