"Do you think they're going to be annoyed?" Connors asked.

  "Why would they be annoyed?" I asked, turning to arch an eyebrow at her.

  "Because we got our orders to report immediately a few hours ago," she said with a shrug. "Maybe the people on this ship are sticklers for regulations and wondering where we are."

  I turned and looked at the picket ship. The shuttle shuddered just a bit as the docking clamps reached out and grabbed onto the side. Then there was another bump followed by a hum transmitted through the hull as the docking corridor moved out from the ship and attached to the shuttle.

  That wasn't the kind of thing we could actually hear through the vacuum of space, of course, but the instant it attached to the ship we could hear all of the hums and clanks and vibrations as they were pushed through the hull around us.

  "Something tells me the people working on a picket ship that has the auspicious duty of scouting the dangerous space in the Oort cloud this close to Earth aren't going to be the kind of people who are sticklers for their commanding officers arriving precisely on time."

  “Good point," Connors said with a sigh. "This is going to be difficult, isn't it?"

  "We’re going to have a whole hell of a lot of fun," I said.

  "You're bullshitting me, right?" she said.

  "What's not fun about cataloging a bunch of rock and ice and other space debris that didn't quite turn into a planet back when the solar system disc was forming into interesting stuff?"

  "I get it, you're being sarcastic," she said, rubbing at her forehead. "You'll forgive me, but I'm having a little bit of trouble picking up on sarcasm right now. I've got one hell of a headache."

  I hit her with a look and she flipped me the bird. Which wasn't the kind of thing a subordinate should be doing to her captain, but I'd known Connors long enough that I knew it was meant in good fun. At least that's the way I decided to take it.

  "I know. You told me not to drink so much," she said. "Sorry for disobeying orders, Captain."

  "As long as you're apologetic," I said with a shrug and a grin.

  There was a slight hiss. A light on the door leading out turned green. I let it sit for a minute though.

  I'd heard horror stories of that light turning green and people opening the door, only to discover the pressure hadn’t quite equalized yet. Which wasn't exactly dangerous, not unless there was a hole in the docking corridor between ship and shuttle, but it could lead to air getting sucked out of your lungs.

  There were rumors of poor bastards actually getting their lungs sucked out. I was pretty sure that was an urban legend meant to terrify people into waiting until the goddamn docking corridor had been properly docked and the pressure equalized on both sides. It was also enough to scare me into not opening the door to the goddamn docking corridor until I was sure all the connections were secure and pressure had been equalized on both sides.

  "Here we go," I said, turning and hitting Connors with a grin. "Always fun meeting a new crew for the first time."

  "For certain definitions of fun," she muttered.

  Still, she stood a little taller. Her shoulders squared away and the look of pain from the headache that was no doubt pounding through her forehead, a headache that was going to last until she could get to some painkillers when we were onboard and past all the formalities, disappeared.

  Connors could be a good actress. She could play the part of the good XO even if we were going aboard a ship where the idea of a good XO who actually did their job was a foreign one.

  We stepped through the docking corridor. There was translucent material all around us that looked sort of like plastic. Though I knew it was a polymer that would stand up to a blast from my sidearm. Still, it looked like the kind of thing I’d put up when I was painting a room back at my old house growing up. Not the kind of thing that could keep me from the death waiting in the cold vacuum of space.

  At least the stars were dazzling. They always were out in space. I felt a moment of longing for those stars, of wishing I could go out and travel among them again. Maybe even a wish that I could go out and mix it up with the livisk again, though I wasn't so sure I wanted to get on that horse again so soon after it’d bucked me.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  The door opened on the ship. The stencil above the opening identified the ship as the Early Alert 72. Which wasn't exactly an auspicious name for a ship. The fleet pumped these things out at the yards over Mars and called it a day. No need to bother with coming up with fancy names for something that was meant to die gloriously providing an early warning to the rest of the fleet.

  Not that anybody needed to provide an early warning here. Any aliens willing to come to the hostile system looking for a fight was mad and probably had a death wish. The whole fleet would be on them within a half hour of word getting out from the picket ship.

  I shook my head and stood a little straighter. I made sure to square my shoulders away a little while I took in a deep breath and puffed out my chest. Maybe I sucked in my gut a little bit.

  Not by much. I tried to stay in shape. After all, I was going to have to go on a new workout regimen after that fight with the livisk.

  I had no illusions about being able to actually take on a livisk in one-on-one combat without power armor. I had no illusions about the probability of me running into a livisk this close to Earth space for that matter.

  Still, my recent combat experience had me wanting to bulk up a little. Maybe work a little more on some of that one-on-one fighting ability.

  It was a pity a picket ship didn't have even a Marine squad, but there’d be a couple onboard to make the rest of the crew feel better about the possibility of getting boarded and suddenly finding themselves facing a dynamic and engaging real-time combat event of their own.

  The doors hissed open in front of us. There was a little whistle from the bosun letting everybody know that we were on board. Or rather it was a whistle played by the computer, because there wasn't so much as a greeting party waiting to welcome us.

  “This is a promising beginning," I muttered.

  "Tell me about it," Connors said, looking all around.

  There was a panel right in front of me.

  “Alert. Please place hand on panel to finalize biometric handover of command codes.”

  I looked at Connors and then back to the panel. I looked up and down the corridor, half expecting to see somebody coming running at the last minute because they realized they'd totally forgotten we were coming aboard.

  I could forgive them to a certain degree. We were supposed to be here a couple of hours ago. That was as much my fault as anything.

  Still, on every other ship I’d ever served on the crew would've been waiting for us. People waited for the captain. The captain didn't wait for the rest of the crew.

  "What the hell?" I said with a shrug, stepping forward and putting my hand against the biometric plate.

  “Recognized. Captain Bill Stewart of the Combined Corporate Fleets, formerly captain in the Terran Space Navy. Welcome aboard, Captain."

  I turned to Connors, who did the same, placing her hand against the panel and getting the same speech from the ship.

  A moment later the two of us were staring at each other again, and then looking at the nothing around us.

  "I guess that's it," Connors said with a shrug.

  "72," I said, feeling odd calling the ship by a numerical designation rather than the name that was proper for a ship. "Can you tell us where the rest of the command crew is?"

  "The command crew is in the CIC at the middle of the ship," the ship informed us.

  "And why weren't they here to greet us?"

  "There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer," the ship said.

  "Damn it," I said, shaking my head.

  If the ship was talking like that then it meant somebody on the ship decided they didn't want the computer to know too much about their business. I exchanged a glance with Connors. That wasn't a good sign.

  "So should we go to our quarters first, or should we go to the CIC and see what there is to see?" I asked.

  "I'm interested in going to the CIC and having a look around, honestly," Connors said, grinning at me.

  I smiled at her, but it was more of a grimace than an actual smile.

  "I'm almost afraid of what we're going to discover."

  “No time like the present," Connors said. “Keep in mind the people on this ship probably aren't used to the kind of strict discipline we’re used to on a cruiser in the CCF."

  I snorted and barely managed to keep from laughing.

  "Yeah, I suppose that's a good thing to keep in mind," I said. "Wouldn't want them to think I'm too much of a hard ass."

  "Exactly," she said, grinning at me.

  We made our way down the corridors. The panels on the side walls helpfully lit up to show us which direction we needed to go. Which was fine by me. I wasn't familiar with the layout of a picket ship. Eventually we reached a big set of blast doors that told us the CIC was on the other side.

  "Well, at least they have some hardware to prevent boarders from getting into the CIC," I said.

  "Thinking about where we're going to be hanging out the next time the ship gets boarded?" Connors asked, grinning at me.

  And for the first time since this whole business had started with the alert that there was a livisk fleet waiting for us when our fleet dropped out of foldspace, she looked like she was genuinely amused. Sure that amusement was coming at my expense, but she wasn’t glaring at me.

  "Very funny," I said, shaking my head and chuckling.

  "I thought it was a good joke," she said.

  "I don't think we have to worry about getting boarded out here in earth space," I said. "Any livisk cruiser who comes through here has a death wish."

  "You never know," she said with a shrug. "We might run into somebody who was dishonored and they're looking to die for the glory of their empress."

  Her face lit up. I knew where she was going with that, even before she had a chance to give voice to the thoughts running through her head.

  "Don't."

  "Who knows? We might even run into your blue girlfriend out there. She certainly seems like the kind of person who’ll need to die for the glory of the empress to restore her honor."

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and the livisk was right there looking at me. One corner of her mouth was quirked up like she could hear what Connors said, and she thought that was pretty damn funny.

  I opened my eyes and heaved a sigh.

  "Come on," I said, dreading what we had to do. "Let's go in and get a look at our new crew."