It was always a fascinating view, watching the moment that marked the transition from Hyperspace to normal-space, the flaring energy stretching strangely in a manner that looked just impossible. The intuitive part of my mind simply wanted to call what I was seeing unreal but, alas, reality had a different opinion. It was the old problem that humans had trouble grasping the reality of space-travel, not just hyperspace and travelling through it, but even such simple concepts like the distance between points in space and the velocities involved.

Behind me, I heard a different noise, one that had been present for a while, the soft snoring of Grace who had fallen asleep. It sounded kind-of cute, like a small animal napping in its burrow. Sadly, I would have to wake her soon, or we would be late to our shift. In addition, the view had just changed to the rather boring image of a distant star, its light blotting out everything else. From past experience, I could guess that we’d need a few hours to reach the fleet-station, depending where it was on its own course around the star. The time could be cut down, if a micro-jump was set but with the Moneymaker still following behind, that was unlikely.

Stepping over to Grace, I looked at the calm expression on her face, feeling rather bad for disturbing her, especially knowing that her sleep previously had been troubled and filled with nightmares.

“Hey, Grace. Wake up, we need to get some food before it’s time for our shift.” I lightly shook her shoulder and, similarly to earlier, her eyes fluttered open and close a few times before focusing on me.

“Oh, hey, Leo.” she said and, in contrast to earlier, now she had a slight smile on her face before looking around and realising just where we were.

“I fell asleep.” she muttered, sleep thick in her voice.

“You sure did. It seems you needed the additional sleep.” I told her, grinning as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes, looking simply adorable.

“Thanks for watching out for me.” she said, before pushing herself up and stretching in obvious pleasure, making noises that reminded me of a purring cat. What surprised me was that her stretch didn’t end with her arms back at her sides but with her, wrapping them around me and giving me a soft squeeze, her body lightly pressing against me. Not wanting to seem awkward, even if I was feeling a little weird, I hugged her back, before retracting my arms after a moment of contact. She let go of me and I stepped back a little, gesturing to the door that would get us back into the rest of the ship.

“How long have we been out of hyperspace?” she asked, as we were walking towards the mess.

“Just a few minutes. And judging by the fact that there’s no alarm, I guess everything worked out with the Moneymaker. Did you ever hear who went over?” I asked, only knowing that it had been a junior officer from the bridge-crew.

“Yeah, a guy named Lieutenant Nural.” she replied.

“He was the one who gave me my orientation.” I muttered, thinking of the stern officer, continuing before I could stop myself, “He seemed like someone who wouldn’t mind flying a ship full of dead people. But then, bridge-duty is rather serious, I think they insert the steel-rods surgically during training.”

Grace giggled at that for a moment, before whispering back, “Well, I think I know where the rod was stuck into Sulima.”, referring to another of the cadets who was working off-shift, this one one the bridge. I had to laugh at the idea, nodding in agreement. Sulima Muir was one of the cadets I didn’t seem to click with, for some reason there was a feeling of hostility there and she had made quite a few snide comments about my friend and roommate, back at the academy. In addition to that, she seemed to think that the bridge-officers were a privileged class, just because they decided where the ship went and generally Master’s of Starfleet vessels were promoted from bridge-crew. Personally, I disagreed, every person on the ship was important and doing their part, from the Master down to the lowest ranked rating. Sure, the helm decided where to go but without engineering, we’d never get there, without environmental, we’d run out of air long before getting there and without Starfighters, Weapon-Crews and the rest, pirates and enemies could easily break us on the way. And, most importantly, without the mess-team, some of the lowest ranking enlisted on board, we’d all be eating ration-bars, which would likely result in someone vaporising the ship in protest or despair.

Before we could exchange more jokes, we were at the mess and got a second breakfast, enjoying the fact that the Starfleet wasn’t rationing their food, letting us eat when and as much as needed. Sure, there were some practical considerations, for example, I avoided eating certain types of food if there was a realistic chance that I’d be stuck in a Starfighter for hours, for digestive reasons. There were things that I just didn’t want to deal with, if at all possible. Grace, on the other hand, was a lot less restricted, mainly because she’d be on the Merathron and, outside of serious emergency-situations, she could simply go to the head.

We continued to make small-talk, keeping our conversation light and simple, until it was time to head to our stations. When I stood, she again pulled me in for a hug, making me wonder just what was going on. For the last seven weeks, we had lived in close quarters and got along well but now, she was actively seeking out physical contact.

As I was walking down to flight-country, I realised that the physical contact might be something to assure herself that what she was experiencing was real and not a dream. With that in mind, I decided that, unless it became too intimate, I’d let her take the comfort she needed.

Once I was in flight-country, I could sit in the ready-room for a while, reading on the tablet I had received from the Commodore, learning more about past Starfighter-pilots and the battles they fought. Over the last few weeks, I had read about the battles of the second Tellurian war and was quite disturbed just how different the account of a person involved in a particular battle were, when compared to the lessons I had learned at the Academy. Sure, it might have been because the Starfighter-pilot was in the thick of things, literally fighting to stay alive against technically superior tellurian Starfighters while the lessons were based on a collection of official reports but still, it made me wonder.

Just how much of the lessons at the Academy were distorted, especially when it came to recent history? I remembered Wildcat speaking in reverent tones about Admiral Kezost, one who was taught to have been the biggest traitor and war-criminal of recent history. So, who was I to trust, the Starfleet and Academy who would write the history I would be involved in, or the people I knew and whom I trusted? And what would I do about the obvious decision I had come to?

As I continued reading, I was quite happy when Kianna Howe, the person who had recorded her memories, wrote about being promoted to Commander and being transferred to a squadron on the Dauntless, a carrier supporting Admiral Kezost’s flagship, the dreadnought Tenacious. Maybe her writing would allow me some additional insight, even if part of me question the wisdom of learning more. If the truth was that Wildcat was wrong, that Admiral Kezost had committed those crimes and slaughtered worlds wholesale, what did it actually change? It had been war, a war the Federation had been losing, even the lessons at the Academy had taught me that. But Admiral Kezost’s actions, no matter how horrible and gruesome they might have been, had managed to slow the war down by forcing the Tellurians to keep some of their fleet back and, when they failed to pin her down, to negotiate a peace.

If I judged the Admiral only by the result of her actions during the war, I’d have to call her a hero. But, at the same time, doing so was purely arguing from consequences, what if those had been different? We had been taught that her vicious raiding of enemy shipping had forced the Tellurians to negotiate, but what if, instead of doing that, it would have strengthened their resolve that Humanity needed to be exterminated, that we were too dangerous, too murderous to be left alive? Humanity had been losing before and, at least from what I knew, at that time the fighting had been contained in the border-region, away from the worlds inhabiting millions upon billions of people. What if, instead of negotiating, the Tellurians had reacted by destroying Nova Yor or any of the other city-worlds?

What I had been taught about her actions later, that she had ordered the murder of the Federation-Security team sent to take her into custody and spaced everyone who rejected her orders to desert the Starfleet, that cast her in a different light again, but by now, I was wondering how true those reports were. Not just because of the things I had heard from Wildcat but because of my experience on the Merathron. Sure, a Battleship or Dreadnought had more crew per station and were laid out for extended operations, allowing them to stay out for a year or more but would people obey the command to kill their comrades, just because they wouldn’t comply with illegal orders? I somehow doubted it.

Maybe it was for the best that I couldn’t continue reading because the Commodore had another fun-filled scenario for us while we were heading towards the small fleet-depot to turn over the Moneymaker. Maybe later I’d have a better answer about duty and loyalty, for now, the question was only giving me a headache.