Polaris grew closer on the view window. A red alert sounded out. Alert strobes opened and blared. The view-window had a holographic message on it:

Danger! Powerful gravity well in orbit of Polaris. Advise moving clear.

"Drop us out of Phase!" I called up to the helmsman on the control catwalk above his. The stars stopped streaming by and turned into dots. The star Polaris was there in the distance, still quite clear, blue and sparkling.

"Sir! Transmission from admiral Chekhov. He says he needs to speak to you privately."

"Direct his call to my 'Pad." He took out his WorkPad and opened the communication map.

1 communication. It said. He opened it and Chekhov's face appeared on the screen, speaking to some-one on the bridge of the TDN Luna. He was also staring at the battle-screen Sova class battlecruisers always carried on their bridge.

"Admiral Chekhov, sir." he saluted as he transferred the communication to a slightly larger screen at the end of the bridge, at his chair. He rarely sat in that. He usually paced along the wide catwalk leading from the door to his chair.

"Captain Michaels. As you were." with the admirals thick Russian accent, it sounded like "Captaain Michills. As you Ver." Luckily, captain Michaels had experience dealing with Chekhov's accent, and he understood it immediately. He lowered his salute and slacked to a reasonable slacking position.

"What's the problem, sir?"

"Novalith was fired upon prematurely. There was no targeting laser twenty-four hours before impact. It simply flew at it. It was also at an angle; The Vasari like to keep things straight. Especially angles."

"So you're suggesting one of their Kostura cannons had a mutiny on board?"

"No. I'm suggesting it was in battle."

"How do you know?"

"You don't think we send ships out here for the fun of it do you?"

Captain Michaels looked blankly at him with an eyebrow arched.

"Oh, right. You don't know about it yet. There's a wormgate around Polaris."

"Wait, aren't the locations of wormgates like worthy of level 200 security clearance? I only have level 99 security clearance."

"That's why I'm promoting you and giving you level 200 security clearance."

"Well, thanks but we're supposed... wait, what?"

"You're being promoted to colonel and being given security clearance level 200."

"OK. What do you want us to do, admiral?"

"The TDN Luna, Behemoth, Krios and Hyperion are going through the wormgate into deep Vasari space. We've always read that there's a battle going on in there. We want to find out what's going on. And we only know one thing about them."

"They've been on the run for a long time." the colonel finished for the admiral. Everyone knew that little bit of information about the Vasari.

"Exactly. We know they need a new homeworld."

"So we're going to find out who's been stalking our good friends."

"That's right. The Luna, Behemoth, Krios and Hyperion are leaving in 12 hours on the twenty-four hour clock."

"Why did you need me to get here before 6:55 on the twenty-four hour clock?"

"Because at 6:55 on the twenty-four hour clock, the wormgate opens."

He grimaced. Colonel Michaels must have looked like that when he found out that in drone training he had to pull 6 Gs in a training fighter pilot to find out why all the pilots simply didn't learn how to fly the fighters themselves in space; would have felt terrible. And he felt like that when they did it.

"Are we going to have to suffer extreme gravitational discomfort as we go through the wormgate?"

"Yes."

Fudge-tins.