“Does this mean you’re not rushing off to hyperspace?” Scottie asked.

Molly shook her head. “I’m staying. For now.”

Saunders pointed up. “Does this plan involve attacking those bastards up there?”

Molly nodded.

“This is gonna be like one of your crazy simulator stunts, isn’t it?” Saunders smiled and crossed his arms. “Well c’mon, let’s hear it.”

Molly held out her hands, trying to slow both of them down. The risk of revealing her hyperdrive to Saunders had won out in her mind—she couldn’t do it, so she needed a cover story of some sort.

“I have a few details I need to hammer out with these guys first,” she said, nodding to Cat and Scottie. She looked over her shoulder as Walter padded out into the cargo bay, his goggles down around his neck. “Besides, it’s already late, and it looks like you still need help distributing the food and water. Let’s tend to the Callites. I’ll talk to my friends later tonight, and we’ll meet with you in the morning.”

Saunders frowned. “I don’t like being left out of the discussion,” he said.

Molly stepped closer, wary of the crowd gathering around the ship, eyes and ears wide. “I know,” she said softly. She felt sorry for the Admiral, imagining how helpless he must feel with nothing to do for the paltry few survivors of his once-powerful fleet. He couldn’t even speak freely among his staff now that she’d told him of the Bern threat and the stark physical similarities between them and Humans.

“Look,” she told him, “I really need you to trust me on this.”

Saunders seemed about to argue, but his frown cracked into a wan smile, his fat jowls lifting just a little. He squeezed Molly’s shoulder and looked out over the two groups of haggard survivors in the clearing.

“I suppose I owe you a little trust,” Saunders said, referring perhaps to having doubted her before and having thrown her in jail. The old man turned back to face her, his eyes wet and reflecting Parsona’s interior lights. “And I’m glad you decided to stick around,” he said, forcing a smile.

Molly nodded and smiled back. She suddenly sensed just how much he meant it, this man who had once expelled her. And for the first time, her decision to stay resonated within her as having been the right choice.

••••

There was no sleep that night as Molly and her friends stayed up and discussed her germ of a plan for dealing with the Bern fleet. They huddled together around a campfire built under Parsona’s starboard wing and nurtured the idea, watching it sprout and grow as they each offered suggestions and pointed out various flaws. They spoke in hushed whispers, and even by the standards of Bekkie’s short days, dawn seemed to arrive in a rush.

Morning was heralded by the popping of rekindled fires within the woods as early risers awoke to stoke dying embers. Gradually, the first smattering of Humans and Callites emerged from their scattered camps; they crossed the clearing on weary legs, looking to Parsona for some odd supply item or just for the use of its bathrooms. Molly greeted them and made them feel welcome, even as Walter cast suspicious glances their way.

When one of the Navy crewmen exited Parsona with a load of fresh laundry, Molly asked if he would send for Saunders, and the crewman agreed.

“Are we sure we’ve got our story straight?” Molly asked. She rubbed her weary eyes and looked to her friends around the fire, each of them nodding with as much enthusiasm as they could muster despite their lack of sleep. Leaning forward, she grabbed a pot of coffee from a flat stone near the fire and topped up her mug. She hoped the jolt of caffeine would help her regain some energy before the day’s plan was spelled out and acted upon.

After a few minutes, Saunders arrived alone, his sagging jowls and dark-rimmed eyes signifying a similarly restless night. He lowered his considerable bulk to one of the blankets and eagerly accepted a cup of coffee, wrapping both meaty hands around the steaming mug. Cat said hello while Scottie greeted the old Navy veteran with the sheepishness of an outlaw waving to a passing sheriff. Walter didn’t even acknowledge Saunders’s arrival; the Palan boy sat across the fire from Molly, continually poking the logs with a stick to send out showers of rising embers.

“You ready to tell me about this plan of yours?” Saunders asked. He blew across the surface of his coffee, sending a wisp of heat toward the fire.

“Yeah.” Molly took a sip of her own coffee and thought about where best to start.

“And what is this plan for, exactly?” Saunders asked. “Will it help stop the Drenard attack? Or is it just for the bastards who shot down my fleet?”

Molly raised her eyebrows. “It’s for all of it. Hopefully.”

Saunders smiled. He took another loud sip from his coffee and waved one hand in a small circle, pleading for her to get on with it.

“My friends here,” she indicated Scottie and Cat. “They know something about these rifts, these tears in space like the one the Bern fleet is coming out of.”

Molly took another sip of coffee, steeling herself for the half-truths that were to follow. “These rifts are everywhere,” she lied. “There’s even one very close to us, right here in these woods, and my friends know how to control it.” Molly chose her words carefully, using the language she and the others had decided upon in order to not reveal the special properties of Parsona’s hyperdrive.

Saunders glanced across the fire at Cat and Scottie. He raised his eyebrows. “Control it?”

Molly nodded. “We can send people through this rift to wherever we like.”

“Wherever? You mean like through hyperspace?”

“Yeah. It’s similar, but without the limitations.” Molly felt a wave of nausea as the lies piled up. Creating a fairytale to keep her hyperdrive secret was going to become burdensome, and fast.

“The thing is, travelling through this rift is a one-way trip,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. She forced herself to meet Saunders’s gaze “We’ve got a plan for how we can make life miserable for the Bern.” She waved her arm toward the edge of the woods where the surviving members of Gloria’s crew were mingling and working to improve the encampment. “We have enough pilots,” she said. “We just need a fleet, right?”

Saunders shook his head, his jowls jiggling back and forth. “Are you crazy? Did you see what happened yesterday? This is not the Tchung we’re dealing with. An entire Naval fleet is scattered across this planet in utter ruin—” Saunders held his mouth open as if to say more, but Molly could see his cheeks twitching, the tears welling up at the bottoms of his eyes.

“I know, sir, just hear me out. The fleet I’m thinking of will give anything a run for its money. It’s the most battle-tested fleet of ships in the entire galaxy.”

Saunders frowned. “More powerful than Zebra, the most advanced fleet in the Navy’s arsenal?” He waved his mug in the air, sending a dark wave of coffee over the edge. “Such a fleet doesn’t exist!”

“It does at Darrin,” Molly said, keeping her cool. “It’s the one place in GN controlled space that even the Navy can’t go.”

Saunders laughed. He set his coffee in the dirt and wiped his palm on his too-small flightsuit. “Darrin? And what fleet do you suppose we’ll use to get that one? They would make even quicker work of us than the Bern did!”

Molly shook her head. “No, we don’t use a fleet. We use the rift. Don’t you see? We send people straight to the ships. We can place teams inside Darrin garages and nab a fleet right out from underneath them!”

Saunders chewed his lip. “Too many problems. For one, even my StarCarrier doesn’t have chart data for Darrin that accurate, so you’d be lucky to end up anywhere near one of their hideouts. I mean, nobody legit has been there since their civil war, and besides—”

“My nav computer has the entire system scanned from just a month ago,” Molly interrupted. She jabbed a thumb back toward Parsona.

Saunders shot her a look that suggested this wasn’t something to brag about.

“Then there’s the pilot codes to consider,” he said. “Nobody leaves their ships unlocked—”

“These guys do. They trust their forcefields way too much. I—well, I kinda flew one of their ships back to Earth the day that . . . you know, with Lucin—”

“Are you kidding?”

Molly raised her hands. “I swear on my father, I did these things with the best of intentions.”

Scottie leaned over to Cat and whispered loudly: “She sounds like one of us, now.”

The two of them snickered. Molly was so tired, she nearly joined them.

“We would need weapons,” Saunders said, ignoring the others. “The ban on Lok is going to make that difficult—”

“Covered, and it’ll actually be the most unpleasant part of our plan.”

Saunders reached again for his coffee. “Which is?”

“We raid the StarCarrier, sir. We send in a team with climbing gear to rappel down to the armory. You’ve got the access codes, and we need to grab enough flightsuits for the pilots, anyway. I’ll take a small group in my ship to do this while you brief and prepare the others. Some of them might not feel like they’re ready for this kind of raid, but we’re gonna need everyone. You’ll have to make them believe this’ll work.”

“But will it work?” Saunders looked into his mug, staring down at it like an oracle searching a muddy well. “Lok and Darrin are on opposite sides of the galaxy,” he whispered. “If this rift of yours can get them there like you say, it’s still, what, five days flight time to get them back?”

“Actually, sir, I think it can be done in three days. We plotted it out last night on our charts. It requires skirting the galactic center and quick-cycling the hyperdrives each time, but—”

“The hyperdrives will be toast if you quick-cycle them three jumps in a row,” Saunders said.

Molly nodded. “I agree, that’s why—”

“It’s gonna be a one-way trip in both directions, Admiral,” Cat said.

Saunders mulled this over. He looked out toward the edge of the clearing where his people and the Callites were making breakfast and consoling one another for their losses.

“Most of my people haven’t flown a real mission their entire careers,” he finally said. “I’ve got maybe twelve decent pilots over there.”

“Thirteen, including you,” Molly said. “And several of the Callites can fly. The rest will be needed for adequate crew on each ship, and to help during the raids on the Darrin asteroids. Besides, they should be more comfortable behind the stick by the time they get back here. We’ll have them drill some maneuvers on the way.”

Saunders shook his head. “I don’t know. And what’s all this you nonsense? You’re coming with us if we do this. We’ll need you most of all.”

Molly shook her head. “No can do. I’m gonna be busy while you guys are gone.”

“Doing what?” Saunders asked.

“Taking out that big ship,” Molly said, glancing up.

“That small moon up there?” Saunders’s eyes widened.

“Yeah. We think it’s what knocked you guys out of orbit.” Molly nodded to Scottie. “The Callite shuttles from Bekkie didn’t start going down until after it arrived. We think it can control gravity fields in a localized manner. We’ll need to destroy it before you guys come back from Darrin, otherwise you won’t stand a chance.”

“And how in the galaxy are you planning on taking it out with just your one ship?”

“Well—” Molly took another sip of her coffee. “After we send you guys out to Darrin, we’re gonna go back to the StarCarrier.”

“What for?”

“For all the Firehawk missiles my ship can hold.”

“And you’re going to fire them, how?” Saunders frowned. “Have you got any Firehawks I don’t know about?”

Molly shook her head. “We use the rifts,” she said, stretching the truth once again to protect Parsona’s hyperdrive. In reality, she didn’t plan on carrying the missiles out at all. Instead, they would send them up from within the StarCarrier, where she and her friends would be safe and out of sight.

Saunders crossed his arms. “And I suppose these rifts are going to arm them for you as well? Or do you have some magical ability to remotely detonate Navy missiles?”

Molly smiled. She looked across the fire and gave Walter a wink.

“We’ve got it covered,” she said. “And it’s probably best you don’t know.”

2 · Hyperspace

The ready room of the Drenard Headquarters buzzed with the accented whispers of a dozen alien races. They stood in five lines and prepared themselves for one final raid across hyperspace. Cole Mendonça stood amongst them, wearing the same sort of white combat suit as the others and nervously gripping his buckblade. He stared down at his feet, at the dull path worn into the steel beneath them, the sign of many thousands of boots shuffling forward on previous raids.

“Good luck,” someone behind him said.

Cole turned and nodded mutely to Larken, his group’s translator. Larken squeezed Cole’s shoulder, then patted it twice.

Cole glanced over at Mortimor, who had just given a last series of instructions to the five squads before joining the group lined up beside his.

“I didn’t know you were going,” Cole said.

“Ran out of people who speak Bern.” Mortimor nodded toward the row of hyperdrive platforms in front of them where the five pilots sat, their arms wrapped around their shins. “Now pay attention,” Mortimor said.