“I was wishing to acquire . . .” Milla frowned, looking for the words. “Flight certification, yes?”

“Yes, I suppose. I thought you were checked on Priminae shuttles?” Steph asked, puzzled.

“We do not have many of those on board,” she reminded him.

“Ah, good point. So are you looking for lessons or an examiner?”

Technically he was qualified to do either, but not both, by current regulations.

“Examiner,” she answered. “I have been taking lessons for some time.”

“Really?” Steph was surprised. He would have thought he’d have heard about that through the rumor mill. “Going well, I assume?”

“Your shuttles use very crude controls,” she told him with pursed lips. “However, there is something . . . exciting about flying one.”

Steph nodded. He’d flown with the Priminae a few times on their own shuttlecraft, and he knew where she was coming from. Priminae small craft relied heavily on computer-controlled systems, far more than even the most automated vessel in Terran service. Their technology allowed for extremely precise flying, but very little of it had the seat-of-the-pants thrill of putting your own hand physically on the stick.

Computer-based piloting was beyond impressive for many types of maneuvers, but it never quite matched up to the best intuitive pilots. And such systems were almost inherently predictable if your opponent had enough flight data from which to derive pattern recognitions.

“When will you be ready to test?” he asked her.

“Very nearly there,” Milla answered. “I need a few more hours of stick time, yes?”

“Alright. Let me know, and I’ll put aside some time and we’ll get you certified.”

“Thank you, Stephan,” she said gratefully. “I look forward to it.”

“So do I.”

►►►

► Miram Heath looked over the orbital telemetry from her station on the command deck of the Odysseus and permitted herself a curt nod of satisfaction.

Her specialty, pre-Drasin, had been astrometric analysis with an eye to deep spatial anomalies. After a decade of studying the most obscure pieces of data in known space, from black holes to gamma ray bursts, the nuts and bolts of navigating a starship were almost mundane.

Almost.

Like most people who delved into the space sciences, she’d spent her formative years dreaming about the great void. While in school, she’d desperately wanted a shot at the Mars mission, but war had broken out before she’d graduated, and by the time the dust had settled, she had been considered too valuable on the ground in Houston.

When the Odyssey’s mission had been announced, she’d made her application, but it was a Department of Defense project, and she had been a civilian at that point. Aside from the short-term jaunts to Space Station Liberty, she had all but given up on the idea of getting into space—into the deep black.

The Drasin changed the rules.