Soldiers

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Grand Admiral Quanshuk shu-Gorlak waited. "Thirty-nine," the ship counted. "Thirty-eight, thirty-seven…" After eleven years in hyperspace, Quanshuk asked himself, how can these final seconds seem so long? Eleven years of wondering what he'd find. Probably, hopefully, nothing basically unfamiliar.

Most of his people had spent the entire eleven years in a sleep so profound that aging was suspended; even he'd spent alternate months in a stasis chamber. Eleven years of hyperspace, mostly between spiral arms. On the screen's display of the F-space potentiality, there'd been whole months without the matric distortion of a single star. Only today had they seen two on a watch, both clearly unsuitable. And now a third. Judging by its mass not a promising third, but it was time to emerge, examine the starscape.

"… twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two…"

He glanced around at the bridge watch, all of them tense. Not so much as an ear flicked. But Quanshuk was not deceived. Those long brain cases harbored thoughts. Anticipation. Apprehension.

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