The news about Shanxi broke like windows in a hurricane. The age-old question of whether humanity was alone in the universe had been settled once and for all, and the neighbors weren't exactly on the doorstep offering fresh-baked cookies or casseroles. The atmosphere at Arcturus—always alive with busyness—had escalated to frenetic, with troops and ships mobilizing, officers barking orders, and couriers navigating the current of soldiers and civilians alike, racing from one end of the station to the other. The Second Fleet would be sent first, would be the first human military unit to engage a sentient, nonhuman enemy.

The fleet's forward carrier, the SSV Feynman, would ship out at 1300, giving Hannah and Michael Shepard a full hour to grab their footlockers, pack a bag for their three-year-old daughter, and sign her in to the Alliance's extended-stay childcare facility.

It was also just enough time to argue at every step of the process.

"What do you mean you're assigned to the Feynman?" Hannah tried to keep her voice even to avoid upsetting their daughter while grabbing handfuls of freeze-dried snacks and stuffing them into her duffel. "The Alliance doesn't assign family to the same ship."

He shrugged and tried to mirror her even tone as he tugged Allistair's arms through the sleeves of a new clean dress (she'd managed to make the one she'd worn that morning sticky with an unidentifiable substance), then pulled back her hair and started in on a braid. "Martial necessity, I suppose. I have my orders. That's all that matters."

She swallowed a swear. The little one had already repeated three different ones in the last week. "Bautista's team berths on the Feynman, not yours."

"Her team will be there too. Admiral Drescher doesn't want to take any chances. Two N teams are better than one, especially when we might need a second team."

Hannah bit the inside of her lip until she could taste blood. How could he say it like that? So blithely, as if she didn't know precisely what it would mean to need a second team.

"You're doing it again, Han. You're going to end up with scars there one day."

She zipped up the bag and tossed it near the door where the rest of their effects were. She stalked into the bathroom without responding to him. When she reemerged in the kitchen with a tiny yellow toothbrush and toddler toothpaste, she couldn't keep it in any longer. "Challenge the order."

"Han—"

"Han me one more time, Michael," she snapped.

"Mama mad?"

Hannah smiled immediately. Even if the fire of her anger (toward the brass and Michael's apparent willingness to do whatever they asked of him) wasn't even nearly quelled, she could keep her composure a bit longer. "No, starshine," she said, pinching the little nose. "Mama's happy."

Everyone said Alli was the spitting image of Hannah, and she could certainly see that her daughter had inherited her same light green eyes and freckled cheeks and dark red hair (that will hang limp and bodiless all your life, my dear, sorry about that) over Michael's gunmetal gray eyes and olive skin and black hair that was perfect in every way (damn him). She could even tell Alli would grow into a pointed chin and a set of arching brows much like her own once she grew into her adult body. Even so, Hannah recognized Michael in her every expression, every smile, every laugh, even every turn of her hands.

At this moment, however, at the white lie Hannah told to shield her daughter, the smile Alli donned was a new one and all her own. It was placating—as if she didn't believe what Hannah said but didn't want her to worry either. Jesus, she's only three. She's not supposed to get smiles like that yet. She turned a stony look toward Michael, silently demanding they continue their discussion after they'd dropped her off, and finished packing their daughter's things.

It was no mean feat getting Alli to the care center. There were at least two dozen other families who were also trying to get their children into safe arms before shipping out.

"Martial necessity," Hannah spat, as if it were the swear she'd been holding in.

Once she'd signed her daughter in, Hannah bent down and kissed her little one half a dozen times. "Be good for Mr. Leadbetter, Allistair. Go to bed when he says, don't ask for snacks before lunch, and brush your teeth every morning and every night, just like I showed you."

"Okay, Mama. Come back later?"

Hannah felt a familiar prickle at the corners of her eyes and coughed a little to keep her throat from closing up completely. She knew every parent claimed to have the most brilliant child, but it happened to be true in her case. Alli's words and sentences were coming along so quickly, and she hardly stumbled at all when she walked these days. And nothing—not insects, not the dark, not heights—seemed to daunt her. Could she really be only three?

"Mama and Daddy will be gone for a couple of days, but we'll be back as soon as we can. It's time for us to be heroes, starshine," she smiled and kissed her nose. She rocked back on her heels and pulled what looked like a thick, gray bracelet from one of the pockets of her fatigues. She hooked it around Alli's small wrist and locked it. "Keep this bracelet on. When you wear it, Mama knows you're safe."

"Okay, Mama. Love you. Be good. Love you, Daddy."

Alli squealed with delight when Michael picked her up and spun her around. "We'll be back, kiddo. Try not to burn the place down while we're at work."

"Okay, Daddy. Love you," she said and planted a wet, smacking kiss on his cheek.

Then Alli slipped her plump little hand into Mr. Leadbetter's, who gave them both a reassuring grin, and disappeared down the corridor leading to the overnight care room.

As soon as they were back in the main thoroughfare, she said quietly but forcefully. "Challenge the order, Michael."

"There's no time for that, Han. Besides, you see all these other families. We're not the only ones. We know almost nothing about these bastards, and we need to come down on them as hard as we can. All hands on deck. You know the drill."

"I don't care. She needs at least one of us."

"Don't talk like that, Han. We're both coming back."

"That's a nice sentiment, but it doesn't tell me what's going to happen to Alli if we don't. This is a high-risk deployment, not least of all because there's so little intel. We need to maneuver so that Alli doesn't end up orphaned, for fuck sake."

Michael put a hand on Hannah's shoulder to pause her, heedless of the crowd rushing around them, and turned her to face him. He held her gaze for a moment and said, "Hannah. We're coming back. Alli is going to have both of us for a long time to come."

All around them, the engines of docked fleet ships flared to life as they started preflight procedures. The bass humming of so many ships at once made the walls and floors of the station tremble, and Hannah knew Michael was right about one thing: the time for challenging orders was well past. Some of the fire went out of her as she watched more and more soldiers rush to their assignments. Plan A had been to keep one of them from deployment, but clearly, that was no longer possible. Plan B it was then: guarantee victory at all costs and bring everyone home alive. Easy.

She managed a weak smile. Even if she didn't believe him, she could help him not to worry. "Okay, Mickey Blue Eyes, you win." She lifted up on her toes and planted a kiss on his lips. "But even if these alien bastards don't kill us, Captain Tran might if we're late. You don't know him like I do. Move that cute ass, soldier."

He kissed her, warming her all the way through, and then pulled her by the hand down the hall toward the Feynman's docking bay.

#

It wasn't going to be a couple of days. At least not on Arcturus.

Admiral Drescher commanded the fleet to go sub-FTL, but only just. The hostile cruiser had not made a move to leave Shanxi, so perhaps they didn't know anything existed beyond that colony. The Second Fleet would need to manage its blue shift to keep it that way and to keep from giving away its position. A reasonable precaution, but it made Hannah anxious. The longer they took to get to the garrison, the more lives they were likely to lose at the colony. And worse, the hostiles had more than a month to do whatever they were doing, while the Second Fleet had only two or three days to prepare. Damned relativity. Still, it was better than using the relays and broadcasting their position to every system in the neighborhood.

She spent most of her time in the cramped, spartan officer's closet she shared off the books with Michael, poring over the snippets of security and hardsuit recordings that she had clearance to view. The recordings were all part of a single info packet dump sent to Arcturus in one, giant comm burst, which was followed by a complete blackout from the garrison. It wasn't much, but it was all they had. Any information she could glean from those minutes of footage could be the difference between victory and defeat for the fleet—between life and death for the colonists—so she continued to study.

None of the hostiles shed their hardsuits, but even so, they seemed to vary slightly in shape. All of them had pinched waists and three-fingered hands and spikes (spurs, maybe?) protruding from the backs of their digitigrade legs. Some, however, were smaller and had rounded heads, while the slightly larger ones required helmets that swept farther back at the top. Was the difference an indication of age? rank? sex? Information was too limited to rule out many possibilities.

Regardless of their shape, they were all of them disciplined, she could give them that. Their ground units moved like a single body. Maybe they were a hive mind? She shuddered to think what kind of military force was simply that proficient at combat.

While the ground troops were intimidating, they still were not her main concern. Shanxi was a small outpost. A hundred thousand colonists at most, and maybe a thousand Alliance troops. Despite the relatively small population, though, the bulk of the assault had come from orbit. Talk about scorched earth. Whole city blocks were leveled in what appeared to be a strategy for taking out small fire teams. So, they clearly had no compunction about combat from orbit, treating even a small colony as if it were a major metropolis.

Who were these hostiles? What did they want? Why did they attack? Jesus, what had the Alliance done? What had they woken with these mass relays? They were out of their depth in this conflict, she was sure of it.

"I don't think even Captain Tran has watched that footage as much as you have."

Michael's voice, low and wry and amused, drifted over her shoulder. Hannah suppressed a pleased grin and turned toward her husband. "No harm in looking one more time."

Michael smiled, teasing her. "You're obsessed, Han."

She raised her eyebrows. "Is it such a bad thing to want to understand the enemy? If that's what they are."

A shadow passed over his face, and his smile faltered. "They bombed the shit out of Shanxi, sweetheart. I'm having trouble interpreting them as anything other than enemies."

She shrugged and rubbed her neck. "Not every dog that bites is rabid. If we can figure out why this dog bit us, maybe we can avoid further loss of life. Or at least have better intel for strategy." She sighed. "I don't know. It's just. Why didn't they move on from there? Why aren't they even trying to engage the rest of the Alliance? They stopped at Shanxi. What are they doing there?"

He pulled the pad from her hands. "Admiral Drescher and Captain Tran are the ones planning strategy. Put it away for now. Our orders will come soon enough."

He pressed a kiss against the crook of her neck, the softness of his lips nearly making her forget all about the warzone they were racing toward. Nearly.

"Michael," she said, biting her bottom lip. She didn't push him away, but she didn't want to put down her work either. "The more we know, the more we, mmm, understand, the better off we'll be in the fight."

He kissed her neck and shoulder, his hand drifting lightly down her ribs and waist and hip and lower.

There was still so much work to do.

"We're still far out," Michael breathed into her neck. "How do you feel about us chasing after two little ones instead of just the one?"

Hannah smiled, moving her hands down his back, resting at his hips and hooking her fingers through his belt loops to pull him closer, moving her legs apart to make room for him. "Sounds like a workout. I've been meaning to work on my cardio more."

"Mhm," he murmured, leaning her back against the desk, the better to position his hips against hers. "We can work on your cardio now, if you want."

She took in a deep, measured breath as his hand untucked the shirt of her uniform and began to work on the button on her trousers.

/Commander Mikhailovich, Lieutenant Commander Shepard: Report to the war room. Repeat. Commander Mikhailovich, Lieutenant Commander Shepard: Report to the war room immediately.

Hannah allowed herself a small, frustrated groan and let her forehead drop to his shoulder. "Later, love," she said. "Duty calls. Let's bookmark this conversation, shall we?"

Michael seemed to consider her words. "What do you think 'immediately' means? Do you think there's an understood difference of five or ten minutes? Give or take?"

She punched his arm good naturedly. "A quickie's not exactly what I had in mind, Shepard."

He smiled and kissed her neck just below her jaw. "Far be it from me," he said, "to spend insufficient time on you."

Damn but he could make her heart race. Maybe they could pick up where they left off afterward. Right now she had a duty to see to.

#

"With all due respect, sir," Hannah managed to keep her voice steady, "this strategy seems unnecessarily reckless."

Captain Tran turned his gaze toward her. "Do you have something to add, Lieutenant Commander?"

Hannah cleared her throat and tried to wrangle all the threads of information she'd pulled from the scraps of footage she'd watched over and over. "Permission to speak freely, sir?" He nodded. "If we engage the hostiles in orbit, we'll be throwing lives away."

Tran crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. "Admiral Drescher designed this strategy herself, LC. Do you think maybe she missed something?"

Hannah didn't miss the emphasis of her rank. She cleared her throat again and resisted biting down on the inside of her lip in retribution. "Admiral Drescher is a fine soldier, sir, and an excellent strategist. But I think her strategy here makes assumptions we can't afford." Her heart pounded and her hands would've been shaking if she didn't have them clasped behind her back in parade rest. Even so, she kept her back straight and her eyes forward. She was toeing the line of insubordination, but it was critical that she voice her opinion about what she'd gleaned about the hostiles from the brief recordings.

Commander Boris Mikhailovich crossed his arms—perhaps in an effort to imitate Tran—and shrugged. "What sort of assumptions?"

"That we even know what we're doing, sir." Mikhailovich started to protest, but Hannah pressed her luck and talked over him. "No Alliance vessel has ever engaged in null-atmo battle, sir, not with live ammo and real stakes. We're operating on theory only. Simulators and war games at best. I'd bet good money the hostiles are expert fighters by experience. They'll nail us to the wall if we try to go head to head with them, even if we have the element of surprise. A good old-fashioned blitz just isn't going to be enough."

Tran pursed his lips, but he didn't dismiss her out of hand. "If you're so sure about the bastards, perhaps you have another approach in mind."

She nodded once. "With your permission, sir, I do. We get them in atmo."

Mikhailovich shook his head. "How exactly are we supposed to get them in the soup without going head to head, LC? And even if we did, our cruisers can't maneuver down there. We'd be cutting off our nose to spite our face."

"With respect, sir, we can neutralize orbit as a theater without having to bring the whole fleet in atmo."

Tran still looked skeptical but waved her forward. She brought up the holo of the hostile ship currently in orbit above Shanxi. "We send two cruisers, the Seoul targeting fore and the Sydney targeting aft, and a frigate for rear support. The Thermopylae doesn't have the sharpest teeth, but she's got the fastest recharge time in the fleet, and timing can make or break the engagement." She expanded the image to get a close-up of what appeared to be satellite dishes. She pointed to each one, making them bright red. "While the larger ships volley, send two squadrons of fighters to take out the hostile's comm array. No comms, no triangulation, no artillery strikes. The colony will be safe, at least temporarily.

"Our guys will have landed a few blows on the cruiser by then, at which point we'll feign a retreat. They'll want to keep us there, so they'll dispatch fighters for an air strike against the garrison."

Mikhailovich put up his hand to stop her. "What you're suggesting is not legal, Shepard. We can't put the colony at risk just to draw them out."

She shook her head. "We're putting the garrison at risk, sir, not the colony. They go for military targets, not civilians."

Mikhailovich barked a laugh. "Tell that to the half of Shanxi that was blasted into oblivion—"

"To get to militants," she finished for him. "Collateral aside, we've yet to see them engage unarmed civilians directly—"

"And you're willing to bet the whole colony on that?" Tran spoke firmly and held her gaze. She didn't falter.

"I don't have to, sir," she said. Mikhailovich sneered and turned away, but she continued. "There will be a squadron of interceptors waiting for them. Nothing gets past my guys, sir, I'll see to that. While we engage their fighters in atmo, you drop two N teams three klicks off the coast from the garrison. The comms will be down, but we can't guarantee they won't have other means of detecting our drop ships, so the operators will have to go in wet. Once they reach the shore, they'll infiltrate the base and root out the occupiers. Divide and conquer, sir. Easy as you like."

Tran was quiet for a moment, then shook his head. "Thank you for your input, Lieutenant Commander. I'll take it under advisement."

Translation: Stick to your pay grade.

Hannah nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Mikhailovich sneered again, but this time in triumph. Hannah bit the inside of her lip to keep more words from escaping her. She never did understand why that idiot thought her loss was his gain.

#

The order to move out came only two rotations later. Admiral Drescher assigned Captain Tran to command the movements of the Seoul, the Sydney, and the Thermopylae, as well as two squadrons of fighters, one squadron of interceptors, and two N teams for a ground assault.

Hannah drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. They'd actually listened to her. She could hardly believe it. Maybe this wouldn't be a bloodbath after all. Maybe they could actually win this thing.

Before she could think better of it, she made her way to the bridge and Captain Tran.

"Captain, sir," she called for his attention. "A moment of your time, sir?"

He turned to her and nodded, "Granted, Shepard."

"I just read my orders, sir, and—"

He held up his hand to stop her. "I know it's different from what we originally discussed in the war room, but I had some concerns about the effectiveness of those tactics. I shared those concerns with the admiral, and she agreed to the change in strategy. I know you don't like last-minute changes, Shepard, but we all have our orders now."

"You . . ." had concerns? "I beg your pardon, sir, you say the new orders were your idea?"

He nodded. "I did, LC, but the admiral has cosigned them. Are you clear on what you're supposed to do?"

Hannah's head felt light and blood rushed in her ears, but she managed to nod. "Yes, sir."

"The buck stops here, Shepard," he said. "If this engagement goes sideways, I'll take the responsibility."

And the credit if it doesn't, she thought but didn't say. She did say, "Understood, sir. Thank you, sir."

He nodded and turned away from her again.

She had half an hour before she had to start her preflight checks. Just enough time to get changed and break something in her quarters.

This plan will save lives and just might give us the advantage, she reminded herself. If nothing else, at least you have that, Hannah, no matter who knows it. This is the best chance to get both of you back to Alli.

#

Hannah sat in her bunk, her flight suit on but not yet secured, breathing and trying to calm the rage in her. Michael sat beside her with his hand on her lower back, trying and failing to comfort her.

"Look at it this way, Han," he said. "At least you didn't get court marshaled for insubordination. And now the captain owes you. That's not nothing."

She stood up abruptly and paced the four meters of their quarters. "He blew me off and then took my strategy to the admiral. What makes you think he gives a damn about anything he might owe me? Fuck! I should have gone to Drescher, not that asshole."

"He's not that bad of a guy," he said. "He probably really was just trying to protect you."

"Bullshit!" she spat.

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "You're quite a few ranks removed from the admiral, Han. If we don't win out the day, your career would not be able to survive the blow and neither would hers. She'd be a laughing stock if people knew she took the advice of an LC and lost because of it. Tran is the middle man who can save face for both of you."

"And if we win, it'll be a historic moment for humanity and I'll be erased from it," she spat.

"Hannah!" His team-commander tone made her snap to attention and look at him. He was standing now and quickly closed the distance between them in a single stride and gently placed his palms on her shoulders. "You need to get your head in the game. This? It's a small thing. Who cares about history? The lives of your squad? The lives of my squad? The lives of Shanxi's colonists? Those are big things. If you're distracted, those hostiles are going to get right past you. They're going to get to the garrison, and they're going to kill us all."

Hannah felt her shoulders drop and some of the rage cool, gripped by the cold fingers of shame wrapping around her insides. He was right, of course. This was a small thing, at least for right now. Her squad needed her full attention, deserved it. Michael's and Bautista's teams too. It was a good plan, but that didn't mean it wasn't tenuous. They'd get to Michael over her dead body—literally—and she had no intention of dying today.

She half-smiled at him and wrinkled her nose. "I hate it when you're right, you know."

He smiled and reached down for the front zipper of her flight suit. Slowly, he pulled it up and then secured the latch at her neck. "We still have that conversation to return to, Lieutenant Commander Hannah Shepard. Don't keep me waiting."

She smiled and kissed him, breathing in the smell of him, promising a whole future filled with conversations. Hoping for it. Just let them both come back.