‘…the Vaadwaur didn’t stick around for more than one volley. That was enough to at least rupture eighty-three percent of habitat domes. Which means eighty-three percent of the inhabitants of Proxima IXa are confirmed dead; around a hundred and four thousand people.’

StratOps aboard the Sirius shouldn’t have let sound echo, but Harrian Cal’s voice felt like it hummed through the chamber. The assembled senior officers of the squadron – those available for debriefing – slumped in their seats, many of them showing signs of the battering and bruising of battle. Valance had let herself slide down Doctor Starik’s priority list, slipping a brace across her left hand to secure what felt like a sprained wrist. It wouldn’t kill her, after all.

Harrian drew a sharp breath. His hollow eyes studied the data still coming in, the feed sprawling across the various overlays atop the strategic map of the Alpha Centauri system on the holo-display. ‘That leaves the other seventeen percent of habitats. Most of them suffered damage. The rest are suffering from the collapse of central infrastructure; limited power, oxygen. Mercury is with them now.’

Rourke stood in the central ring, leaning against the railing. ‘Make sure Captain Daragon gets whatever he needs. We can’t let any of those other habitats fail.’

Opposite him, Faust grimaced. ‘We should consider evacuating them entirely. Bring the population to Proxima II. Then Mercury can either aid Sirius’s centralised relief efforts here, or put out other humanitarian fires across the system.’ There was a nod and a rumble of agreement from Borodin.

It was Tycho who leaned forward, squinting. ‘We’re forcing people out of their homes now?’

‘For their safety -’

Rourke’s hand came snapping up to cut off the nascent argument. ‘That’s already been tabled with Captain Daragon. His assessment is that relocating them brings other challenges. We’ll evacuate only if we have to. We’re still in the early hours.’ He looked over the room, eyes settling on Cortez, slouched back in a chair. ‘SCE report?’

Dust had barely settled on the battle, and Valance could see Cortez was already exhausted. ‘My team and the Swiftsure are still assessing damage to Proxima’s automated defence systems. When I know how much use they’ll be repelling a Vaadwaur counter-attack, you’ll know.’

Faust’s frown remained. ‘With respect, Commander, if you don’t have that information, why are you here and not with your team?’

Cortez flinched. ‘Concussion protocols.’

Valance leaned forward. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know if you noticed, Kar, but there was, like, this battle…’ It wasn’t a jibe; it was banter. Banter out of exhausted habit, Cortez talking to her like she would have talked eighteen months ago before she caught herself and subsided into embarrassed, tired silence.

Rourke scrubbed his face with his hand. ‘Once this is over, I’ll be talking to Proxima’s governor. See what remains of civilian government and infrastructure to lend to the relief efforts. Which brings us to the military situation.’

Harrian nodded at the expectant look, but turned to the one man in the room in a pristine uniform. ‘Captain El Sayed?’

If the CO of the USS Memphis was at all embarrassed by getting through the battle without injury to himself or his ship, there was no sign. He clasped his hands in front of him and said in a low, smooth voice, ‘We can confirm the Vaadwaur forces have fully withdrawn from the system. They’re all travelling at what we believe is their highest possible warp factor for Toliman. Likewise, any patrol ships in the system are withdrawing for the binary stars; the Vaadwaur seem to be consolidating their forces.’

Borodin’s gaze was flinty. ‘They might assemble their forces and come back for us at once.’

‘If they departed immediately, we still wouldn’t see them for another forty-eight hours,’ El Sayed reminded him. ‘And the Memphis’s sensors show no sign of readying for deployment.’

‘The most sensible use of our time,’ said Rourke, ‘is for us to help Proxima and lick our wounds. If the Vaadwaur come for us quickly, we’ll decide how to deal with that based on our status. While we patch things up, we monitor them, we study the region, we make plans for our next moves -’

The doors slid open, and Valance turned. Not every CO or staff officer of the squadron was present, so she wasn’t too surprised by a tardy arrival. Nevertheless, she hadn’t expected Hal Cassidy to walk in, still wearing the worn base layers of combat gear. Rather than announce his presence, he simply gave a gruff nod to everyone and slid behind a railing near the door.

Rourke returned the nod, then pressed on. ‘…which means I want operational status updates from Endeavour, Scylla, Tempest, and Ranger.’

Borodin spoke first. ‘Repairs continue. We’re running at seventy percent efficiency on manoeuvring thrusters. Structural integrity’s holding, but I want forty-eight hours to restore full combat readiness.’

Valance grimaced. ‘Endeavour’s ventral hull plating was heavily compromised during our approach to Liberty. My Chief Engineer reports fifty-four hours of repairs to bring our shields and EPS grid back to standard. Until then, we’re combat-capable but vulnerable.’

‘We’re green across the board.’ Gus Tycho sounded a little abashed. ‘Happy to run patrols at the system’s edge.’ At Rourke’s frown, he shrugged. ‘You didn’t ask. But it’s what you’ll want Tempest doing.’

Eyes landed on Captain Yves. She showed no signs of injury, but had sat quiet and pale. She had to clear her throat before she spoke. ‘Ranger’s primary arrays are operational. We’ve got minor hull scoring and some fried systems on decks four and seven, but my engineers estimate twelve hours for full systems recovery. We’ll be mission-capable by then.’

There was a scoff from the back of the room. Valance shifted her weight, but didn’t turn this time.

Rourke’s eyes swam up towards Cassidy, though he passed no comment before he looked back at Yves. ‘You’ll join Tempest on border patrol.’

‘If you can handle it.’ Now Cassidy’s voice came louder, and when Valance looked up, the big man was stomping down the StratOps steps towards the seated and much smaller Captain Yves.

‘Commander.’

But Rourke’s snap was ignored, Cassidy picking up steam. ‘Or if the Tempest gets hit, are you gonna wring your hands and do nothing like you did for Liberty –’

As if from nowhere, Teo Borodin appeared between him and Yves, planting a hand on Cassidy’s chest. ‘Commander. Stand down.’ His voice was level, but there was a glint of fury in his eye.

Cassidy barely looked at him, gesturing furiously towards Yves. ‘Or should we find a captain who has a spine and knows how to fight –’

‘Commander Cassidy!’ Rourke had taken a beat, Valance could see, to steady himself and draw the breath before his thunderous bellow. Instinct kicked in for everyone, trained officers all; some sat up straight, some locked their focus on Rourke, while Borodin himself snapped to a stance closer to attention. The only exception was Juliette Yves, whose eyes remained locked on the deck.

The silence that followed was punctuated by the chirrups of Harrian’s information systems receiving updates, and stretched out what felt unfathomably long. Rourke stood up straight.

‘Liberty’s repairs are ongoing,’ he said, voice cool and level. ‘The more significant losses are to her crew from the boarding action. Captain Faust will be speaking with Captain Galcyon once we’re done here.’

‘To assess her and her ship,’ Faust said, but Valance thought she sounded sardonic in pointing out what was obvious. Then she added, ‘Rather than to apportion blame, unlike Mister Cassidy. Which I find rich considering his team couldn’t stick to the ground plan of their own making for more than one hour.’

Cassidy looked at her, eyes cold. ‘Ask Governor Drevayne how he feels about our improvisation.’

‘We could have benefited from that comms system staying intact,’ came her unimpressed response. ‘As was the plan –’

‘Enough,’ came Rourke’s next rebuke. ‘If that’s all -’

‘Came here for a reason,’ Cassidy grunted. ‘God knows I don’t need to be here while you all clap yourselves on the back for one day’s hard work.’ He pulled out a PADD and tossed it to Harrian. ‘Compliments of Lieutenant Aryn.’

Harrian frowned as he read. ‘Warp field modulation algorithms…?’

‘I shoulda given it to El Sayed,’ Cassidy sighed. ‘My guys have had days to study the system and the Vaadwaur. And the Blackout’s… I don’t know. Call it a bleed. Aryn says these calculations can let our ships adjust their warp field shape according to the localised subspace turbulence.’ His eyes landed on Borodin. ‘For the thump-monkeys, that means we can go faster at warp.’

Harrian had passed the PADD to El Sayed, who was already humming. ‘At least to warp factor four,’ said El Sayed. ‘Which is a tremendous increase in speed.’

Borodin’s chin tilted up, his gaze not leaving Cassidy. ‘If we use this, won’t the Vaadwaur spot it and figure out how to mimic it?’

‘That’ll take time,’ said Valance. ‘But it’s an advantage we can deploy as it suits -’

‘They can’t mimic it,’ said Cassidy with an edge of triumph. ‘The thing about building an empire on the back of a network of subspace tunnels? You don’t bother to get good at warp drive design. Their warp field harmonics are more rigid than ours.’ He advanced on the strategic map, stabbing a finger at the gap between Alpha Centauri’s stars. ‘They could set off right now to come kill us, and it’ll still take them over forty-five hours. With these modifications, we can do that journey in eighteen. I’m not saying we slip by them…’

‘They can deploy,’ said Borodin, anger dissipating as he stared at the display, ‘but we can harry them. Hit them hard, jump to warp, and they can’t possibly follow.’

Cassidy snapped his fingers at him. ‘Enjoy retaking Proxima when we’re twice as fast as you and taking pot-shots all the way.’

Harrian and El Sayed were still leaning over the PADD, talking. At last, El Sayed looked at Rourke. ‘I’d want to run tests. But I’m optimistic.’

Rourke drew a sharp breath. ‘Run tests. Confirm with Commander Harrian. We can build bigger plans if this works.’ He looked at Cassidy. ‘Good work.’

‘Aryn did it,’ Cassidy reminded him. ‘Me? Just tell me when there’s something new to hit.’

Valance was so tired she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. When she managed to marshal her expression, she caught Cortez looking away, as if she’d been watching, the hint of a smile on her lips. Valance shifted her weight to straighten.

Rourke looked like he’d rather move on, turning to the gathered captains and officers. ‘Then you have your orders. I know this was hard. I know it’s not the end. But this was a good day. The Vaadwaur have been driven out of Proxima because of you.’ His eyes swept across the room. ‘There’ll be hard days ahead, for sure. But there’ll be more good ones, too. Keep it up. Dismissed.’

There were other issues on Valance’s mind. Any remaining Vaadwaur prisoners; the intelligence they had, their lingering fates. What condition civilian infrastructure was in to take care of itself. The squadron had no choice but to render relief to the citizens of Proxima, but they were here to liberate, and that work wasn’t done. And more than that, there was her ship; the damage it had taken, the losses to her crew.

Perhaps it was fate, or bad luck. Perhaps Valance’s subconscious had taken control. Perhaps Cortez had intended it, but the two women were the last out of those who left StratOps, and Cortez lingered in the corridor in a way that slowed her down.

‘Are you alright?’ Cortez offered, gaze cautious. ‘I know it’s… I just – you’re gonna be in captain mode on Endeavour. Can’t show weakness. Not even to Dav. And Rourke’s got his hands full, so I ask…’

Valance hesitated. ‘We weren’t the worst hit. But there were losses.’ She winced, remembering something. ‘Elion was killed.’ He was an engineer. He’d served under Cortez.

She winced. ‘Shit.’ She shook her head, looking away for a beat. ‘I’m sorry about Dashell, too. I know he wasn’t your XO on Pathfinder for long, but…’

‘Thank you.’ That was, Valance thought, what one said in lieu of having anything else to say. Her gaze flickered to Cortez’s temple. ‘You hit your head?’

‘I was a dumbass. Didn’t plant my weight in the chair properly when Swiftsure took a hit. Smacked my face on the deck. Not used to bracing sitting down.’ Cortez waved it off. ‘Seriously, I’m fine. Just protocols keeping me from getting my hands dirty. I can supervise the team.’

Doors slid open to offer them an empty turbolift, and Valance gave an awkward nod as they slouched inside. ‘Make sure you check in with the doctor. Concussions aren’t a joke.’

Cortez gave a gentle scoff. ‘Looking out for me?’

Valance stared, too tired for masks or games. The turbolift doors slid shut, banishing not just the decks of the Sirius, but the rest of the galaxy, and for just a moment, there was nothing but the two of them. ‘Of course I am.’

For just a moment.