The Najer, a ship that had been adapted over time for robots, was less accommodating for a robot turned human once more. BoomerJ’s quarters had no bed or chairs, and the corridors narrowed unexpectedly because of the modifications they’d made over the years. These, as a robot, he’d easily avoided and when he hadn’t, had scarcely noticed.
His robot body had withstood powerful explosive impacts, after all.
Boom hadn’t missed any of the human comforts during his life as a robot—had scarcely thought about them—but now he needed them, so he had quarters on the Central Outpost where the Najer was berthed.
As far as Boom knew, only the few remaining robot crew still bunked on the ship. He wasn’t sure where their captain, CabeX spent his nights, or his days for that matter. But today he was here, or would be soon, since he’d asked Boom to meet him here.
Boom went up the ramp, feeling the disconnect with who he’d been the last time he’d visited the ship. This human body was more compact than his robot body had been, but the robot body could efficiently contract when required. This body had to crouch and bend and dodge, as he made his way to the conference room.
It was almost the only place on the ship, perhaps other than the galley—which he hadn’t needed—that had chairs. Some bottles of water sat in the middle of the table, a mute testament of the shift from robot to human crew.
Boom snagged one before he sank into a chair to wait for the captain. He’d forgotten what it was like to be human during the long years he’d hidden in his robot body. He gulped some water, enjoying the freshness of it flowing down his throat, but still felt conflicted about whether all this sensation and feeling, not to mention the earthy needs, was good or bad.
The Najer had been run by a human crew prior to their takeover, so it must have the facilities the Earth people called a “head,” but he had no idea if it still functioned. He had a vague idea they required maintenance.
He heard steps in the corridor and turned as CabeX entered.
The tall, rather lanky man filling the doorway was nothing like the formidable robot CabeX had been. Instead of a black visage with glowing red eyes, he had a pale, intelligent face and dark eyes. His hair was tumbled as if he’d shoved his fingers through it, but it could have been because he—like Boom—forgot to comb it.
Out of habit, Boom sent him a contact greeting over the ship’s systems. But the captain wasn’t spiked in anymore. Boom wasn’t connected in the same way either, but he’d retained many of his robotic enhancements.
Now it felt like he’d hit a wall, a barrier of a different kind. It was definitely quieter inside his head without all the crew spiked in. He missed them.
“Boom.”
That’s right. Humans made contact with speech. Boom rose and nodded. “Captain.”
“Sit.” CabeX gestured him in to a seat, then sat next to him rather than at the head of the table, as he used to doing on the rare occasions the robots had used this room.
They hadn’t needed meeting rooms when they could meet in the systems. It had been a connected yet distant way to live.
Boom had only left his quarters when he was needed to fly or fight. Even when fighting, Boom’s main focus has remained here. Battle had bored him, though he had enjoyed the mental challenge of the strategy sessions.
The fact that it was just the two of them meant this wasn’t one of those.
CabeX studied him for several seconds, a less unnerving experience from when they’d both been robots. The captain’s thoughtful expression was an actual expression. It was hard to find the ruthless fighter and leader in the human face.
“General Halliwell has asked if one of our kind would consider a mission,” CabeX finally said.
Boom perked up. Learning to use this new body had engaged his mind for a few weeks, but now he needed more.
“Of course.”
CabeX arched a brow toward his dark hair.
“You haven’t heard the mission.”
Boom shrugged. “I am bored.”
CabeX chuckled and Boom tried not to look surprised. Chuckles, laughter, even mild amusement had been in short supply during their long years of hiding.
CabeX produced a tablet of the kind the humans used.
Humans. I am a human, he reminded himself. He wondered how long it would take him to feel human.
“It’s an allied effort,” CabeX said. “A joint project.”
Boom knew what the word allied meant, but he also knew the reality of alliances in this region of space and who the major players were.
There were the Garradians, small in number but powerful because of their technology and knowledge base. Boom’s people got along fine with them and one of their kind had formed a personal alliance with one his crewmates.
The Gadi, the descendants of the Garradians, were both pretty and arrogant (not his own assessment, since he was still creating a standard for pretty). They regarded the robots with suspicion and had uneasy relationships with everyone else—with one notable exception.
Boom avoided them when he could.
The Artificial Intelligences, most propagating from the self-named Bangle, permeated the outposts’ systems. They had helped to forge the peace between them and the others. They were sentient, though Boom wasn’t certain all the various humans realized that.
And then there was the Earth expedition.
The bonds between Boom’s kind and the people from Earth had been strengthened by alliances with some of his crewmates, but he also knew that many of them struggled with trust where the robots—before and after they became human—were concerned.
The study of allies was one of his areas of interest, but it was difficult. Many of the examples in the history of this galaxy had ended badly.
Trust was difficult to achieve.
“You’ve seen the Scoyfol’s Hope,” CabeX continued.
He had. The ancient passenger ship had been recently discovered in a nebula, a relic from the early part of the Dusan/Gadi conflict, its crew and passengers in cryostasis. They’d wakened to a new world, a strange future with their past lost in time.
“They want to return to their home.”
Boom blinked and realized what this meant when humans did it to him.
Oh. It indicated incredulity.
“That’s deep in former Dusan space.” Boom said the words, though he knew the captain already knew this. He’d learned that sometimes one needed to state the already known to move the conversation forward.
“General Halliwell said that sometimes people need to return home to heal.” The words were proffered matter-of-factly.
An indication that the captain didn’t understand either? Boom had no home beyond this ship, no family except his crewmates.
CabeX pushed the tablet toward Boom, so he picked it up and felt his breath catch on seeing the face of the woman pictured there.
“That’s Captain Hedy Quinton,” CabeX’s voice sounded distant.
She was…arresting. Her brows arched neatly over wide-spaced, and cool, gray eyes. Her nose inclined toward a mouth that was full and slightly quirked in humor. Her dark hair was pulled back from the fine lines of her face and a military cap sat at an almost jaunty angle on top of her head.
Pretty. He let the word settle in his mind, then decided it wasn’t enough. Beautiful.
“She’ll be commanding the mission.”
“Okay,” Boom said, resisting the urge to trace the features. The cold screen would ruin the illusion that she looked at him, that the look in her eyes was for him.
It would also be too revealing, even with CabeX, who knew him better than most. CabeX was the only one of them who knew all their secrets, but he didn’t need to know this one. Not until Boom knew what these unfamiliar stirrings meant.
“Escorting the Hope is actually cover for the main mission.” CabeX paused but Boom couldn’t think of a response. “The scientists would like to examine the original Dusan home world.”
Boom had a feeling this wasn’t the main mission either.
“But the real concern of the Earth military is that the Garradian outposts in the region are offline.”
Offline. That meant the sensors and scanners couldn’t “see” into that region. This was a security risk. Boom nodded to let the captain know he understood.
“If anyone can get them up again, it would be you, though you wouldn’t be working alone.”
Boom glanced involuntarily down at Captain Quinton’s visage, but CabeX didn’t notice.
CabeX frowned. “There is a sentient AI on the Vega.”
“Okay.” Boom cleared his throat of huskiness but then didn’t know what to add. What did CabeX want him to say?
“There is risk.”
“There is always risk.” Boom glanced down at the face of the woman again. How did he know there was risk there, too?
CabeX nodded. Then he directed his dark gaze at Boom. “Be sure to come home.”
Had he always been this much of a…Boom faltered there, for he did not know the correct word. Human? Concerned. Parental? Nothing felt quite correct.
“Of course,” he said.
“Captain’s on the bridge.”
Captain Hedy Quinton still couldn’t quite believe she was the captain on the bridge—this bridge or any other. It felt good. Really good.
When she’d traveled to another galaxy as part of Project Enterprise, Hedy had expected both adventure and danger. She’d known she’d meet aliens and that she might have to shoot some of them.
Her expectations had been met and more. She’d arrived on the second deployment aboard the Apollo, having missed the first war with the Dusan. The Apollo had taken damage during a battle with some evil robots—not to be confused with the robots of the spaceship Najer—and creepy bird-like aliens.
It had been rotated back to Earth for repair and refit. She wasn’t ready to go home, so she’d wrangled a transfer to the Doolittle under the command of General Halliwell.
And then she’d ended up on shuttle duty. Life in the United States Air Force, even back on Earth, had been filled with long stretches of not much happening, interspersed with intense activity. And yet, somehow, she’d expected life in this new galaxy to be a series of Star Trek episodes.
Then, on shuttle duty to an outpost, she’d wandered around the hanger and found the Vega. It had actually been called something unpronounceable with vega in the middle. So she’d kind of nicknamed it.
The general had been less enthusiastic she’d found a new, intact artificial intelligence (also with an unpronounceable name—she did not need or want unpronounceable names in her life) that she’d nicknamed Roy, because the AI Bangle had been playing Roy Orbison just before she left on the mission where she found the Vega with an AI in its systems.
The AI that controlled the Vega.
In a sense, the AI was the Vega.
The general did want or need another AI in his life, but he’d got one anyway.
Hedy was happy to have an AI in her life, since Roy had picked her to be captain of the Vega. Hedy loved Roy. She’d have worn the Roy fangirl tee shirt if it were possible to get any kind of fan tee shirt in this galaxy. Not that she’d checked or anything.
She took her station, gripping the arms just a bit so she didn’t wriggle with joy.
“Thank you, Roy.” Her tone gave nothing of her excitement away. She might be channeling a little bit of Picard. Not that she hadn’t worked hard to develop the stoic calm during her years in the military.
Roy was also her first officer, at least on the books. The Vega was Roy’s from top to bottom, but she was sitting in the captain’s chair. It felt like a win-win. Or at least not a loss.
Her command crew also included a robot, or rather, a former robot from the Najer. BoomerJ was her security officer. Boom, as he liked to be called, had been a formidable robot, but now he was a really cute guy with some cyborg enhancements.
Hedy wasn’t sure what that made him now, other than her security officer.
And yes, all the various consciousnesses and where they resided was enough to make her head explode.
At least Trejar Volrn hadn’t retaken anything. He’d lived all his life in his human form. The downside of Volrn? He was Gadi and believed he should be the captain of the Vega, and possibly ruler of the galaxy. Yeah, he was that humble.
Okay, he had a point. This was their galaxy, their heritage. But they’d still be fighting the Dusan if not for the expedition from Earth, and he couldn’t be on a cool ship heading for an adventure into the unknown.
As far as Hedy was concerned, the expedition had earned their place here because they’d joined forces with the Gadi and broken the epoch long stalemate of war.
And Roy liked Hedy better.
Hedy wasn’t sure Volrn knew this was Roy’s ship, or that Roy was sentient.
Was she thrilled that her first command wasn’t a complete command? No, but she was pragmatic. What couldn’t be changed could be dealt with. She hadn’t been a woman in the military since she was eighteen without learning this immutable truth.
And Roy appeared to trust her, so she had to trust it or give up on the mission.
She was not giving up on the mission.
“Has our rendezvous with Scoyfol’s Hope been confirmed?” Hedy asked. She kept waiting for them to back out on this craziness because that was the smart thing to do. But so far they were hanging in with the whole “we want to go home” deal.
If the Hope pulled out, the mission would go forward, since it was a cover for what Command really wanted to find out. The outposts in those quadrants—called Victor and Bravo by the expedition—were offline, which meant they didn’t have “eyes” into what was happening there.
General Halliwell did not like not knowing what was out there.
The general also didn’t like the Gadi knowing what they were up to. So she was the only one who knew the real mission. Maybe. Hedy also had a feeling the robots and ex-robots liked knowing things—and they had their own way of finding out.
“Our rendezvous with Scoyfol’s Hope has been confirmed, Captain.” Roy said the word “captain” as if it liked using it.
Was it glad to have a captain and crew? It had been alone a long time.
“Passengers and supplies are secure,” Roy added, as if anticipating this would be her next question.
‘Thank you, Roy,” she said again. Roy might be an AI, but it was a sentient AI. And it was a member of the crew. Hedy had always treated her people—her eye twitched for a moment—with courtesy. There were times when it was a steely courtesy, but courtesy nonetheless.
She glanced at Volrn.
Volrn gave her a stiff nod to her unasked question. He was probably as ready to go as he was going to be.
Because of her orders she had to take him, but Roy didn’t.
Roy didn’t have to do anything it didn’t want to. She could have got Volrn off her crew roster if she’d asked Roy. She hadn’t because they would have just given her a different Gadi—was there such a thing?
Hedy wasn’t a fan of the Gadi guys. They tended to be pretty jerks. She wondered how long it would take for Volrn to figure out he was a placeholder? Or if he ever would.
She looked at Boom now, but it seemed he’d carried his robot lack of expression into his new human cyborg body. Okay, then.
“Engage,” she said. She didn’t do the Picard move, well, maybe inside her head she did, but she could say the words out loud if she wanted to.
Picard didn’t own them. There was no one on her bridge who knew about Picard. The others from the expedition were strapped in below.
Her crew complement was a three-man squad of pilots from the Doolittle, three Marines, and four scientists.
At least none of them were named Dr. Smith. And her “robot” looked like a really cute guy. Not a very captain-y thought, but inside the captain there was a woman. And Boom was really cute.
Hedy felt the shift as the Vega began to break orbit around the Kikk Outpost.
Through her virtual interface, she heard the ping, then General Halliwell’s face appeared floating in the air in front of her.
She wasn’t going to lie. It was pretty disconcerting to see him like that. Somewhere sometime she’d seen a movie where heads floated in the air.
She hadn’t liked it then, didn’t care for it now.
Her “cone of silence” had activated automatically. Her lips didn’t twitch from recalling the Get Smart name. Not when the general could see her too. Thanks to her cone, no one could see or hear the general, or hear her response. That was very cool.
Of course, the Vega was super cool from top to bottom.
Again, not a very captain-y thought, but she got to have her thoughts. Including the one where she felt so Picard sitting here as the Vega moved away from the Kikk moon. She should probably feel Janeway, but Picard would always be her favorite.
On a separate display, the planet that the Kikk moon orbited a greenish ball hanging in space. No one went there. Apparently, it was habitable, but no one wanted to inhabit it.
“Godspeed, Captain.” The general looked and sounded sober.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said. “We’ll keep you updated.”
As much as they could with the distances involved. So much depended on getting those outposts back up and connected.
In addition to communications, they had also been tasked with covering some scientific, or perhaps humanitarian, questions. Could the Hope’s passengers return home? What had happened to the Dusan-held planets post-war? What about the Dusan home world?
The minutes ticked by as the ship left the alien familiar behind. Ahead was the alien unfamiliar.
Hedy couldn’t decide if it was ironic or symbolic that they were setting out in an alien ship.
She’d spent as much time as she could getting familiar with the Vega. The feel of the engines against her booted feet was almost as familiar now as on the Doolittle and the Apollo. This mission was the same “going where no one had gone before,” but it felt different, felt both more and less momentous than when she’d left Earth for the first time.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t danced on the head of a pin many times before, but it might be the first time she wasn’t sure she could keep her balance.
This mission was pushing the boat way out past any chance of military support, not because Halliwell wouldn’t want to send help, but because he needed updated information to send that help.
When the Project Enterprise Earth expedition had left the Milky Way and headed into the unknown, it had been a huge leap of faith. It had comprised great ships and a lot of crew.
This venture, this mission. was heading into the “kind of” unknown with a much smaller vessel and paired-down crew.
On the plus side, they had maps and star charts of both quadrants.
On the minus side, those star charts were way out of date—like eons or more out of date.
No one from the expedition or the Gadi had ventured into former Dusan space since the end of the war to update anything.
And no one who had ventured in there during the war had returned and reported.
So did that make this venturing into the unknown known? Or the known unknown?
And if she wanted to add up the potential for a Charlie Foxtrot, she could throw in the fact they were venturing out there in a ship that was probably as old as the star charts.
It might look pretty and shiny, but it wasn’t new. At least she had a good idea of what was under the hood.
It had a lot under the hood.
According to her briefing, the Vega had several types of propulsion.
It had what they called an impulse drive on Star Trek but was actually a sublight drive for traveling below the speed of light.
It also had regular FTL (faster than light) jump drive that was similar to the propulsion the Project Enterprise ships had used to get to the Garradian galaxy.
And it had something called starburst drive or star drive, depending on who she talked to. Starburst drive was near instantaneous travel, which was super cool but also required a super amount of calculations and depended on accurate star charts. So it had a “use with caution” label attached to it.
What she didn’t know was if the Vega and its AI had staying power. What might the years in storage have done that might not be immediately obvious?
“Let’s do our short jump,” Hedy said.
They’d done a lot of systems and drives testing in the month since the Vega was discovered, but this final short jump, while still in range of Command, was on her “to do” list from General Halliwell.
If Murphy’s law was in force in this galaxy, then nothing would go wrong until they were out of range of Command. But she wasn’t going to say that to the general.
“You’ve got the coordinates, Roy?”
“I do, Captain.”
Oh that Roy. He was very good for her ego.
There was a pull, a blur of movement, and then the short FTL hop was over.
They’d also tested the starburst drive, but Hedy still felt her insides tense as they moved into position for the next leap into the known unknown.
This mode of propulsion felt wrong on a cellular level, even if it did cut down on the waiting.
At the time the Garradians had shut things down, starburst drive was a new, cutting edge—and not completely tested—piece of technology.
Yet here she was with her finger on the button. It did seem to be a feature of humanity to push buttons that maybe should stay unpushed.
But she’d push it, or rather she’d tell Roy to push it. It was why she was here, why she was in the chair.
Their regular jump had moved them far enough from the Kikk moon and its planet so the instability caused by starburst drive activation wouldn’t be a problem for the orbiting ships or the planets.
The starburst drive was only one of many very cool systems on the Vega. It still amazed her that the Garradians had had Star Trek-plus and left it behind.
What the heck?
“Rendezvous course set. Permission to engage starburst drive.” Roy’s tone was almost robotic now. More like a computer. At other times, she’d noticed a little cowboy intonation creeping in.
Had someone introduced him to Roy Rodgers? She might have to play some Roy Orbison when she was off duty and pull him back in the rock ’n roll direction.
“Engage,” she said again, suppressing a tiny smile. She didn’t mind living a bit of the Star Trek life, as long as she didn’t have their problems. She might have longed for excitement, but being captain of her first command was excitement enough.
If she could have knocked on wood after that thought, she might have. But the bridge was sleek and white and wholly devoid of anything wood.
She glanced at the Gadi to her right and resisted the temptation to find out if he were as wooden as he acted. Probably not a good plan to rap an ally on the noodle.
There was a shift, a feeling of lifting, as the drive engaged. Thankfully the sense of wrong didn’t last. Her stomach had barely settled when the shift went the other direction as they came out of starburst drive. That was probably the fastest they’d travel until they finished escort duty to the four home planets.
Four whole planets.
Who needed four planets? The Scoyfol’s Hope had maybe a couple of thousand people on board.
The Hope had been discovered by General Halliwell while on holiday.
Yeah, she didn’t believe that either.
The passengers had been in cryo-sleep since the beginning of the Gadi-Dusan War. And now they wanted to go home. Clearly, they were a bunch of optimists.
None of the expedition’s experts believed that the Scoyfol planets existed in a form they could return to, but it was their choice.
And since their scientists had been chomping at the bit to get a look at the original Dusan home world, these two outward missions gave them good cover for the real mission.
Escort the Hope to its home system, then check out the Dusan home planet. And if warranted, take a look at any former Dusan planets along their flight path.
This “public” mission brief made a good cover for the real reason they were sending them out here.
Again, she felt like there was a lot of optimism, considering how “easy” things had gone since the expedition arrived here.
“I have the Scoyfol’s Hope on tracking.” Boom gave her the update this time.
Good to know that Roy could share.
“We have a contact request from the Hope,” Volrn said. His tone was edged with snotty.
“On screen,” Hedy said. When the captain of the Hope appeared, Hedy rose.
“Captain Traum.” She gave him a respectful salute. He’d earned it by surviving and keeping his passengers alive. By freezing everyone, but it still counted as a win. And he’d used a nebula’s energy to keep the ship powered. Kind of genius.
“Captain.” Traum’s tone and face gave nothing away. He’d been old before he’d gone to sleep with his passengers and crew, so he didn’t look as badass as his accomplishments indicated.
Should she be offended he didn’t use her name?
This could be his normal and not about her or the mission, because how could anyone not want a great big, armed ship accompanying them into the unknown?
“Sending course and first jump coordinates.” Volrn tapped something on his screen, managing to make this small action seem more important than it was.
“Course and coordinates received.” The slight tightening of the skin around Traum’s mouth might indicate he didn’t much like it that they were setting the course.
Didn’t he realize that meant they’d take the first shots if something surprised them out of jump? Or he didn’t trust them. And why should he?
Maybe the Vega looked too pretty to him to be scary? The Vega might look like a sci-fi movie dream of a ship, both sleek and pretty, compared to the Hope, but she was armed to the teeth, including some very cool cloaking technology.
Which Traum might not know. How much did he know? The answer was above her pay grade.
What she did know was that the Hope was basically a passenger and cargo ship with FTL jump drives similar to the Vega’s mid-range propulsion. It also had a sublight drive for in-system transit.
She’d heard that it had had limited armaments, though they’d added some when she’d had to flee before the Dusan advance. Eventually crew and passengers had made the choice to go to sleep, rather than continue their futile flailing around the galaxy—helped by the nebula that had hidden them and provided a power source for the ship during their really long sleep.
“We’ll see you on the other side of the jump, Captain Traum,” she said. Giving him a last salute, she nodded for Roy to cut the connection.
This first contact with the Hope appeared to have triggered Halliwell’s protective instincts, or maybe he’d been looking for an excuse to poke around the Dusan part of the galaxy and get the outposts fixed without drawing attention to them.
It seemed certain that word of the Hope’s discovery had gotten out. This galaxy and surrounding regions of space had their fair share of nasty pirates. It was kind of a cliche, but that didn’t make them anything less than a problem.
Didn’t matter how far you traveled, there were always those who preyed on anyone weaker than them. Their lack of creativity should embarrass them, but somehow didn’t.
What had happened to General Halliwell during his “holiday” to that nebula was also classified above her pay grade, but it wasn’t a secret that he’d returned with a girlfriend.
Hedy gave a mental wince at using the general and girlfriend in the same thought. She wasn’t surprised said girlfriend was an alien. Everyone on the expedition was half afraid of the general, with a couple of non-dating-eligible exceptions.
It was probably harder for a general to get a date than it was for a captain, she added to herself somewhat ruefully.
She didn’t usually think along those lines, or worry about her dating prospects, but there’d been a lot of love in the air out here in this new and dangerous galaxy. Maybe love—even alien love—provided the anchor for people to cope with it all.
There was a whole lot of alien going on around here.
The Vega certainly felt alien compared to the Doolittle—though it was alien in a good way, for the most part. It was not unlike being on the set of her favorite sci-fi movie or show. It was all clean lines inside and out. None of the utilitarian design of the Earth ships. Even the walls of the corridors had rounded edges.
When the ship was dormant, the walls had been a kind of eerie white, but with its systems online, the walls could change color, creating paths for passengers to navigate between the sections, or just to look different, she supposed.
Any hallway could quickly become a view screen during an emergency. Something undoubtably made possible by Roy.
And the bridge. She gave an internal happy sigh. It was both sleek and spare, with only what was necessary deployed at any given moment. Even the bridge seating adjusted to the size of the bridge crew and each station also personally adjusted to each person.
In other words, comfortable and highly functional.
She controlled her own system access through a special virtual interface that, when inserted in her ears, gave her a visual view that she assumed was unique and the ability to have private conversations with Roy and others wherever she was.
She also had panels that emerged from the arms of her chair when she needed them. So far she was the only one allowed to use the virtual interface. As far as she knew, neither Boom or Volrn even knew about its existence.
The truth was, Roy was the ship and it could have flown without any bridge crew. Which brought her back to wondering if it had been lonely?
Had she found it or had it found her as the various Garradian outposts woke up? It had definitely attached itself to her after opening the hangar bay door for her. Some of the pilots with more seniority had protested her getting this command, but none of them wanted to get spaced out an airlock because they’d annoyed Roy.
Until the finding of the Vega, a lot of the expedition had assumed they’d found all the good stuff, that all that was left was trying to figure it out.
And then they’d found some frozen Garradians. No one was quite sure if the Garradians weren’t sharing all they knew or if their bunch didn’t know. The only one who might know the answers to all the systems questions was the AI Bangle, and it wasn’t talking.
All of those currently involved in and around the active outposts had saved each other’s bacon a couple of times. So everything was friendly on the surface, helped it was said, by Bangle’s fondness for Earth music and the Najer robots.
Its feelings about the Gadi were less clear.
“All systems are ready for activation of the FTL jump drive,” Roy said.
“Let’s do it,” Hedy said this time. She couldn’t be Picard all the time.
This propulsion felt different from the starburst drive, with less of the unnatural, possibly because this is how the FTL jump had felt traveling here from Earth.
A screen appeared that showed the Hope had entered jump behind them.
For some reason the song from Peter Pan played in her head, like a unwelcome mind worm. The one about following the leader. She felt the sudden weight of it settle onto her shoulders. Lives, ships, and hopes.
No pressure.