I dropped an alert to Card, letting her know I'd be in an accelerated VR time meeting. That done, I slipped myself into the archived space Guy, Quick and I had used before and began rearranging things. By the time my First joined me, I'd closed off everything except our crew lists, leaving easy access tabs to our other earlier work for later meetings.

"Captain." He announced his presence behind my shoulder. I'd heard his breathing, but I'd been mesmerized by the list in front of me. Six lines of text highlighted in red, another fourteen in yellow. After a few subjective minutes, he began reciting without any prompts from me.

"Weller. Improper armor fitting. He'd grown too much since his last update but didn't want to miss out on the mission. On firing he had catastrophic seal failure. Returned too late for recovery."

I nodded, slid the list up one notch. He continued.

"Oliver. Due to gain Senior standing. Interposed himself between some of the random fire from the Materner and the remainder of his unit. Unrecoverable."

"Valid Intercept?"

"Projections indicate his actions saved three of his squad mates from potentially lethal injury."

Another nod, "Valorous Service Medal, Posthumous, pending Imperial approval."

Quick continued his litany, "Gaines. Improper detection countermeasure integration. Hit by blue fire. Unrecoverable. West. Improper detection countermeasure integration. Hit by blue fire. Unrecoverable. Dalton. Improper detection countermeasure integration. Hit by blue fire. Unrecoverable. Orora. Overrode her armor safeties, opened her suit to vacuum. Unrecoverable."

"Orora was the one responsible for the misaligned integration?"

I felt him nod his response a moment before he spoke. "Yes, sir." Funny how here in virtual space I could read his body without looking, but in the real world I couldn't.

"Captain's mast. Half of each of her deceased squad mate's mandatory service years transferred to him upon reincarnation. Find me the names and duty stations of each of the next of kin. I'll write the letters."

"Sir. Seventy-two years added to Orora's mandatory service. Twenty-four removed from Gaines, West, and Dalton." If any condemnation touched his recitation, I couldn't detect it. I scanned the yellow names; each indicated an injury worthy of a stay in sick bay. None of them looked life threatening. With a wave I approved Guy's request for each of the invalids to have a keeper until they healed, then collapsed the data window and turned to my First.

"What else can I do, Quick. What did I do wrong?"

He blinked, and opened his mouth to speak, but remained silent. I watched as he processed my question before answering. "Nothing, sir. This would have been a textbook ambush, had any textbook been that ambitious. I'm sure they'll start including it in officer training if we get back to the fleet."

"When. Don't clutter my head, First. I need to know when I'm making mistakes. We're facing a huge portion of the 'Sect fleet. They've even drawn down their forces facing the Mech' and Vulg' for this. We don't have room for..."

"For human error, sir?"

"Not on my part, Quick."

He shook his head, eyes sweeping the floor. "Sir, if you made a mistake, I can't see it. You pulled off what should have been an impossible intercept and ambush, and you made it look easy."

"I should have been more precise about engaging a single ship or not."

"Sir, with all due respect, that level of micromanagement would have been an error. You had no way to know what the separation would be when we made contact. You're here to guide the ship and the crew, not pilot each and every suit of armor." His voice rose a little with every word, his vehemence growing as he hunched over like a bull about to charge. "Sir, you didn't make any mistakes."

I whipped open the window again, expanded those six names until they showed more data. Guardian. Next of Kin. Age. Biography highlights. Faces. I whirled on my First and by force of will bade him look me in the eye. "Then what about these six, First? Did they just not happen? I refuse to believe in fate. Someone is at fault, and on a ship the Captain is always responsible."

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"Orora was responsible for her squad's death, sir."

I waved my hand, sweeping those four away. Weller and Oliver stared out at me now, each quietly reciting their last recorded messages, stored in their files for identification of MIAs. "What about these two, First? How do I know I couldn't have done better, planned better?"

"Weller killed himself, sir. He should have stayed in. Half a dozen others did." He shrugged. "I did. Guy did. With misfit armor, his duty station should have been aboard."

"And Oliver?"

"Sir, even perfectly laid plans get messed up by the enemy. That's why they're the enemy." He recited the Senior Command Track motto back at me. My rage, properly directed inward, welled, and tried to spill out onto my First. I turned to face the Cadet I'd killed by not being smart enough, skilled enough, or experienced enough to be a proper Captain. I stared at the face of a real hero, memorizing every nuance of his look and sound. I read every line of his bio, downloading the words I missed when my eyes blurred. I filled myself with Oliver until he settled into my brain in a spot next to my mental images of Jodi and Wendy. Only when I reached out to touch either of them, I felt a living breathing mind. With him I felt only remnants, could-bes and might-have-beens. As I wallowed in my self-derision, the other five snuck in, stealing places by Oliver's side. I couldn't bring myself to oust them.

A wave of warmth just short of burning washed over me, comforting despite its intensity. I mentally shoved at my First before I realized he couldn't be the source of the emotion. Despite that, my mental probe shredded itself against his mind. I deserved the pain, didn't deserve the comfort. I lashed out at the only other telepath on board, a wave of pure loathing. Before I felt any response, Echidna interrupted my train of thought.

"Valorous Service Medal Approved."

Shock ripped away my own richly deserved self-hate as quickly as the unwanted comforting burn. "Fleet? Fleet contacted us!"

"No, sir." Echidna's confusion mirrored my own. "I queued it to routine traffic the moment you said it. The timestamp shows it came back... well, almost immediately. A few seconds ago, during your moment of silence for the fallen."

Was that what she thought that was? I couldn't bring myself to correct her. Instead, I appended the note to Oliver's file, tacked the award onto the tiny dormant ball of Oliver tucked into my head.

I might screw it up at every turn, but I wouldn't turn my back on my duties. I had no more time for mourning, or self-flagellation, or whatever I'd been doing. I spun on my heel to find my First so close my elbow almost brushed him. I glared until he took half a step back. Close enough to hear whispered words, but not quite inside my personal space.

"What's our power situation?"

Wrinkles etched the corners of his eyes as he frowned. "We're losing power somehow. I haven't managed to trace it down yet. I suspect..." He trailed off, then focused back on me. "I'm looking into it, but we've got enough power for two and a half jumps. That's ongoing, by the way; Echidna's generating enough power for a jump every hundred fifty minutes or so. We can't keep it up forever; we're using up vital life support supplies at an unsustainable rate. We'll need to find a terraformable planet in sixty hours or a planet with a terra compatible biosphere within two hundred."

I returned his frown with interest. I'd never aspired to planetary exploration. Still, needs must when the devil drives. If we needed a world to recoup our biomass, we needed a world. "Okay, Kid. Keep moving away from the 'Sect formation. Now that they know we'll eat them if they leave that Materner, we've got a speed advantage. Drop one layer of evasion and crank the speed up to seventy five percent. Find me the nearest ten stars with planetary masses. Let me know what reinforcements arrive for the 'Sects'."

"Don't you mean if reinforcements arrive?"

I turned up at my First. "No. They'll be arriving within an hour. I just don't know from where. When will we have everyone armored?"

He flinched so fast I almost didn't believe he had. Denied direct access to his emotions, the part of my brain responsible for telepathy fed me the subtle cues of his body language and expression. Guilt.

"Quick, if I'm not allowed to feel flaming guilty, I don't see why you are."

"I'm sorry sir. Are you sure we... are you sure? After?" He waved at the roster.

"More than ever, First. How long until you can put every single warm body on this ship into a suit of armor?"

"I can get ninety five percent of the crew buttoned up in eighteen hours if we stop jumping. It'll take longer if we keep moving. How much longer depends on how much power I can steal more than anything else."

"Not good enough, First. I said everyone, I meant everyone."

"Understood, Captain. I'm just laying out the numbers. Most of the remaining five percent I need six hours before I can begin construction. Those are the little ones; I'll need to set up expert systems for them, and that will take time."

"The VR space is yours if you need it."

"I... Thank you sir. I'll use it whenever it will help, but I still estimate six hours. Then there are half a dozen real special cases. Those I can't get you an estimate, but I'll get them done as soon as possible. Each of them is unique, and I'll need to address each individually once I've got time."

I nodded. Five or six tallied out to less than a percent. Less than a tenth of a percent, if only just. If I lost that many people...

Well, I already had lost that many. Twice as much guilt as I carried now wouldn't kill me.

I'd just wish it would.