“Captain on the bridge.”

The two dozen officers and crew hastened their activities as the battalion marine corporal stationed at the bridge entrance announced Jason Hunter’s arrival on deck one.

“Walls, since I don’t have an XO, how would you like the job for the next nine hours?” Hunter asked abruptly as he took his command chair.

“Aye, sir,” the ensign replied nervously.

“Very good. Get me a flight operations status report. Comms, bring us up on the J-A and get me this morning’s priority messages. Ops, I need deck status. Neek, give me an intraship channel to engineering. Helm, report our position.”

A chorus of quiet “ayes” followed each of Hunter’s orders. The activity was well-rehearsed and efficient, even if the crew members themselves were unusually nervous. The combination of their sudden assignments, the new hardware and the confidence of their boyish captain combined to make the bridge of the Argent seem like a training exercise, even though it was clear this was anything but.

“Our position is two nine zero miles bearing one three one mark sixty relative the Boomtown tower. Course plotted for Jupiter Five and on the board. ETA eight hours fifty three minutes.”

Hunter waited an appropriate interval while the activity bustled around him. He pretended to check items off a tablet before he spoke. “Well done, ensign.”

Walls almost blushed. “Thank you, sir.”

“Do as fine a job getting me that flight status and you’ll be on your way to an official XO’s command.”

The ensign startled himself out of his self-congratulatory haze and turned back to the wraparound display of his vessel’s intricately mapped and scrolling flight deck operations status reports.

“Intraship channel open,” Dominique replied.

“Madison! Are the boilers lit?”

“Like jack-o-lanterns, sir,” came the snappy reply.

“Outstanding. Can you give me best speed four by four?”

“And then some, sir.”

“Very well, stand by to engage the mains, bridge out.”

“Operations reports deck status one through thirty-four green. Crew secured for all flight modes.” The operations officer could have easily passed for a recent high school graduate. In fact, the more Hunter thought about it, he realized she probably was precisely that.

“Helm, engage main engines and stand by to navigate.”

“Aye sir, helm answering. Mains at your command.”

The comms officer spoke up. “I have one priority message, sir. It’s from commander, DSS Fury.”

Captain Hunter had actually taken a breath to issue his next command before he seemed to deflate like an attacking Spartan general interrupted by a crying infant.

“Let me guess,” he sighed. “My long-suffering darling sister wants a word?”

“It’s from Commander Hunter, sir.”

“Very well, open a channel.”

The blue and white Pegasus-emblazoned emblem of Task Force Perseus filled the Argent’s main viewscreen.

“Well, well,” Hunter began with a sarcastic tone. “A task force! Haven’t we reached the rare air?”

Commander Jayce Hunter’s eyebrow-raised expression replaced the circular task force banner. Her trademark garrison cap looked especially intimidating when magnified to fit the Argent’s forward bulkhead. “You got something to say about my ships, sir?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Commander.”

Several of Argent’s bridge crew looked back and forth between the viewscreen and their skipper. Were they not opposite genders, most would have immediately agreed the two ship captains could easily be mistaken for one another.

“My crew is just now realizing I have a twin sister,” Jason said in a deadpan tone.

“I already explained to Fury’s bridge officers you were a lab experiment gone terribly wrong, sir.” Jayce replied. “I just wanted to send along my compliments to Doctor Doverly. You will remember to give her the card I had flown from one end of known space to the other, won’t you?”

“Of course! Do I look like a heartless lout?”

“Permission to speak freely, Captain?”

“As you were, Commander. By the way, since when have you been flying your own flag?”

“Fury took the point at Gitairn Station last month. When the task force arrived, they were down three ships. I was senior officer present, so I got the job.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now the important question. Have you built me a robot that can clean a room yet?”

“With all due respect, sir, my minibots are not cleaning utensils! Now, if you’d like to borrow Echo for a couple of weeks, I’m sure she could get Argent’s house in order.”

“No! For the love of all that is green and growing, don’t you dare let that siren-obsessed wheeled alarm clock anywhere near this ship! My medical officer would have to submerge me in tranquilizers to stop the nightmares. Belay the request for a cleaning bot. Just– draw me up some ideas for a swabby machine or something!”

“I’ll do what I can, captain. Fury out.”

The bridge crew did their best to look serious, but several of them were too busy covering up their smiles and desperately trying not to sputter a laugh.

“Operations reports Argent spacelanes secure. Navigation cleared for all flight modes.”

“Thank you, acting XO Walls.”

The ensign blushed again and tried to sit up straighter without inadvertently pulling a muscle.

“Helm, navigate course one three one, mark sixty. SNS screens to fifteen percent power. All ahead full.”

“Aye, sir. Helm answering. Mains engaged. All ahead full.”

Captain Hunter reclined in his command chair and toggled the main viewscreen to a forward view of space and the overlay of the navigational corridor to their destination. A clock began ticking the ETA down from eight hours and fifty three minutes in the upper right corner of the screen.

The five-million-ton DSS Argent surged forward and accelerated towards the Jupiter system’s fifth planet.