She offered him a swig of whisky.

“Thanks, but I’m on duty,” he said before taking it and drinking, anyway. She laughed at the audacity. “I just got a heads up that there was a non-authorised entrance attempt. I wanted to see what you were up to so I buzzed you in,” he told her with a smile.

“It turns out you’ve had my ship all along,” said Grace.

Chase frowned. “No, this shuttle is registered to Mr Dryden.”

“Yes, you would say that,” said Grace, who had thoroughly explained their history. “It’s actually a hire vessel from a rental company out of Anemoi III. I’d say they’d be able to verify it, but what I’ll tell you is it’s about six weeks overdue, which I’m not sure would help my case.”

“And you think honesty will?” said Chase.

Grace’s face dropped in a moment of panic. “No, probably not,” she admitted, then laughed. “Considering you were happy enough to take the translator and give it to the Navy with no form of compensation—probably the most important archaeological discovery in, and not to exaggerate things, all human history—I would say one auxiliary craft that isn’t even on your roster is more than adequate.”

“So, Grace, were it up to me, I would, of course, agree with you,” he replied. “But that’s not really how things work.”

Grace smiled. “Historically, during times of war, such records become difficult to keep track of. The shuttle could easily be lost during a battle?”

“That might well have been true in the past,” said Chase, “but we can record such things automatically now.”

“But I’m not sure that was true for the Trafalgar two hundred and fifty years ago,” said Grace with a smile.

“Actually,” he replied with a wink. “According to the logs, this ship was lost in the battle over Hemera,” he said,

“That’s great,” she said. Only problem is that the ship doesn’t fly,” she said sadly.

“Of course it does,” said Chase. He held up a small fob on a lanyard. “It just needs the authorised crew member on board.”

Grace held out her hand as he offered it to her.

“Is it like the captain’s fob on the Trafalgar?” she asked as she stood up and walked towards the shuttle.

“Essentially,” said Chase. “It’s to let the computer know that the owner is on board and that systems are authorised to activate.”

“So, this belongs to Dryden?” she said sceptically.

Chase grinned. “It used to. However, records from the Anemoi III shipping hire company showed the ship is leased to one Grace Dakota, who currently owes twenty thousand credits on its overdue return.”

“Oh.” Said Grace meekly.

“So since Dryden had the fob, I updated their records to show he was the one who had hired their shuttle.”

“You did?!,” she said without hesitation, grabbing the bottle and the pile of clothes and taking them back on board. He stepped in with her.

“Where are you going to go now?” he asked.

She pointed at the closed hangar door through the forward screen.

“Out there,” she said, slightly too dramatically. “Set my compass to north and see where it takes me.”

Chase smiled. “Grace, we’re in deep space. North is meaningless.”

She turned and looked at him with a wild grin. “Exactly,” she said and laughed. “I’m sure you have fun in the Navy, Commander, but wouldn’t you like to know that kind of freedom one day?”

“I would like to be captain one day,” he said. “Trafalgar has been assigned to Harding. Turns out she was a reserve. She’s been given a field commission and will be in command from here on out.”

Grace looked crestfallen. “But you did all that work. You found the ship, got it working, defeated those ships…”

Chase nodded. “Yes, I did, but orders are orders.”

“Come with me,” she said. “Life doesn’t have to be like that. Just because it’s heartless and cruel and unfair out there doesn’t mean you have to put up with it at home.”

“I’m needed right now,” he said. “I’m the only one who’s ever defeated one of their ships. I’m the only one who has flown the Trafalgar in battle. I can’t just walk away from that.”

“You can,” said Grace reassuringly, “but you won’t.”

“Are you heading back to the cluster?” said Chase.

“Not the central planets,” said Grace. “I spent enough time there. Academia doesn’t do it for me anymore.”

“You know,” said Chase, “I wanted to thank you.”

Grace looked at him. “Thank me?” she asked.

“For saving the world,” he said.

Grace looked at him like he was an idiot.

“That world burned, Chase,” she told him without humour.

“True,” he conceded, “but if you hadn’t stayed and found that translator, we wouldn’t know why they were claiming Hemera, and we wouldn’t have known that there was a way to reason with them.”

“They’re beyond reason. You saw that. You offered them more than they wanted, and they still killed all those people…”

“They didn’t give us a chance,” said Chase. “But they must have a morality. Of course, it’s not what you and I would agree on, but we know they have their own way of rationalising things, and I have to believe that somehow we can end this peacefully.”

Grace tried not to look at him unsympathetically, but she thought he was an idiot. They had gone out of their way to demonstrate their unwillingness to concede anything. Even so, she admired his desire to find a peaceful solution, however misguided.

“You’ve got to try,” was all she said, “but don’t let your defences down for a moment.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Or at least I’ll endeavour not to, but we’ve got to at some point. It’s the only way you can ever really achieve peace.”

Grace shrugged. “They’re coming for us, and you are our only line of defence. The moment you get a chance, take the bastards out.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” he said. “But if there’s a way to make them see reason, I will push for it.”

“I know you will.”

“What will you do next?” he asked.

“I haven’t decided,” she said honestly. “I’m still trying to make sense of it all. So much has happened. When I last left home, no one had ever heard of alien life. Now we have dig sites on three different planets. I’m going to put myself in the centre of it,” she said.

He grinned. “You’ll be good at that, Grace Dakota, and if you ever want to come back, we could always use you.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, but the whole saluting thing isn’t really my scene.”

“We don’t salute,” Chase scoffed.

“You salute. I saw you salute that admiral,” said Grace.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The fanfare when they had been welcomed back had been ridiculous, in her opinion. The entire crew was paraded through the shipyard like heroes. She felt sad again.

“What’s up?” Chase asked.

“I just...” Grace started. “I just find myself wondering what good I did. Sure, I found one device. We may have met God,” she added.

“Whoever he was, he was not God,” Chase clarified, and Grace nodded in agreement.

“But what was any of it worth? We didn’t make a difference.”

“The Grace I met in the Trafalgar’s engine room three weeks ago wouldn’t be asking herself these questions,” Chase said, looking her in the eye.

Damn it, he was right as well. She wouldn’t.

“Of course she would,” she said defensively.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Chase. “And besides, you’re going to discover even more things at these other dig sites, aren’t you?” he added. “Who knows where that will lead?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I might find even more for you to use.”

“You’d better.”

They stood up, and they walked towards the cockpit. She climbed in and placed the fob on a hook. Suddenly, more lights came on, and the engines kicked into warm-up mode.

“It worked!” Grace smiled broadly.

“You should have enough fuel to get yourself wherever you’re going. We filled her up when Dryden docked.”

“The fact he was robbing shipwrecks didn’t get him in trouble?” Grace asked.

It was Chase’s turn to laugh. “I guess you hadn’t noticed—our team are kind of the screw-ups of the fleet.

“Dryden had been busted six months ago for trying something similar on Lusitania. He got demoted in rank and sent out to the engineers. Harding has been keeping an eye on him. That’s why he had you do the legwork on the Nomadic.”

Grace felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. He’d let her think it had been her idea all along, but she’d just been used from the start.

“Don’t feel bad,” said Chase. “You’ve come out of this on top. You were still the first historian to set foot aboard the battleship Trafalgar.”

As the shuttle cleared the Trafalgar, she laid in a course to the edge of the system, kicking into FTL. It would give her at least some amount of time to think of a destination. It felt almost painfully slow after getting used to Trafalgar’s jump drive.

Her current plan was to hit one of the main shipping lanes and follow it until inspiration hit her. In the meantime, perhaps some music. She tapped the shuttle’s touchscreen and pulled up her playlist, still loaded from the flight to Nomadic. The shuttle felt reassuringly modern after her time on the Trafalgar. Whilst the ancient battleship, of course, had a particular charm, Grace was pleased to be spending some time on a ship that wasn’t an antique.

The comm buzzed. There was an incoming message.

That was weird. Chase had sorted her clearance to depart, so she hadn’t been expecting any issues. Tapping the comm unit, it showed it was Trafalgar signalling. She swiped the screen to accept the call.

“Grace, where the hell are you taking my ship?”

It was Dryden.

“Whose ship?” she asked.

“You know damn well,” he started.

“No, Dryden, this ship was hired in my name with my money, and you tried to screw me on that, which, by the way, was a remarkable dick move, even for someone like you.”

“It wasn’t like that at all,” Dryden said defensively.

“It was exactly like that,” she said.

“Where are you even going?” he asked.

She replied with a single word, “Out.”

“You know, I was hoping you might stick around. I know we had some issues, but we made a good team,” he replied.

She smirked at this. “That’s only because I didn’t kill you,” she replied. “Amethyst had defence turrets when you retrieved the captain’s remains. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been tempted. But thank me later; I’ve got places to be,” she said.

“Are you serious?” Dryden replied, a sense of hurt in his voice.

“No, Dryden, just messing with you,” she said, and she forced a laugh. He joined in. He didn’t need to know how close it had come. She doubted he’d do it again. Probably.

“Now you follow Chase’s orders, okay? He knows what he’s doing.”

“That guy? I was planning to,” Dryden admitted. “You sure you won’t come back?”

“Quite sure,” said Grace.

“We had fun though,” There was a subtle pleading in his voice. “We found the Nomadic, and did some incredible things.”

Grace rolled her eyes.

“You ruined it all by leaving me for dead,” she said.

“Don’t be like that,” said Dryden.

“It was a wreck site on a frozen wasteland,” said Grace.

“You’d be fine. Plus, I had to get back to work,” said Dryden.

“You really are a terrible shit,” said Grace and killed the call. If she didn’t see him again, it would be far too soon, but she had a horrible feeling he would find a way to show up.

She loaded the playlist and stuck some music on. It was Alpha Centauri Post-Punk. It was old, but she enjoyed it. She then pulled up the latest news feeds. Her preferences were still active, and she scrolled over to the archaeological finds. Skimming through the first couple of headlines, but the third one caught her interest. There were discoveries on Beta Persei that could be worth more than everything else in that system combined. A couple of the academics had been attempting to fund an expedition, but no one had laid claim to it yet, and even if they had, they certainly weren’t en route. She had something of an advantage here.

Pulling up the navigational display, she rerouted her course. It was only a two-day flight and her preflight checks showed the ship was stocked up for several months’ worth of travel. The autopilot could get there with no trouble, and she even had her own bed. Things were finally looking up for her. Once she had double-checked the calculations on the course, she was on her way.

The ship was more than capable of sticking to the flight plan, and the proximity alarm was set to let her know if anything were to deviate from that. She left the controls on autopilot and headed back to the cabin. There was a double bed that folded out, but she was content with the couch for now. She pulled out her slate and looked through her collection of books she had to read.

She had plenty of time for once and didn’t need to worry about being stuck on an alien world or where her next meal was coming from. She found a title that seemed appropriate and began reading.