Steph nodded, trying not to pay too much attention to the thin sheen of sweat that was making Milla’s workout clothes cling to her as she moved. The Priminae ithan, or lieutenant, was an almost elfin-looking young lady, not much more than five feet tall, yet she’d been through a lot and come out the other side in good enough shape that he wouldn’t care to underestimate her.

“Welcome to the Navy,” he said a little sourly as he began a set of butterfly presses. “Travel the universe, meet new and interesting people—”

“And kill them, yes?” Milla asked, her expression a funny mix of amusement and distaste. “I have heard that joke now. Do Terrans really find such things funny?”

“Not as such,” Steph said. “It’s more dark humor than something you’re supposed to laugh at. A commentary on the nature of things, for most people.”

“Only most?”

“Some laugh; some even think it’s honestly hilarious,” Steph said, “but most of those are people who’ve lived it, and they . . . they’re laughing at themselves, I find. The captain used to find it hilarious, but he was a Marine. Marines all need their heads checked. If they’d been put together right in the first place, they’d have joined the Navy or the Air Force.”

Milla eyed him quizzically, recognizing that he was at least partially joking, but uncertain where exactly the humor in that statement was located. She sighed, and Stephen could see the cultural conflicts playing across her face. The Priminae were a very strange people, he reflected again. Even those who most fit in with Terran thinking were cemented so deeply in a countering cultural identity that they just didn’t get Earth communication very well.

With those who were farther from the Terran mind-set, it was almost impossible to communicate at all, even when you had all the translation algorithms backing you up. You’d use the same words but never have a hope in hell of divining the meaning, and vice versa.

Just too alien.

Or maybe that was an exaggeration, Steph supposed. He’d only tried communication with a few Priminae, and the conversation had really dead-ended just a few words in. Still, none of those he had spoken to were part of their Navy.

He realized that sometimes he just got strange feelings when speaking with his alien counterparts.

Milla finally resolved whatever internal confusion she was dealing with (probably by electing to ignore it, Stephen decided) and cast a glance out of the gym. “Do you suppose we will have a mission assigned soon?”

Steph tilted his head uncertainly as he worked out. “Don’t know, probably. The Heroics are good system defense, but they’d be more useful out there tracking down the remaining Drasin and whoever set them on us. I understand that there’s a new class of ship coming online now too: the Rogues.”