“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”

  - Carl Sagan

  Luca sank into his new command chair and let out a long breath, the weight of exhaustion settling on him. His eyes drifted to the main chronometer on the viewscreen. The numbers glowed a soft amber: 07:32 AM. Five hours. They'd been running on pure adrenaline for five straight hours, and he hadn't even brushed his teeth yet.

  The leatherette cushioning was firm but comfortable; best of all, it swiveled. His body ached like hell, but for a second, as he looked out over the bridge, he felt like a real captain. The ship was quiet for the first time since the launch, the frantic shouting replaced by the low hum of stable systems and the soft tapping of keys.

  Ahead of him, Emily sat at her own chair by her workstation, legs crossed under her, one hand resting on the power console. She looked impossibly put together while he was falling apart.

  Fighting the urge to bolt back to Engineering, he reminded himself that Ryan and Chris had it handled. Zoe and Danny were keeping an eye on things. Chris, volatile as he was, had already proven himself.

  Still. He hated not being there. Not seeing it. Not fixing it with his own hands.

  Dad had told him his place was here. Command. The bridge.

  Zoe stepped onto the bridge, mask tucked under one arm, the scent of coolant and sweat still clinging to her from Engineering. "Startup's ready. All diagnostics are green. Main thrusters are prepped for ignition."

  Zoe tossed the mask into a chair and flopped down. “We made a flying toaster. But it flies.”

  "Good," Luca said, rolling the chair left, then right. "Still the best chair on the ship."

  Without looking up, Emily snorted. "Glad you're comfortable while we risk cooking ourselves."

  Luca chose to ignore her for the moment and pressed the intercom. "Engineering, this is the bridge. How's the situation down there?"

  Ryan's voice came through, slightly staticky but loud, as if he was trying to prove a point. "Ignition circuits are primed. Fuel pressure is optimal. Magnetic containment is solid. We're green across the board."

  "Power coupling stable," Danny added. "No surges. No fluctuations. You’ve got clean delivery all the way through the new transformer."

  Chris didn't skip a beat, immediately cutting in with his own assessment, barely suppressing his own competitive fire. "Emergency failsafes are armed and ready. If we lose main power, life support transfers to backup fusion."

  Luca looked over at Emily. She nodded once. "Power matrix is stabilized. All buses are online and responding normally."

  He took a breath, patting his armrest. "Alright, baby, let’s show 'em how we can actually fly."

  Zoe stepped up to the controls, fingers poised. "Initiating pre-ignition sequence. Fuel flow starting… now."

  The ship began to hum beneath them, a deep vibration that ran up through the deck and into his bones. The hull groaned softly as systems spooled up, like the ship was waking from a long sleep.

  "Containment is holding," Ryan called. "Plasma temperature’s rising... approaching ignition threshold."

  Emergency lights flickered, then steadied as power rerouted to support the draw. Emily’s display lit up in green and amber, all within acceptable range.

  The hum deepened, becoming a growl that he felt more than heard. Lighting flickered and then stabilized as the power systems adjusted to the massive draw of the thruster startup sequence.

  "Luca," Emily said quietly, "I'm picking up engine signatures."

  Luca felt ice form in his stomach. "How far?"

  "Hard to tell with all the asteroid interference, but..." Emily's face went pale. "Maybe ten minutes out. Closing fast."

  The proximity alarm started wailing a few moments later, confirming what they already knew. Two contacts, stern approach, IFF signatures marking them as UER military shuttles.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Fuck,” Luca breathed, staring at the display. They’d found them. Somehow, the bastards had tracked them through the asteroid field and caught up while they were dealing with all the bullshit.

  “They’re gaining on us,” Emily reported, her voice tight with tension. Her green eyes met Luca’s across the bridge, and he could see the fear there, carefully controlled but definitely present.

  They were gaining fast. What was their play? Boarding action? A demand to surrender? Whatever the UER protocol was, it wouldn't end with a slap on the wrist.

  “Weapons?” Luca asked.

  “What? No!” Chris said from his own tactical station. “The Triumph was built for exploration, not combat.” Right, Luca knew that.

  The small UER shuttles were closing fast. They’d be armed in there too, all armored and energy weapons, while all their equipment was God-knows-where in storage.

  Luca stared at the tactical display, watching the two red dots creep closer. Standard pursuit pattern. No deviations. They were committed to the intercept course.

  Predictable. And stupid. His hands moved to the controls, mind already calculating angles and burn rates. Four years fighting portal breaches had taught him one thing: hesitation got people killed. The UER soldiers were closing fast, and they had no idea what they were flying into.

  Unless...

  “Zoe,” Luca said, his voice dry. “Full burn on the thrusters. We need to get away from them. Now!”

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes wide with surprise. “Luca, we’re still in the asteroid field. Full burn could...”

  “Could what? Get us killed?” He wanted to laugh, he really did. “At least this way we go out trying.”

  The proximity alarm kept wailing, and the red dots kept getting closer. Four minutes had become three, and counting down fast.

  The engines roared to life behind them, their shield’s inertia-dampener struggling. The deck plates beneath Luca’s feet vibrated so hard he could feel his teeth rattling as the whole ship lurched forward with enough force to slam him into the nearest console. The fusion reactor was pouring everything it had into the thruster systems, and the result was absolutely terrifying.

  Through the rear viewport, Luca watched plasma erupt from their thruster ports in brilliant white streams that turned the space behind them into a miniature sun. The superheated exhaust stretched out like liquid fire, beautiful and deadly in the vacuum of space.

  And the first UER shuttle flew straight into it.

  Luca watched in slow-motion as the smaller vessel, probably moving at full burn to intercept them, had no time to change course. The pilot must have seen the plasma wall coming, must have known what was about to happen, but physics doesn’t give a shit about what you want. The shuttle hit their thruster wake at full speed.

  “Idiots,” Zoe murmured, her eyes fixed on the screen.

  “Holy fuck,” Ryan breathed from somewhere behind Luca, his voice barely audible over the engine noise.

  The second shuttle must have tried to veer away, its pilot should have understood what had happened to his wingman. But their thruster wake was massive, a cone of superheated death that stretched out behind them, and he was too close, moving too fast.

  Luca wanted to scream at them to turn away, to brake, to do something, anything. But there was no time, no way to warn them, no way to take back what he’d just done.

  The second shuttle clipped the edge of their plasma exhaust and simply ceased to exist. There one moment and gone the next.

  The bridge fell silent except for the deep hum of their engines. The tactical display showed empty space where moments before there had been two small shuttlecraft with crews and mission orders and people who would never make it home.

  Luca watched the empty space where the shuttles had been, his jaw tight. Four years of portal breaches had shown him what death looked like: messy, sudden, and usually preventable. People made stupid calls and paid for them. He'd watched civilians, soldiers, even delvers get torn apart because they ignored the warnings, pushed too hard, or froze at the wrong moment.

  These UER idiots had done the same thing. Pushed their intercept too hard, didn't account for his thruster wash, paid the price.

  "Waste," he muttered, turning away from the viewport. His hands were steady as he gripped the console. Should've backed off. Should've known better.

  "They were gonna kill us," Ryan said, matter-of-factly. "You just beat 'em to it."

  Luca nodded once. "Yeah."

  The pattern was sickeningly familiar. Greed. Stupidity. He’d seen it end the same way on Mars, Europa, and the Moon. Someone always wanted what they couldn't have, and people died for it.

  Greed. Jealousy. It was always the same.

  These UER troops were just pawns, sacrificed by someone who wanted the FTL drive. Someone willing to kill his crew for it, just as politicians had let his mother die for their own gains. Same pattern. Different bodies.

  "They came for us," he said flatly. "They came for my crew."

  The viewport still showed that glowing plasma cloud. He didn't see murder. He saw another set of bodies added to a list that was already too long, people who'd died because someone else got greedy.

  Mom was dead. Had been for years. She'd died because people who should have protected Sandworth chose politics over lives during the portal breaches. And now someone was willing to kill his crew for an FTL drive.

  Same pattern. Different bodies.

  Emily appeared at his side, her hand finding his shoulder. “Luca--”

  "No." He turned to face her, and she must have seen something in his expression because she stopped mid-sentence. "They would have boarded us and taken the ship. Taken us. Probably killed us all, just like they've been trying to kill my family for years."

  Emily studied his face, those green eyes searching for something. "Good," she said simply.

  When she pulled him against her, wrapping her arms around him, he could feel her strength and her support.

  “I didn’t want to kill anyone,” he said, because he needed someone to hear it.

  “You didn’t choose to kill them. You chose to protect us.”

  He exhaled, long and slow.

  He didn’t feel noble or heroic or damned.

  He just felt… tired.

  https://discord.gg/JkDC3CJupC