Eric shot her an amused look, surprised by the humor from the normally uptight commander.

“I think we’ll try hailing them once we’re within a reasonable communications delay,” he said. “Unfortunately, without the Priminae FTL relays, we can’t talk until we’re much closer.”

“If we’re within reasonable range to talk, we’re going to be well within reasonable range to shoot each other,” Miram said softly. “But you already know that, of course, sir.”

“If you wanted a safe job, Commander, you picked the wrong line of work.”

Miram let out a breath. “I picked the right line of work, Captain.”

“Good,” Eric said. “Get the damage-control teams moving, if they’re not already.”

“Yes sir.”

Eric watched the commander move away, wondering how Miram would hold up under fire. She seemed together, but you didn’t know how someone would react to combat until the chips were in the air. While the Heroics did have priority on new recruits, the demand was still such that he’d had to take several people based on how their files looked rather than how he knew they could perform. He was lucky to have held on to as much of his crew as he had, and at least the replacements looked good on paper.

This was the worst part of ship-to-ship combat, something he rarely had to deal with as a fighter jock.

The waiting.

It was infinitely worse in space, he’d learned on the Odyssey.

In the middle of active combat, they often had time to break for coffee and a meal while waiting for the enemies’ next move. It was the very definition of insanity as far as he was concerned. Right now they could read that the enemy ship was powering hard, pulling out of the gas giant’s gravity well and heading upwell of the local star, right at the Odysseus.

Similarly, the Odysseus was warping space hard downwell, on an intercept course.

Two immensely powerful starships, both moving as fast as anyone dared this deep inside a gravity well, heading right for one another—and he was debating whether he should take a fifteen-minute power nap so he would be refreshed when the action started.

If gods exist, they must be laughing at us right now. We are so very insignificant by every possible metric of the universe, and yet we insist on making ourselves the center of everything.

Eric stood up. “Commander.”

“Yes sir?”

“You have the bridge. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“Aye Captain,” Miram said. “I have the bridge.”

Eric nodded curtly and walked off the command deck of the Odysseus.

►►►

Shuttle Eagle One

► Milla’s stomach lurched as the shuttle seemed to drop out from under them, plummeting through the atmosphere of the gas giant for a thousand meters before it restabilized and started climbing again. Steph was calmly seated beside her, looking like nothing had just happened as he worked the controls.