Cassie's eyes darted up to the big screen. One side of the ship was beginning to glow red. The camera appeared to be drifting off focus, the image was becoming slightly blurred.

"Shit," Shrey breathed. "They just powered up their engines."

"What?" Mike exclaimed, quickly scanning the information of him again. "They couldn't have seen us, that's impossible."

Helen quickly leaned forwards in her seat, trying to get a closer look. Her right hand gripped the armrest. "Keep it together. We don't know that yet," she said loudly, her tone steady. "Where are they going?"

Both Shrey and Mike were urgently taping, typing and clicking rapidly. Cassie quickly lost track of what they were doing, she was hardly able to read a word off any single screen before it disappeared. They navigated to parts of the system she hadn't seen before. Helen kept her eyes glued to the image of the enemy ship, her expression firm and calculating.

Even Cassie began checking at her own workstation, not that she didn't believe Shrey, but she wanted to see what was happening for herself. Possibly help, if she could.

She was on this ship now, and very much invested in keeping it in one piece.

Using the console, she couldn't find much more information than what had already been said. The enemy ship's EL-240 levels had spiked through the roof. It hadn't just powered up, it was much more than that, like they'd set their engines to maximum thrust.

They were starting to move. And fast. So fast that the computer was having trouble estimating a trajectory.

They were hunting something.

"They're moving..." Shrey's voice wavered uncertainly. "Away from us?" He glanced over at Mike.

"Confirmed." Mike exhaled loudly. "They spotted another ship, that's where they're headed."

"What ship?" Helen asked calmly.

"Not sure," Mike replied, studying his screens. "There's no transponder code."

"Let's take a look." Helen nodded to the big screen. "Bring it up."

Shrey hit a few buttons and the new ship came up on the screen. Even zoomed in, Cassie could tell it was small, and newer than the Saint Joan. No logos, no markings, nothing at all to associate it with either side. Some kind of low-cargo freighter, that was most likely.

A tiny ship, in comparison to the Saint Joan. If it was carrying cargo, then it probably only had a crew of two or three people on board.

Two or three lives.

"It's not one of ours," Mike answered the unspoken question hanging in the air. "Unknown class."

"Probably smugglers trying to breach the blockade," Helen muttered to herself.

"Looks like they got their hands on a bad dark generator," Mike continued. "It's not coming back online."

"They're already dead," Shrey stated flatly, almost detached.

Cassie stared at the ship. Her chest tightened.

He was right.

"What about us?" Helen asked calmly. "Any signs they've picked up anything they shouldn't have?"

Shrey looked over his console again. "We're good. Cloak is holding."

"They're distracted. They won't be looking for us now." Mike's tone was slightly grim, but there was an undercurrent of relief below that. "This is working out in our favor, they're moving away from us now."

Shrey nodded. "We'll be out of range in 3, 2, 1..." He paused. "We're clear."

The cramped space was suddenly filled with the sounds of movement as everyone shifted and settled, tension drained out of the room. Cassie shoulder's fell. She let herself settle back in the comfortable, well worn chair with an inaudible sigh.

"They're closing in on the other ship," Mike said lowly. "Power levels rising, probably powering weapons."

"They aren't going to bother trying to board," Helen concluded, her tone grim.

Mike and Shrey shared a look. Shrey's eyes flickered to Cassie for an almost imperceptible instant. The next moment, Shrey switched the main screen back to the area map.

In a second, the ships were back to being dots on a map. A little white triangle for them, steadily moving away from the two other ships. A black square for the unknown freighter, with a bright red dot rapidly approaching.

"The destroyer is firing," Mike announced sadly.

They all watched as the other dot blinked once before disappearing from the map entirely. For a long moment, the room was completely silent. The hum of the ventilation even seemed to fade to nothing. Not a single one of them looked away from the map.

"What's the Horizon ship doing now?" Helen was still leaning forwards, her elbows resting on the console.

"Um... it's powering down," Mike answered after a minute. "Going back into standby mode, it looks like."

"We're out of it's high sensitivity sensor range now," Shrey said, with audible relief. "It's not our problem."

"Still..." Helen leaned back in her chair, causing it to creak softly. "Shrey, keep an eye on that ship until we are very, very far away."

"Will do," Shrey acknowledged quietly as he make adjustments on his station.

Cassie wrung her hands. The danger had gone, but the atmosphere on the flight deck still felt heavy, uncomfortable. The battle had sent a chill into the air that wasn't going to fade easily. She saw Shrey's gaze fall on her hands and stopping moving them, awkwardly adjusting herself and finally ending up with her arms crossed instead.

"Does that... happen a lot?" Cassie asked quietly.

"Passing other ships? A few times each trip," Helen said softly. "Seeing a battle like that? Not so common."

Shrey nodded in agreement. "Just be glad it wasn't us."

Mike kept glancing at Cassie, his expression inching towards pity. "That's not going to happen—"

"I know. I'm fine," Cassie said abruptly. "That was just a little more... than I was expecting."

Helen offered her a reassuring smile. "You'll get used to it."

Cassie glanced around. Everyone was looking at her, their expressions a mix of concern and pity. "I'll go see if Aqeel needs me," she mumbled before quickly ducking out of the cockpit.

She wasn't running away, she told herself, pausing in the hallway right beside the door. Her eyes slowly shut as she leaned against the wall, her hair brushing against the peeling grey paint. Her heart was still beating fast. She took a moment to breath deeply.

Her eyes flew open as voices from the cockpit drifted out into the hallway.

"You shouldn't have brought her up here," Shrey said lowly, disapproval bleeding through his calm voice. "She did not need to see that."

"You think I don't know that?" Mike hissed back. "But how was I supposed to know that a random ship was going to decide to decloak right in the line of fire?"

"She should never have been up here in the first place," Shrey repeated. "This isn't a fucking pleasure cruise, we're not here for sightseeing."

"We know that." Mike's voice had lost most of it's edge.

"Really?" Shrey said, extraordinarily sarcastic. "Because you all like to pretend that we're perfectly safe out here. But we're not. We're in the middle of a damn war. This is a battlefield."

"We all knew that when we agreed to this mission," Mike said firmly. "And every single one before it."

"Sure, the rest of us understand the risks," Shrey replied irritably. "But what about her?"

Mike paused for a long time.

So long that Cassie decided to take a cautious step down the hall, setting her boot down on the metal grating as softly as she could. It settled under her weight, making just a whisper of a creak. She frozen in place. Walking away silently wasn't going to be easy. But she didn't want anyone to know she was there.

It wasn't like she had an excuse for lingering in the hallway right outside the cockpit.

"It's not like we can do anything about that now." Mike's voice was so low that Cassie could barely make it out.

Shrey huffed. "She should never had come on board. She's just a kid."

Cassie swallowed nervously, consciously unclenching her hand. She slowly leaned against the bare grey metal wall. So that's what they were all really thinking.

It wasn't as bad as she'd feared. She could work with that.

"Enough," Helen said forcefully. "If you've both forgotten, I was sixteen when I started working on this very ship." There was a light tapping sound. "Sometimes we have to go where we're needed. Sometimes we don't have choices."

"This is different—" Shrey begun to object.

"It's not," Helen said firmly. "And I wouldn't worry about her, she's a tough one."

"You're sure?" Mike still sounded dubious.

"Yes," Helen answered confidently, her voice coming clearly through the hallway. "I can tell."