I took the measure of everyone, and they looked surprisingly like they were ready for combat.

  Nobody is ever truly ready for combat. That was something I learned the hard way when I decided to step out of the CIC on my old ship because communications were down and I couldn't reach the Marine detachment.

  I still thought the combat I was in barely counted, for all that I made contact with the enemy in a major way. It’s not like I had boots on the ground on some ball of mud we were trying to liberate from the locals in the name of larger profit margins for our overlords back home.

  And now I was on a ship that didn't even have a Marine detachment to take care of the livisk as they did their thing.

  Maybe it was that they knew they had no choice. It was either fight or go to the mines, and if there was one thing I knew about your standard issue CCF starfarer, it was that they didn't yearn for the mines.

  "Anything else you can think to do?" I asked Rachel. “Or are we down to directing troops from behind a blast door?”

  There were gentle tapping sounds and the beep of the Tactical console as Smith continued to do her thing. Olsen continued to be useless at the comms station, not doing a damn thing to try and break through their interference. Though, in all fairness to him and his ineffectiveness, I was pretty sure there wasn't anything we’d be able to do even if we had an effective officer at that console.

  "Not that I can think of," Rachel said with a shrug. "Unless you want to activate communications again and have a chat with your friend."

  "My friend?" I said, grinding my teeth.

  I wasn't sure if she was saying that because she knew this was the livisk we'd run into the last time around, or if she was saying that because of the terse conversation we'd just had back in my quarters.

  "What do you mean, friend?" Olsen said, suddenly finding his voice and latching onto the absolute last thing I wanted him latching onto.

  I looked over at him and then to John. John was still hitting me with a look that said he knew there was something going on here. That he realized there was more than met the eye. Well, more than our ship getting attacked by a livisk who'd come all the way to earth to go hunting for me in particular.

  I sighed. I suppose this was going to come out at some point. Why not in front of an asshole who had it in for me in addition to having a direct line to the CEO?

  "I have reason to believe that livisk is the same one I ran into when I almost lost my last ship," I said. "There's something personal going on between us."

  Olsen's eyes went wide, and then he threw his head back and started to laugh.

  "I fail to see what's so amusing about this, Mr. Olsen," Rachel said.

  "You're one of them," he said, shaking his head. "I've been trying to figure out what you're doing here. You're too much of a stickler to be someone who gets thrown out here to wait for retirement, not this young, but it's because you're a head case, aren't you?"

  "Mr. Olsen, you will maintain decorum in the CIC," I said, grinding my teeth even more.

  "You're a fucking head case," he shouted, pointing a finger at me and laughing hysterically.

  Okay. The pressure was clearly getting to him. It was clearly too much, but I also didn't need him airing my dirty laundry because he was losing it and devolving into hysterics.

  No wonder he'd been sent out here where he didn't have to ever worry about actually being called on to do something. This kid was more than useless. He was falling apart at the first hint of adversity.

  The rest of the crew, including Red Team who was supposed to be running things during Red Shift, were hitting me with looks.

  I took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. This was hardly the ideal way for this to come out into the open, but it also wasn't the kind of thing where I could choose when it was happening. Not when somebody else had clearly decided to choose the moment for me.

  Or when I’d accidentally made the moment a thing by reacting wrong to Rachel’s question that she probably asked under the pressure of the moment.

  "It's true," I said. “I’ve had... Well, that livisk has been lurking in the back of my head. I didn't think she was going to come looking for me, though. I just ignored it.”

  "This would be the first time that one of them has come to look for a human, as far as I know," John said.

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  "Yeah, the driver over there is right," Olsen said, wiping a tear from his eye. "There are head cases all over the place, but usually they either off themselves because they killed their precious blue sparkly, or they steal a shuttle or something and go off into the great unknown. Which is about the same as deciding to off yourself, but you’re doing it the slow way. Just my fucking luck I wind up on a ship where you drew your blue sparkly right to you rather than having the good grace to kill yourself before all this started."

  "Mr. Olsen," Rachel said, and her voice cut through the tension in the CIC like a knife. He turned and hit her with a glare.

  "I'm sorry, what the fuck are you going to do?" he said, shaking his head. "Are you going to write me up or something? I'm sure the taskmasters and overseers in the reclamation mines we get tossed into are going to really give a fuck about you giving me a negative performance review."

  "Mr. Olsen, you will pull yourself together," Rachel said.

  "Why?" he said, gesturing to me. "So he can betray us all to the livisk all over again? You know that's what some of the head cases do? Usually it's somebody turning on their squad when they're in the middle of a firefight. This would be the first time we've lost an entire goddamn ship because one of the head cases decided to go all in with the blue sparkly living in their head.”

  "How do you know so much about this?" I asked, my voice quiet.

  That seemed to get his attention. I'm not sure why he suddenly clammed up and turned to stare at me. It wasn't a pleasant stare. Then again, nobody in the CIC was giving me a pleasant stare right about now.

  "Why the fuck do you think I know so much about this?" he asked, turning his glare on me. "I hear about this kind of shit happening through the grapevine at family stuff.”

  I winced like he’d hit me with a physical blow. Right. He had connections. I guess I hadn’t thought of that because I was so worried about everything else happening. I never thought the information flow would go both ways.

  “Damn it all. I was supposed to come out here and make a little bit of money on the market. Enough that he wouldn't be pissed off about the money I lost. Enough that I could finally go back to earth and actually live in the lifestyle I…”

  Olsen stopped and shook his head again. He glared at me like he thought it was somehow my fault he was suddenly bearing his soul to everyone.

  "You know what? Fuck this," he said, standing up and walking over to the door. It slid open and he walked out. Just like that, Olsen was gone.

  I turned to Sanders, who was part of Red Team.

  "Sanders, I probably should've relieved him of his station at least a half hour ago, but would you please do the honors?"

  Sanders hesitated. Her eyes darted to Rachel, and I was pretty sure I knew why her eyes were darting to Rachel.

  If I really was under influence of an enemy captain, then it would be standard protocol for them to relieve me of my position before continuing the engagement.

  I looked around the CIC again and my voice held a challenge to it this time around. I could still do the job, damn it. She wasn’t in my head calling the shots.

  She was just coming here because she was looking for me. Shatner’s girdle.

  "Is there anybody here who thinks that I'm incapable of carrying out my duties as captain?"

  Nobody said anything. I looked over to John, who'd been hitting me with significant looks this entire time. Because he knew what was going on the entire time, of course.

  "Good," I said. "I can assure all of you that I'm not going to do anything to betray us to this livisk. She might’ve come here because she was looking for me, but that's not my fault. I had no idea any of that was going to happen."

  Again, there was silence.

  "We're with you, Captain," Smith finally said, hitting me with a grin.

  "Thank you, Smith."

  "No need to thank me, sir. And if it does turn out you're under the influence of that blue sparkly on that ship over there, I'll be more than happy to show you just how good I am with regular weapons in addition to how good I am with ship-to-ship stuff.”

  She patted the pulse rifle sitting next to her on the tactical console fondly. I had no doubt she’d be able to use that thing just as effectively as she was able to fire phasers.

  Even though we didn't actually have phasers to fire. It was an old crew joke I couldn't get out of my head, just like I suddenly got the feeling I wouldn't be able to get the large caliber anti-livisk rounds she had loaded in that weapon out of my head if it did turn out I was on the verge of betraying the crew.

  No pressure.

  The lights flickered around the CIC. I looked up and around, willing them to stay on. Then I looked over to the holoblock and willed that venting to stop.

  Already the ship was starting to spin out of control. I could see from the way it moved in the block even though I couldn't feel it. Gravity was still pointing down from our perspective here in the ship.

  I really hoped we didn't lose power to the point we went to zero gravity. Partly because it was always a pain in the ass to lose gravity, but mostly because it seemed like the crew was going to have a hard enough time with combat without that combat being zero-G.

  "Come on, baby," I said, patting my chair. "You need to stay operational for just a little while longer.”.

  There was another bloom from the livisk ship. Not quite as intense as earlier, but it was definitely there.

  "What was that, Smith?" I asked.

  “I got off a lucky shot, sir," she said.

  "A lucky shot?" I said, arching my eyebrow.

  "Maybe that was a little bit of false modesty," she said. “Point is, I manage to sneak in a torpedo with a missile salvo where they weren’t expecting it. Their countermeasures were so busy tracking the missile cloud they didn’t notice the torpedo flying right in the middle.”

  "Under the circumstances, I'll take it," I said.

  If ever there was going to be a part of this ship that seemed to be operating mostly like it was supposed to be operating in a combat scenario, I was happy it was tactical and weapons.

  That happy moment only lasted for the space of a breath though. There was another flicker, and the lights went out. Replaced by the auxiliary lighting. Which was more of a twilight color to save power than the bright lighting I was used to from the mains.

  "I have ships moving out from the livisk cruiser," Smith said.

  And sure enough, right there on the holoblock was a sight I’d hoped I'd never have to see again, for all that I’d been pretty sure I was about to see it again when they started targeting our engines rather than trying to kill us outright.

  Small livisk boarding ships moving out from the big one and descending on our own.