said RTIFIS. The artificial intelligence spoke through a faceless green humanoid avatar projected from the living room’s small holotable.

“Yes, please,” Nic replied. He sat on the living room couch next to Perri, with Maqsud pacing around the room and Jarek doing crunches off the back of an armchair.

The Zeta-Class Patrol was already moving through warped spacetime to their next destination anyway. RTIFIS seemed to like to give Team Scarlet time to settle in to their voyage before nagging them with their assignments, and Nic appreciated that. They had time—at least a week—to prepare, given the travel distance, but it didn’t hurt to get a head start.

Especially now that all of Team Scarlet’s battles had much more at stake than a big payout.

“A Frigate?” Jarek said mid-crunch, arching an eyebrow. “That ain’t somethin’ you see every mission. What priority, RTIFIS?”

the AI responded.

Minimal on their scale, maybe, Nic thought. But it was dangerous for him to go down that line of thinking for too long. He shook it off and went back to listening to the mission details.

A holographic chart materialized next to the avatar.

COMMANDER: 100 credits SHARPSHOOTER: 75 credits MENDER: 50 credits FODDER: 10 credits

“Well, boys, we’ll certainly be earning our keep,” Perri said, dissatisfied. “It’s a Priority 4 and it sure pays like it. I want to buy something pretty on our next shore leave, so we better have access to some—”

RTIFIS helpfully interrupted.

Perri smiled, flashing her dimples. “Good. Then I’ll have all the tools I need. Maybe I’ll treat us all to a nice meal on our next shore leave, too!”

“That’s assuming I leave any Hexes for you,” said Nic with a dark smirk. “Once the bullets start flying, I tend to get greedy.”

“Is that a challenge?” Perri turned to face him on the couch, bumping her knees against him, slapping a hand on his knee as she did so. She leaned in closer. “Care to make this a little more interesting? What do you want to bet?”

His heartrate quickened. “I don’t think it’s polite to say in present company.”

Jarek made a loud pretend-vomiting sound. Maqsud said, “In the name of all things sacred, please keep your clothes on until we’re out of eyeshot this time.”

“Okay, that was one time,” said Nic, “and you guys came back to the ship unannounced! Maybe try knocking like civilized people...” He felt his face flush, but Perri shrugged and grinned, seemingly pleased with herself.

Nic glanced around the room for confirmation. “None,” he replied. “Thanks, RTIFIS.”

The holotable went back into its idle state. Ordinarily, Sleep Mode produced visually appealing holograms that added a nice ambience to the room. Nic used to be able to select between scenes of nature, rain or snow showers, or unfolding geometric patterns all played in the same monochromatic display.

The Contact War changed that. Now the holotable was just another source of information delivery, and Sleep Mode played WorldGov broadcast messages on a repeating loop every 15 minutes.

“Oh, happy day, it’s starting again!” Maqsud said with sarcastic excitement.

“Nuclear proliferation,” said a disembodied voice over a holographic explosion of an atomic bomb. “Declining fertility. The Climate Crises. In our not-so-distant past, humanity has teetered on the brink of oblivion, but we’ve come back stronger each time. Our great civilization was almost lost on the pale blue dot we once called home. Now that same cradle of life exists as the Global Preserve, humanity’s first Galactic Heritage Site.”

“And home to a couple billion rich folks,” Jarek mumbled, switching from crunches to push-ups.

“Since the end of Climate Crisis II, we’ve expanded farther and faster than some of our ancestors thought possible. From our first clumsy steps on Luna, Mars, Titan, and other Sol bodies, we expanded to other star systems, building on new worlds and terraforming them to make them like home. We crawled back from a twenty-second century low of just four billion survivors to the booming population of sixty-five billion we have today. But this is just the beginning!

“We’ve already settled thousands of planets in our little interstellar neighborhood. Scientists now estimate there are well over a million planets, moons, and other bodies in the Milky Way alone that we can comfortably terraform with current technology—technology that is always improving. Imagine a galaxy full of human life, full of our unified culture of time-honored Earth traditions! Imagine the day we cross one trillion living humans! With FTL technology constantly improving as well, look out, Andromeda Galaxy—we may one day have our sights set on you!”

There was an abrupt tonal shift as the holo took on a reddish hue and the accompanying music became more somber.

“This was our reality before the Hexadians.”

“God, I hate this part,” Perri hissed under her breath. “Like a cheesy movie from four hundred years ago...”

“This bit used to make me want to stick my head in a rocket launcher and pull the trigger, but now?” Maqsud chuckled. “I can’t help but have a giggle.”

“Ruthless, coldblooded killers. Invaders from unknown space. The first aggressors in a bloody war that has lasted a year now.”

“They came in the middle of the night and destroyed everything,” said a tearful woman with a dirt-smudged face cradling a baby in her arms. “Everything. It’s all gone. If WorldGov didn’t evacuate us, we’d be gone, too.”

“She just got random dirt on her face outta nowhere,” Jarek snorted. “What kinda Hex attack does that? Dirt attack? I ain’t seen that weapon yet.”

“A real survivor would have stitched-up spike wounds,” Perri agreed. “I mean, wouldn’t that be more impactful to see? I still don’t get why they make it so fake.”

“It’s not all fake,” Nic said flatly. “The aliens are real. The war is real.”

“Yeah, but they don’t invade random neighborhoods like that,” Jarek countered. “They hit weapons depots. Factories. They hit military spaceports. Hell, we’re goin’ to Telum right now.”

Maqsud collapsed into a chair with an amused smile on his face. “‘All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.’ George Orwell, twentieth century Earth.”

Jarek stood up from the floor, dusting his hands off against each other, and said, “‘The more things change, the more things stay the same.’ Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Nineteenth century Earth.”

“Touché, Jarek. And bravo!”

“You like that? Read that one yesterday. Knuckle bumps.” Jarek and Maqsud tapped fists together.

“They’ve still killed over a thousand people,” Perri said coldly. “Real people. With real lives and families, people defending their right to exist. I don’t think I need to remind anyone of their second casualty, do I?”

“She’d be more than enough of a reason for me to fight,” said Nic. “Even without the other 999.”

“And how many of them have we killed in return?” Maqsud retorted.

No one answered at first. Then Nic piped up, “Not enough.”

Jarek whistled. “I’ll knuckle bump that, too, man.”

Max heaved a deep sigh. “You know, I miss her for a lot of reasons. She cemented her place on the squad so deeply in such a comparatively short time. What I miss most since this war started was her temperament. For all her personal neuroses, in some regards, she seemed to have the most level head of all of us.”

The Zeta-Class Patrol was silent for a while after that. Then Nic rose from the couch, stepping toward the small Simnasium in the rear of the ship. “Get your bathroom breaks in now,” he said. “Training starts in 15.”