He nodded. “That’s exactly what we thought, sir, and—”

  “And what made you think you could?” the admiral questioned but added hastily, “And I don’t want the simple ‘because we’re Marines’ excuse. I want to know exactly what went through your head.”

  As if being a Marine wasn’t enough, he thought but managed to keep the retort to himself.

  Instead, he replied, “We’d completed some rigorous training in a wave scenario I thought was tougher than any opposition we’d encounter—particularly if we moved fast enough.”

  The admiral made a rolling gesture with his hand. “Go on.”

  “We assumed that because the dreadnought was in the middle of a firefight with the Federation’s Dreth-sector fleet, most of the crew would be busy manning the guns. Then, I calculated that the Devil’s covering fire had masked our entry enough that we hadn’t been noticed yet, so we had a chance to cover most of the distance before they realized we were there.”

  His superior’s face showed exactly what he thought of that, but he was nice enough not to call him delusional. Commander Geodyne and Admiral Dailey didn’t look like they believed he’d been so naive.

  “Whatever he’s on, I want some,” was not a comment he wanted to hear from the row behind him.

  “And you didn’t consider the possibilities of repair crews or surveillance?” Seljack pressed.

  “Oh no, sir. I thought about those.” Todd gestured to Ka. “While my technician dealt with the doors”—Ka groaned and he continued—“and surveillance, I had my demolitions expert rig the fighters to explode on a timer.”

  “Deliberate destruction of Naval property.” The commentary behind him continued.

  “You deliberately blew up your short-range fighters?” Apparently, Admiral Seljack shared the unknown captain’s opinion.

  He nodded. “I assumed we wouldn’t come back, sir, and I didn’t want to donate them to the Dreth’s cause.”

  “But you intended to capture the bridge,” the man reminded him. “What made you think you wouldn’t be able to retrieve the fighters?”

  “I knew that capturing the bridge was a very different thing than capturing the ship,” Todd told him and hoped it didn’t sound as though he was pointing out that the admiral should have known this as well.

  “Teaching an admiral how to suck eggs,” came the murmured comment, followed by, “Points for balls, I guess.”

  When his superior officer didn’t protest, Todd continued. “My hope was that we could take the dreadnought out of the battle long enough for the Navy to deal with the rest of the pirates. I wasn’t sure how long we could hold the bridge.”

  “So, you didn’t plan to come back then.”

  Todd smiled. “We always plan to come back, sir, but sometimes, we lack the final details.”

  That drew a laugh from the men behind him and a chuckle from the Marines guarding the exits. Even Seljack smiled.

  “I see.” He stepped back as though he’d run out of questions, and Dailey stepped forward to take his place.

  “I understand you’ve enrolled your team in Dreth language classes,” he began and it was obvious this was news to the team.

  “You did what, boss?”

  “What the hell?”

  “No freaking way.”

  The chorus of protest was punctuated by groans. “Well, that’s nice, that is,” and a “Fucking fantastic,” were as disapproving as the rest.

  Todd held his hand up and the team subsided.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. “We encountered a situation where being able to read Dreth would have saved us time and every second counts on a mission. I also thought it would be useful the next time we hijacked their comms.”

  “You did what, Lance Corporal?”

  “I didn’t. My team did—and I’m glad we had that capability. We got into their communications system and were able to monitor their movement.”

  “But you couldn’t understand a word they were saying.”

  “No, sir, and it put us at a disadvantage.”

  “So you identified a weakness and are rectifying it,” Admiral Dailey clarified.

  “Yes, sir.” He left it at that and waited for the next question.

  When it became clear that he wouldn’t add anything else, the admiral continued.

  “You used the corridor as an airlock,” he stated. “It was a good idea, but didn’t that mean you were trapped?”

  “Yes, sir, but we’d have been equally as trapped inside the storage hold and we had to move.”

  “Through large numbers of Dreth warriors.”

  “They weren’t so large after Piet chucked a few grenades through,” Reggie pointed out, and the man regarded him with mild interest.

  “That’s a good point, Marine.” He turned his attention to Piet. “Exactly how many grenades did you carry, Marine?”

  “I…um…” Piet sputtered, gulped, and tried again. “I don’t exactly know, sir. I…uh, filled the harness.”

  Again, their unidentified commentator had something to say. “I will definitely check their bags if they ever board my ship.”

  “Them, too,” came the murmured agreement.

  Todd made a mental note to have Ka hack the security footage of the meeting so he knew which ships the team needed to take precautions on. The admiral’s voice interrupted his planning.

  “Were you aware that at least one of your members had time with the Angels?”

  His eyes widened and he looked at his team. They all looked at him, most in confusion and one with studied calm—Piet. He scowled as he turned back to the admiral.

  “No.”

  “Have you read your team’s dossiers?”

  “I have, sir, but there was no mention of anyone belonging to that force.”

  “I’ll speak to HR.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He carefully avoided looking at Piet and changed the subject. “Can I ask why you wanted to know?”

  “If you weren’t aware, our question is answered. You didn’t take his capabilities into consideration when planning this mission.”

  Todd remained silent and ignored the way the man seemed to wait for him to say something. The admiral let the silence run on for another few seconds before he spoke.

  “During your run through the dreadnought, you came across several Dreth wearing power armor. How did you overcome them?”

  He opened his mouth to answer but Dru cut him off.

  “With great difficulty,” she said.

  When he opened his mouth again, Ka spoke before him.

  “And extreme prejudice,” she added.

  “And considerable violence,” Henry summed up as Todd tried to get a word in edgewise.

  He gave up and waved a hand toward them. “There you have it, sir.”

  The admiral pursed his lips. “I’d rather hear your version, Lance Corporal. What steps did you take?”

  “Really big ones,” Angus piped up.

  “Usually in the wrong direction,” Gary added.

  Reggie thumped him. “Not true!”

  Gary sighed. “Fine, yeah. Not true. He was usually pulling one or the other of us out of the shit.”

  Todd looked at them. “When you’re done…”

  “Not yet, they’re not,” their unknown commentator muttered, and Todd hoped the man was a long way off the mark.

  He turned to the admiral. “I take it you have the footage from our suits?” he asked.

  “We do.”

  “If you can take it to the point immediately before Dru injured her knee?”

  “Of course you’d bring that up,” she snarked.

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Gary retorted. “It’s about the only girly thing you’ve done in a long time.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Ooh, do tell.”

  Todd sighed and raised his hand and they settled. To his relief, the admiral’s support technician brought up the footage he’d requested.

  “As you can see, we got in close and used the weapons we had against the weaker points in the armor,” he explained as they watched Ka sink her blade into the knee joint of Dreth in the blue power armor.

  A soft murmur went up as she used the blade to send a jolt of power into the vulnerable circuitry there. The footage continued and showed Gary firing into the underside of the Dreth’s helmet.

  “Where?” the on-screen Todd asked him before directed Ka to the node.

  “Is there any reason you didn’t use your blasters here?” Admiral Dailey asked, and he nodded, his eyes drawn to the screen.

  “Yes, sir.”

  On-screen, Gary slid beneath the Dreth blade that would have ended Drusilla’s life as Reggie used a two-handed strike to penetrate the seam where the warrior’s helmet joined the armor above his spine.

  Todd’s mouth went dry when he saw how close the three of them had come to dying.

  “And that is?” The admiral’s voice brought him back to the present.

  “More precise strikes were more effective than long-range attacks that might have bounced off or penetrated the hull.”

  “Of a super-dreadnought?” The man clearly didn’t believe him. “From the inside?”

  “It was a risk we didn’t want to take,” Todd told him. He blushed. “Although the outer armor might have prevented that.”

  “Indeed.”

  He could have kicked himself. Of course the outer armor could have prevented penetration. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of that.

  “What? We’re supposed to be ship specialists, now?” Gary snarked.

  “You are supposed to know the environmental parameters in which you fight, yes,” the admiral confirmed.

  “Well, of course,” Gary sniped in response, “because you guys at the top don’t change the battlefield every five fucking seconds.”

  “Don’t forget the notice, Gaz,” Reggie added. “With all the notice we get we really should study these things beforehand.”

  “Yeah,” Dru interjected. “Every single one of us should know the exact penetration potential of every hull from a passenger liner down. It’s a piece of cake, right?”

  “And don’t forget how well we should know the ground rules for every fucking world in the Federation,” Henry noted. “Because we won’t always fight on ships.”

  Gary thumped him on the shoulder. “You never know, Henry. We could be that lucky.”

  Their team leader watched the admiral’s face because there was no way he would acknowledge the team’s antics. Dailey’s eyes went wide, then narrowed, and Todd held his breath.

  They must have caught some of his tension because they fell silent. He wasn’t fooled, though. The guys were still feeling the aftereffects of the battle. The Meligornians might have tended their wounds, but they hadn’t been able to do anything about the memories.

  There was a whole slew of those he wished he didn’t have to carry. The admiral tilted his head, and he tensed.

  “Has your team had any downtime since the battle?” he asked.

  “We spent a few days aboard The King’s Warrior,” he replied. “Their healers took care of our injuries.”

  “So, not really.”

  He gave him a savage smile. “We’re Marines and we weren’t being shot at, sir. Does that count?”

  “You were in a politically delicate environment,” Dailey replied, “so no, it does not.”

  “And there wasn’t an incident?” Their commentator sounded like he didn’t believe a word of it.

  “So, to sum things up,” the admiral continued as though he hadn’t heard, “close tactics concentrating on vulnerable points in the armor were most effective in your last encounter.”

  Todd relaxed a little. At least this question didn’t seem to have any hidden catches. “Yes, sir.”

  “And the weapons?”

  Todd stilled. Dammit! He should have known there was a hidden layer to the interest. The team hadn’t carried standard kit—as usual.

  “We found charged vibro-blades were most effective,” he replied.

  “Are those part of the standard load-out?” Admiral Seljack had stepped forward.

  He shook his head. “No, sir, but some of our team members have experience with this kind of weapon and were more comfortable with them.”

  “And this firearm?” Seljack asked and tapped a button to bring the weapon Ka had borrowed from Piet into close-up.

  “That is another weapon we’ve found effective,” he replied, reluctant to reveal Piet’s part in its acquisition—even if it was something that could be ascertained from the suit footage.

  “And did you have authorization?”

  Todd hung his head. “No, sir.”

  There wasn’t a hope in all the stars that he would admit to not being aware of Piet’s possession of the modified pistols. He didn’t want to lose the man to the Navy’s bureaucratic discipline and clenched his jaw in determination.

  That was something he’d fight tooth and nail to prevent. Piet was one of his, dammit!

  “And the electro-darts?”

  On the screen, the footage had scrolled to Gary telling Ka to “hit it, princess!”

  “I wish we’d thought to use them earlier,” he admitted, “and I need to requisition more.”

  “You are aware they’re in the experimental stage?”

  He felt his face freeze and he forced himself to keep his head to the front. They were? So, where in all the living, sentient hells did Ka—

  “Son?” Admiral Seljack’s gentle prodding brought him back to the present.

  Todd crushed the urge to tell the admiral that there was no way known he was his son. Instead, he swallowed against the dryness in his mouth and shook his head.

  “No, sir. I was not aware it was in the experimental stage.”

  “It works fine, though,” Ka called, and the team snickered.

  On the screen, the footage showed Henry firing through the soft spot under the arm and putting the Dreth out of his misery.

  “That was seriously badass, boss,” Gary murmured as his on-screen self dragged Henry to the front of the team.

  “Indeed,” Seljack replied, and the footage fast-forwarded to the stairwell.

  “Oh, you had to bring that up,” Angus protested, as they watched the grenade bounce off the door jamb.

  On the Earth below, Doctor Marcus Rimmer tapped a few keys and sighed. As soon as he pressed Enter, the remote terminal he’d run Stephanie’s experiment on sent the results to his main terminal.

  “Well, that’s that,” he murmured, picked up the printed notes he’d referenced, and returned to his desk.

  The window on the other side of the room showed lemon skies and fading lights and he was glad he’d woken before his assistant could arrive. Being caught sleeping at his desk for the third day in a row would have been downright embarrassing.

  “Look what you’re doing to me with your magical science bullshit,” he muttered, addressing a witch who simply wasn’t there.

  He wished he had time to duck to the staffroom and snag himself a coffee, but he really wanted to get this part of things over with without being interrupted. He thumbed the button on his phone with one hand and wiped the tiredness from his eyes with the other.

  “I have no idea how you’ll power this,” he said and dictated the last of his report as he pulled his chair out. “However, that is not my problem. You said you’d handle that side of things.”

  Marcus sighed and stretched his neck from side to side as he thought about what he wanted to say next.

  “So, since I’m under an NDA, I can’t release any knowledge of my breakthrough, but you must realize that this has the ability to change the future of our planet.”

  He paused again and chose his next words with care.

  “Look, as much as I don’t harbor a strong desire to work with you, Ms Morgana, I would almost demand to be involved in this project.”

  Another fairly long pause ensued during which he tried to decide how to say what he most wanted without either choking on the words or insulting the woman who’d practically thrown a fortune in his lap.

  “This isn’t easy to say,” he began, “but while I’m a prideful, egotistical, arrogant, and stubborn bastard, I’m not self-sacrificial, stupid, or at all suicidal. So I’d like to very humbly—if you can believe that statement—request that you would allow me to continue to work on the project as it goes forward.”

  He paused again. “She’ll never agree to have me,” he muttered under his breath and sighed again.

  Taking a deep breath, he continued. “Respectfully yours, Doctor Marcus Rimmer, Senior Specialist in Earth Physics.”

  The sound of a quiet movement caught his attention and he spun to see his assistant take a step back out of the door she’d just come through.

  “Ah, you’re here,” he snapped and kicked himself because he’d forgotten he’d told her to arrive early and again for not keeping better track of the time.

  “Come in,” he added and gestured irritably at her when she hesitated. “Close the door behind you.”

  Her expression became apprehensive but she did as he asked.

  “You wanted me here early?” she asked.

  “Yes, I did.” Rimmer raised a hand and shook his finger at her. “But you will never speak of that particular piece of humility to any human being. Are we clear?”

  To his surprise, the woman smiled. “Don’t worry, Doc. I’d have nightmares if I had to deal with the Morgana myself.”

  He regarded her in silence, open-mouthed, then pressed his lips into a firm, straight line.

  “Yes, well,” he replied. “It’s not the nightmares of her hurting me that bother me, my dear. It’s the realization that, as smart as I am, she has touched the fabric of the cosmos and played with the energies from which it is woven.”

  He stopped and his gaze took on a momentarily faraway look as his assistant continued to stare at him. Finally, he sighed and shook his head.

  “That is the only way I can believe she had the very suggestions I needed to create that experiment. There simply isn’t any other way one so young could have discovered it. None.”

  Marcus crossed to his desk and looked at her again. “None at all.”