A week after the Horchka graduated boot camp, and a celebratory hip bruising from Ghorza that almost required another healing coma. A week... and several months after they'd started on this crazy plan.

Jerry looks at himself in his ready room mirror, checking his shave and uniform. It was a big day. Today had to go perfectly. There were a lot of compelling reasons for them to launch as quickly as possible, but Jerry had been determined to take his time. The ship had to be ready. The crew had to be ready, and now they were.

His freshly retailored dress whites fit him perfectly, and Jerry spins on a heel and marches out onto the bridge.

"Captain on the bridge!"

"Carry on! Comm! Open a channel to Admiral Cistern. On the main screen please."

Sharon jumps to comply with a sharp salute. The whole bridge crew was decked out in dress uniforms. As were a ceremonial detail of sailors and Marines outside of the ship. They couldn't quite man the rails like the old days when entering or leaving port, but they could make a good show of it when they left "dry dock" at the very least.

There's a brief pause, and Admiral Cistern's face comes into focus on the main screen.

Jerry snaps off a salute, which the Admiral returns.

"Sir, UCV Crimson Tear reporting space flight ready."

"Very good Captain, you have your orders, so I won't repeat them to you, there's a couple hot spot missions and we need the Tear and her crew."

"You have us sir. Request permission to launch?"

"Permission granted. Godspeed."

With that the communication ends. It was Jerry's show now.

"Comm, activate the 1MC and open a channel outside."

"Now hear this, now hear this! Stand by for orders from the Captain."

"This is Captain Bridger. All hands, man your stations. Sound General Quarters and secure to space flight ready. Cast off all lines and gantries. Dock crew, stand by for cradle separation."

The honor guard outside the ship hustles inside as fueling cables start to disconnect, gantries from small personnel access bridges to large cargo loading modules smoothly retracting. Finally, it's just the massive axiom gravity generators colloquially referred to as the cradle.

"Sir, all departments report space flight ready."

Maybe he was just imagining it but there seemed to be a bit of a spring in Sharon's step today. A bit of a glow. The little ring on her left hand didn't help him boldly attribute that glow to himself. Sharon had proved no less enthusiastic than any alien woman, and had made the aggressive move in helping Jerry break his refreshed body in, before anyone else could get a chance. To formalize their marriage the galactic way, she'd said.

They were still going to have a wedding at some point, if just to take photos to send back to her parents, but the deed was done, and the paperwork filed.

Thankfully Sharon’s promotion to Lieutenant Commander had been finalized, or calling for "Lieutenant Bridger" on the Tear's bridge with the command staff at their posts would have been a considerably more complex affair.

"Right. Comm, Dockyard control please. While I'm handling the formalities, get our clearance from Centris Space Flight Control. I want a clean path to one of the Lagrange points. Nav, get the helm a course from whatever Lagrange point they give us to take us out system to a good jump point. Our first stop is Vucsa 5, we have aid to deliver, equipment to pick up, and then we need to hustle out to Lakran. So let's move with a quickness people!"

A channel pops up on Jerry's command and control console of Dockmistress Nal'dyeta, a distinguished looking Guile Archana.

"Ma'am, request clearance to depart."

"Your accounts are fully settled, so granted with grace Captain Bridger, though we are sorry to see you go. Especially considering you're taking a hundred of my trained technicians, not that I'm complaining, getting those girls married to various young men in your command? Hell I might need to pay you a matchmaking fee by letting them so easily find gentlemen who like getting their hands dirty while up to the shoulder in various pieces of equipment. Hmph, I might just need to talk to your Admiral Cistern about bringing my entire facility over to the Undaunted formally."

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"I think the Admiral would be interested in that deal. You've been a fantastic hostess to both the Tear and the Dauntless."

"Something to consider. Until we meet again Captain Bridger."

The comm screen goes dark, and the great doors before the Tear slowly begin to yawn open.

"Helm, Engineering, anti grav. Maintain station keeping."

There's a mighty thrum as the Tear takes over maintaining her place in her cradle in the sky. The cradle system deactivating and retracting as the doors fully open.

"Captain, we have clearance from Centris Space Flight Control. Vectors should be on your screen and Helm's."

Jerry checked that the appropriate data was there. It had already been triple checked, but he was the skipper, it was his responsibility to check one more time and ensure everything was to his personal satisfaction.

"Course looks good. Helm, take us out, standard dock yard speed."

The young human lieutenant junior grade handling the helm of the massive ship cracks his knuckles. Kearny was a good kid, and had the right hands for maneuvering a beast the size of the Tear. Though where he'd picked up skills like that, Jerry couldn't imagine. He'd had training with appropriate alien instructors of course, but all the reports said that he'd come to them knowing what he was doing more or less, despite that not having been his specialty on the Dauntless.

Jerry sets the thought aside, and watches as the Tear starts to push through the clouds. Like a whale among minnows, small civil traffic is diverted around the massive vessel, gravity seemingly impotent to slap down it's mighty bulk as something that should not fly, propelled by axiom and technology as forces her way through the atmosphere and towards the void, where she had been born, and would live out her hopefully long centuries of service.

It made him think of his new command more broadly.

He had some five hundred and fifty officers and sailors in the ship's company. Another several hundred civilian staff in roles ranging from doctors and employees of Syl's cloning operation to civilian traders and restaurateurs who had bought contracts to operate facilities on the promenade to cater to ship's crew and any embarked passengers.

Then another seven hundred military personnel that consisted of the embarked Marines and their special operations brethren. The embarked gunship squadron commanded by Commander Sarkin, who was also doubling as the Commander, Air Group, or CAG for the ship, which brought another small collection of craft under his authority, including the cargo ship Old One Eye, on loan from the Bridger clan.

Then there was the team from the Test and Evaluation Command working on Undaunted power armor and training the instructor cadre for Undaunted power armored infantry. Finally there was the intelligence bag of weasels.

In the end, the embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit totaled some 1200 men and women.

They were even shipping with a further several hundred passengers already, some to reinforce and support Vucsa with their latest crisis and others serving as the second wave of relief forces for the beleaguered planet of Lakran... and they still had room to spare. More space than Jerry could rightly process at times, and the Tear was small for a Mass Conveyor pattern starship!

It was too much to deal with at times, but as the Tear's prow breaks through the atmosphere and the slight tremor of the artificial gravity cycling reaches his stomach Jerry can't help but feel the most childlike and wonderful sense of joy as he fights to keep the smile off his face.

He was a goddamn starship captain!

"Helm, increase speed, standard in system velocity. Sensors, full search pattern. Guns, if any space trash comes near us let's do our part as good citizens and test out the point defense lasers while we're at it. I don't want anything scuffing the paint."

Wichen grins like Jerry had just given her a decade of Christmas presents at once.

"Aye aye skipper. Warming up the point defense weapons."

The rest of the trip to the LaGrange point down spin of Centris is a quiet one. This was a critical phase of space flight and everyone was being as professional and strict as possible. Especially in one of the busiest systems in the galaxy like Centris, it was just begging for an accident. But finally they're clear of the planet's gravity and a lot of the smaller traffic.

Their fellow large interstellar spaceships are generally helmed by a calm, cautious lot, and give the Tear plenty of room to maneuver.

Jerry takes a moment to look out into the black and savor it. If only his eleven year old self could see him now.

"Prepare for lightspeed acceleration. All hands to lightspeed stations."

"Aye sir."

The shrill bosun's whistle sounds across the 1MC. "Now hear this; All hands to lightspeed stations. Stand by for imminent acceleration. Countdown clock started. T minus one minute."

Jerry leans back in his chair, hands automatically working his straps into place.

"Helm."

"Yes sir?"

"New course. Second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

Kearny beams back at him. "Aye aye, second star to the right, straight on till morning."

Jerry grins to himself as much as anyone. He had to do this. He had to.

"Let's see what's out there. Engage."

There’s a pulse of energy, as the Crimson Tear accelerates rapidly, then vanishes from the system in a flash of light, off into the great black.