Steph didn’t know what to say to that at first. He was taken aback by the question but more so by the hint of guilt he could hear in her voice.

“You don’t know that,” he said finally. “The Drasin were sweeping in our direction. If they finished with you, we could have been next.”

“You don’t know that.” She repeated his words with a weak smile.

“The Drasin were . . . a plague. They would have continued to spread until someone stopped them. Better it was us, now, than someone else much later,” Steph said, taking a deep breath. “There’s no point buying trouble anyway. We can’t change the past.”

“No, I suppose that we cannot,” Milla admitted. “However much we wish we could.”

“Anyway, enough of that,” Steph said, trying to change the mood as he produced a deck of cards from his pocket. “Shall we see if you’ve improved your game?”

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

IBC Piar Cohn, System Entry

► A soft but insistent alarm was sounding as Aymes stepped onto the forward command deck of the Cohn and noted with satisfaction that all the stations aside from his own were already filled.

“Report,” he ordered simply, standing at his station.

“Now entering system of interest, Three Alep Nine One Du, Captain,” his helm officer said. “Beginning analysis of spatial distortions, comparing to expected readings. Initial response is as expected.”

“Good,” Aymes said. “Time to system penetration?”

“A tenth and three,” the ship’s alternate commander offered from where he was working. “We’re on a fast approach, no turnover.”

Aymes absently checked the telemetry chart for himself. The Cohn was on a high-velocity approach . . . Unusual, but he remembered authorizing it for this system because there was a single gas giant exceptionally far out from the system primary that they could use as a redirect to save reactor mass.

“Very well. Any unusual signals in the band we’re looking at?” he asked.

“No Captain. No active Drasin contact.”

“Another wasted system,” he muttered. “How deep did those abominations penetrate this arm?”

His alternate commander shrugged. “Last reported location was a rim system, thirty cycles deeper into the arm. We have extremely limited information, unfortunately.”

“I know, I read the file. What little there was of it,” Aymes growled. “The squadron commander who left them there should be shot.”

“He likely was.”

Aymes nodded wearily, knowing that was probably true enough. Abandoning assets like that would end careers at the very best. Doing so when the assets were potential threats to the Empire . . . well, he’d be surprised if any of the command crew were still to be found. Possibly some were still breathing, but he expected they’d likely been reassigned to either high-risk sectors or some other place where warm bodies mattered more than competence.

“Alright, let’s get this system clear—”

A buzzer cut him off, and Aymes twisted to where the scanner chief was now working feverishly at his station.