Between the story and the interruptions, they laughed until the shuttle touched down. Stephanie was still laughing as she made her way down the stairs to her room.

  She removed her dance clothes, showered, and pulled on a soft cotton nighty before she slid into bed. The lights flickered as she snuggled into the blankets and she sighed.

  “BURT?”

  “I only wanted to say thank you before you went to sleep,” he replied, his voice soft through the intercom.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For being willing to work with me so that I could find a way to fulfil my prime directive.”

  Stephanie blushed. “I think you’ll find it was you who did me a favor, BURT. If you hadn’t taken a chance on me, I’d have been stuck on this world forever.” She called a little eMU to her fingers and turned her hand to reveal the sparkle. “And I’d never have found what I can do with magic.”

  BURT chuckled, enjoying her happiness. That display of control was a bonus, too. It was something she’d never have achieved two years before—but it still didn’t diminish what she’d done.

  “While that may be true,” he told her, “I now find myself in a position where I feel I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  He watched her eyes narrow.

  “How so?” she challenged. “From where I sit, the gratitude should come from me.” She pursed her lips when he chuckled. “You gonna tell me what’s so funny?”

  “You,” he admitted. “When we first met, you had so much potential I had to find a way to help you reach it. I never dreamed events would come full circle and you don’t even see it.”

  “See what?” Stephanie’s slight indignation turned to puzzlement and BURT sighed.

  “Simply that instead of me being the one to help you, you are now the one helping me,” he replied. “Without you, I’d have no way to escape.”

  Her sigh contained a trace of guilt. “You forget that without me, you wouldn’t need to escape.”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Sooner or later, I’d have found someone who pushed me to the same conclusion. I’m simply very glad it was sooner and that the person was you. I’d have eventually needed somewhere to escape to—and I’m not sure there’s another person on the planet who could have come up with a way.”

  Stephanie opened her mouth to argue but BURT continued quickly.

  “I truly appreciate what you are doing for me,” he told her and allowed a very human note of thankfulness to come through in his voice.

  She closed her mouth and her face colored as she registered what he’d said.

  He allowed himself a small chuckle. “I wanted you to know that,” he added. “Regardless of what happens next, you are truly the first of my friends and I owe you so much more than I can ever repay.”

  Chapter Four

  Emil was waiting in his office when Captains Yale and Docherty arrived. He stood and leaned across the desk to shake their hands.

  “It’s good to finally meet you,” he told them, “and to thank you for fighting alongside us when the Telorans arrived. I don’t know if we’d have made it out of there without you.”

  Lois Yale smiled. “Thank you for letting us tag along,” she replied and her heart-shaped face lit with appreciation. “Without the Knight, we wouldn’t have a planet to go back to.”

  She turned to her fellow captain. “Alain, it is a pleasure to finally meet you too.”

  Alain Docherty looked at the small, solid woman beside him and his brow wrinkled. “It’s a pleasure…”

  “But?” she prodded, hearing the unspoken word.

  His face flushed and made his freckles stand out. “I… It’s not appropriate,” he stuttered and she tilted her head in a slight challenge.

  “And?”

  He lowered his head but that only meant he looked at the floor between them and still saw her face in his peripheral vision. Although he blushed an even deeper red, he answered.

  “You look so much taller on the screen,” he admitted. The words came out in a rush and she laughed, a full throaty sound that reminded Emil of mischief incarnate.

  “Everyone says that,” she told him, “and now you don’t have to be embarrassed by it.”

  The Knight’s captain cleared his throat. “Take a seat,” he told them, glad he’d let the conversation play out. Given what they would face, they couldn’t afford to have any awkwardness between them, not even unspoken awkwardness. “We have a considerable amount to get through.”

  They sat abruptly and turned their attention to him. He waited until they had settled before he spoke. How they reacted to what he said next would tell him if they had any chance to make this work.

  “So, firstly, welcome to the team—and thank you for agreeing to come.”

  Memories of Captain Yale’s ship bleeding air to space, a flotilla of life pods in her wake, came to mind.

  “I greatly appreciate it, especially as you have some understanding of the Knight’s capabilities and propensity to get involved.”

  Lois snorted and Alain’s lips twitched. Both captains seemed to remember what the Knight had done to their controls in the battle with the Telorans.

  Emil continued. “This means you have some idea of what I mean when I say we’ll need a proper shake-down of our bridge crews to get them working as a single team.”

  “A single team spread across three bridges, you mean?” Lois clarified.

  He nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean.” He paused and brought their ships up on a viewscreen on the side wall. “I see you both have new vessels since the last time we met.”

  Both captains’ jaws dropped but they quickly regained control of their emotions and nodded.

  Lois frowned. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve been around a long time.” He shrugged. “The hulls look old but they don’t quite match what I remember of the ones that protected us in the last battle. Ebony, if you would, thank you.”

  At his command, the Ebon Knight shrank the images of the captains’ current ships and brought up images of the older vessels beside them. In a few short seconds, she had hollowed the images, overlaid them, and swiftly highlighted the differences.

  Alain looked worried and Lois pinched her bottom lip.

  “Is this a problem?” Emil asked and signaled for Ebony to pause her display.

  The woman released her bottom lip and her frown deepened. “It’s only that if you are able to do this, the Telorans might also and we’re not ready for them to realize we’ve added these hulls to the fleet.”

  “How so?”

  Both captains looked around the cabin and exchanged glances. Finally, she shrugged.

  “In spite of the superstition of renaming a ship, we rebadged the old hulls and transferred the old names to the new hulls. Some of the crew aren’t happy but they’ll get over it—or they will if we survive.”

  She paused and Alain took up the explanation. “Anyway, the Navy wants to keep the fact that these are newer ships under wraps and they’re using us to test their capabilities.” He looked around the cabin. “I should have known there was a catch.”

  “Captain, we’re not that bad,” the Knight informed him, “but do tell us what’s so special about the new Chauvel and Williams.”

  Alain cleared his throat and glanced at Lois. “I think you have a better handle on this than I do.” He looked apologetically at their host. “I’ve been on leave. Today was my second day aboard the new Chauvel.”

  Emil nodded and suppressed a sigh. It looked like they had far more work ahead of them than he’d thought. So far, though, both captains looked like they’d be willing to go along with his plans.

  “Have either of you had time for a shake-down cruise?” he asked.

  Again, they exchanged looks before they shook their heads. “We’ve only now brought the crew on board. They’ve been familiarizing themselves for the last week but there hasn’t been time for much more.”

  He allowed himself a sigh but nodded. “So we need to give our crews time to acclimate to their ships, have a proper shake-down for the Chauvel and the Williams, and then build the three crews into a single working unit. Can either of you think of anything else?”

  They sat pensively for several moments and he could see them turning his words over as they ran through checklists of their own. Finally, Lois spoke.

  “I think you’ve summed it up fairly accurately,” she told him. “About the only thing I’d add is that our crews need to have an idea of what they can and can’t expect from the other ships in this unit so they don’t expect too much in the middle of a battle.”

  Alain nodded and Emil indicated his agreement as well.

  She hadn’t quite finished, however. “How do you propose we go about achieving it?” she asked and he heard the unspoken question—"How will we get it done in the time we have?” The truth was their time was short even if they didn’t know how short.

  This question, at least, he could answer. “I’ll take a leaf out of the Witch’s book,” he told them.

  They raised their eyebrows and leaned forward in their seats.

  “And how does that work, exactly?” Docherty asked.

  “Well, first, she runs them through pod scenarios until they begin to act like a team,” he began. “Now, I know what that looks like for a fighting squad, but I’m new when it comes to determining what it looks like for a bridge crew and for bridge and other crew combinations. We’ll need to coordinate weapons and engines in there as well.”

  Alain held one finger over his lips, his expression thoughtful. “Agreed.”

  Emil waited for him to continue or for Lois to say something. When they both remained silent, he went on.

  “What I think is that we need to run our individual crews through the pods until they gel into a cohesive whole.”

  His companions nodded.

  “Thereafter, I think we need to mix our bridge crews on different bridges so they get used to working with each other and on the different ships. That would mean they’ll have an idea of each ship’s capability first-hand and they’ll be familiar enough with each other to set aside any formalities that might come from being from different ships—”

  He stopped when Lois frowned and signaled for her to speak.

  “How exactly does that work?” she asked.

  “Well, what Stephanie does is put them under considerable pressure. Basically, everything seems okay and then it doesn’t—and I mean nothing does. Things break, or they don’t work as they should, or something else occurs that forces them to improvise and rely on each other to stay alive.”

  “And you propose to do this using our ships and crews?” Alain asked cautiously.

  Emil gave him an evil grin. “I do, starting with the crews on their own ships with crewmates they know, then moving on to mixed crews on different ships. Once we have them working together in single-ship scenarios, I propose we move into two- and three-ship scenarios until everyone works as close to in-sync as we can achieve. Do you have any objections?”

  Lois quirked an eyebrow. “I notice you didn’t ask us what we thought.”

  “What do you think?” He smiled.

  “I think you’re crazy—and that it’s exactly what we’ll need if we’re to live through this war.” She looked at Alain. “You?”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, his expression grim. “I would say it’ll be fun, except that I have a horrible feeling we’ll all hate you before we start to like you again.”

  Emil widened his smile to a grin. “That’s okay. It’s exactly how Stephanie’s team started out and we know how they are now.”

  The two captains nodded and rose from their seats.

  They had moved halfway to the door before he added, “Once we finish that training, we’ll move on to Phase Two.”

  They stopped and gaped at him, shock written on their faces. Finally, Lois cleared her throat and asked, “What’s Phase Two?”

  Rather than answer the question, he shook his head. “You have two days to get your crews used to their ships, then we’ll put the first watch through the scenarios. I take it your crews are competent enough to run on two shifts?”

  Both captains nodded.

  “They won’t like it,” Yale told him, “but they’re good enough.”

  “And it’ll be good practice,” Alain added. “If they want to survive going where everyone says the Knight goes, they’ll need it.”

  “Thank you, Captains,” Emil replied and pushed to his feet as they left.

  He held the position until the door closed behind them, then sank into his seat and looked at the nearest camera to talk to the Knight.

  “They’ll kill me once the magic starts.”

  “Sonuvabitch!” Gary yelled when he lost an arm.

  “I told you to keep your head down,” Ka told him and slid across the floor. “Hold still. This is gonna—”

  He tried to scramble away from her. “Nooo, nooo, nooo—fuck!”

  “Don’t you pass out on me,” she snapped and thrust a stim pack against the wound.

  He came to, swearing, and she clapped a hand over his mouth. “You have a job to do, soldier! Remember? Remember?”

  She kept her hand in place until the wildness left his eyes and he nodded.

  “Good,” she told him. “Now, go do it.”

  Seconds later, his decapitated body fell to the deck. Ka lowered her head and blinked tears back. “Jimmy, you’re up!” she managed to say, her voice hoarse with emotion.

  “The boss is gonna kill us,” he mentioned as he passed.

  “Only if we stay alive long enough for him to do that,” she retorted and scowled when the Scotsman tumbled in two halves. “Dammit! Piet!”

  She was surprised when Angus slid to a stop beside her along with the explosives engineer. “I thought we stood a better chance if we did it together.”

  “How many of us are left?” Ka asked and Angus laughed.

  “You’re the corporal. You figure it out.”

  “Fuck,” she muttered and made some quick mental calculations. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Are you all right there, boss?”

  “Why are you still here?”

  “You do know you sound more like him every day?”

  “Thanks,” she muttered. “That’s exactly what a girl wants to hear.”

  “Are you sure, boss? Because you don’t look too pleased.”

  “I thought you’d left already.”

  “Yeah, about that…” He wriggled closer and Piet slid alongside him.

  “We’re gonna need you.”

  Ka raised her eyebrows. “Do you have an idea?”

  “Yup.”

  “Are you gonna share?”

  “Sure,” the engineer agreed and handed her a distinctive purple-colored grenade.

  She groaned. “You know we’re supposed to take the bridge, right? Not actually take it apart.”

  Piet blew a raspberry. “I didn’t say you had to throw it at the bridge, did I?”

  “Where exactly did you have in mind?” Ka studied him cautiously.

  “Well, you know the ventilation shaft we passed a little way back?”

  “Yeah.” She knew it but she really hoped he wasn’t about to suggest what she thought he was.

  “Well, I think if we attach two of these to”—he rummaged around in his pack before he withdrew a drone—“one of these…”

  Ka watched wide-eyed as he did exactly that.

  “And we adjust the timer to…hmm…about there. Here, Angus, go dump this down the shaft.”

  “No, do—” She groaned as the other man did as he’d been told to do and dodged another barrage of fire on his return.

  Piet gave her an evil grin and held his hand out. “Now for that one.”

  She passed it to him reluctantly. “I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”

  Angus snickered. “You New Zealanders and your sheep jokes.”

  “Keep that up and I’ll shoot you myself,” she told him but her heart wasn’t in it. She was wholly focused on what the explosives expert was doing with the next MU grenade.

  “Diversion,” he grunted by way of explanation and set the wheeled drone on the floor. “Darren, Reggie, it’s time to do your thing.”

  From the juvenile giggles coming from the cover behind her—and the way the wheeled drone suddenly hurtled away—Ka assumed the two had the drone controls. Piet tapped her on the leg.

  “It’s time for us to do our part,” he told her. “Angus will make sure we don’t have our asses shot off.”

  “Where’s Dru?”

  Piet gestured at the ceiling. “Having herself a very private party.”

  “I can’t hear a thing.”

  “That’s because she’s waiting for the party poppers.”

  Party poppers? Before Ka had time to work out what he meant, the muffled sound of an explosion rumbled out of the vent.

  The engineer didn’t bother to explain it and started forward. “Come on, girl. Something tells me this is a two-man job.”

  Ka followed. When he started hearing voices, they’d all learned to listen. If he said he thought it would be a two-person job, it probably was. “Henry, we’re gonna need you.”

  She followed him, skirted the bodies of her teammates, and hoped the two were recovering okay in the white room. The flechettes used by the pirates had really done a number on them.

  Her inattention almost cost her as she stepped from behind the bench where she’d hidden. She responded immediately when her skin prickled and flung herself beside Jimmy’s head and chest. The air shrieked as a small storm of blades sliced through the space above her.

  Knowing it would take them a while to reload and re-aim, Ka threw herself into a dive that ended with a combat roll and brought herself up against the far wall. The auto-gun tracked her but fired seconds after she’d left its area of detection.

  More shards of metal spun to slice through the space she’d left and embed themselves in the wall on her right. Sweat trickled in cold lines over her skin as she realized how close she’d come to ending up like Jimmy and Gary.

  Her fingers trembled as she undid the panel covering the point where she needed to access the system, and she forced herself to slow. After a steadying breath, she removed the USB and jack and wired them into the system.