“Not many,” Milla said. “Likely less than one, if you wish to average them.”

“A carrier on full operation can launch and trap between eighty and a hundred and twenty flights an hour at peak operation, with as many as two hundred people on the decks while they’re in use,” Steph said. “One mistake in that kind of a crowd can kill dozens easily.”

Milla nodded slowly. “I see.”

She was about to say something more, but the comm crackled before she could.

“Eagle One, Odysseus Control.”

“Roger Control, Eagle One speaking.”

“Launch is cleared at your discretion.”

Milla swallowed. “Roger. Understood.”

She grabbed a stick on her left side, flicking a safety switch up to clear a thumb switch. “Eagle One, we are go for launch.”

“Roger, Eagle One, launch.”

“Launch, launch, launch,” she said as she jammed her thumb down on the button.

The deck of the Odysseus blurred as the shuttle was slung forward and out, the gray white of the walls replaced almost instantly by the deep black.

►►►

► “Eagle One is away, Captain.”

Eric nodded, eyes on the augmented imagery of the shuttle as it lanced out from the Odysseus and curved slightly starward.

“Keep an eye on them,” he ordered, “but focus on our system scans. We have another couple days here before it’s time to move on, and the research teams are going to want to make the most of it.”

“Yes sir.”

While their mission was now primarily military, unlike the mission of the Odyssey, the Odysseus actually had several times the lab space and civilian crew they’d carried on the previous vessel. The Odysseus was far more automated than the Odyssey and thus required fewer crew members per ton, so to speak, so they had a lot of extra room for labs and researchers. At the moment, with any information being worth more than gold, the Alliance fully intended to capitalize on that.

Every particle in the system was something the research teams were clamoring to record from as many angles as possible. In fact, Eric had shut down three requests from scientists who wanted to accompany Steph and Milla and take a closer look at the gas giant the two were going to sling around.

Under other circumstances, Eric would have likely granted the requests, but Milla wouldn’t have qualified for her certification if there had been anyone else aboard besides the examiner. Academics, being what they were, didn’t care about details like that. They just wanted to get as much time as they could with their instruments focused on the subject of their obsessions.

And they get touchy when you tell them they can’t have what they’re asking for.