Returning To The Fold

Ala walks through the halls of the Fraxis, running her hand along the silver-blue walls that shine new and bright. People pass her by, look at her oddly or with sympathy but she doesn’t really notice. Doesn’t really pay much attention to the people that pass her by. They may be hers, they may the uniformed officers who truly belong on this ship.

It doesn’t matter.

Tomorrow they will all be under her command. Tomorrow she’ll be a different person but right now she’s just displaced. In both time and space.

She’s still not sure how it’s happened. She’s gone from enemy to captain in a few short hours, watching the other captain fall off a cliff as they fought side by side.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, though she’s not sure the rest of the old captain’s crew are going to feel that way. Coming back into the fold, leaving behind the reason she left in the first place to find and fight an enemy that would destroy Earth, Mars and the rest of the solar system before she could ever think about getting past the Terran moon.

She should never have let Admiral Corman talk her into it, but they were lovers once, friends too and the other woman still has a presence she can’t quite say no to.

She’s too old for a crush, but she’s now the captain of a brand new ship anyway.

Ala finds a lift and steps inside. It’s brighter, the light above only having to illuminate the small space. It hurts her eyes a little, and she knows it’s…