He had always had a weakness for romantic idiocy. He believed that it was how people, or at least the very best, ended up captaining ships. Nevertheless. He lifted his hand to the throttle and eased it back a fraction.

“Ayres to Anvil,” he said, keying the transmit. “Acknowledged, lieutenant. Easing down.”

There was a tiny pause, then Patch came back, relief audible.

Patch exhaled. “We’ll be with you shortly sir.” Patch sent a quick text message to the Amhearstto form up on Ayres left wing

Another voice overlapped, younger, more precise.

“This is Ensign Murdock, sir,” the Benzite put in. “We have your transponder clearly now. It is… good to hear you. When your signal disappeared from Orantei, many of us feared the worst.”

Ayres felt something in his chest shift, just a fraction. It had been easier, out here, to imagine that he had dropped entirely out of other people’s universes.

“I am not so easy to be rid of, ensign,” he said.

“Is Commander Parr in need of assistance? I have medical training.” The Benzite asked, always eager to share his credentials.

“Unknown at this time.”

Ayres made a non-committal noise. The memory of that last hour on the station was not one he particularly wanted to unpack right now.

The forward display flickered as the Anvil’s icon swung in, settling neatly onto the starboard side of his projected path, a moment later the second Arrow class runabout arrived on his port side. Ayres glanced at his own instrument panel. The Valkyrie’s hull stress indicators were within safe margins, but only just. The warp coils had been run hotter than their designers would have liked. He had not noticed when he had last eaten anything more substantial than a ration bar.

“For the record, lieutenant, I did not set out to disappear from the aftermath of a battle for the sheer joy of it. I’ll save my full report for Captain Hardy, but we have an opportunity out here to save the day by putting a stop to the Pilgrims. And save a good officer.”

“Roger that skipper. I’m not the judgemental type, I’ve just had my own run-ins with regulations before.

“In the meantime,” Ayres said, changing the subject, “since you have gone to the trouble of finding me, I may as well make your trip worthwhile.”

He sent the data dump he had been compiling: the navigation metrics, the crude map of the subspace anomaly he had built from the Valkyrie’s logs and the readings from the subspace relay. On the Anvil, consoles would be lighting up like a Christmas tree.

“That,” Ayres replied, “is a head start for Captain Hardy. Would you gents now kindly escort me to your shiny new ship?”

“Well hang on a second here. The Victory’s about 11 hours away in the other direction from where you were heading…since we’re here and we have to wait, why not take a peak. These new Arrows are full of gear and gizmo’s that would help in performing a simple recon op. Why don’t we transport you aboard sir. I’m sure you could use a chance to stretch your legs and grab a meal and maybe a shower. Just have the fighter hold a steady course and we can beam aboard a relief pilot.” Patch said. No sense in wasting the M/AM or dilithium flying back to the Victory if she was already on the way.

“Are you saying I stink, lieutenant?” Ayres smiled to himself, grimly. “Because that would be correct. I’d welcome the comfort, thanks.”

“Who is the relief pilot you speak of sir?” Murdock asked when he saw Patch had stopped transmitting, noting that Patch hadn’t said anything to the Amhearst about it amd the other crewman aboard the Anvil was sleeping.

“You. You said you wanted to be a fighter pilot. You’re rated to fly class 3 vessels. That Valkyries a class 3 vessel.” Patch turned to him with a smile.