The Commanders' Mate E-Book

Grace Goodwin

• Herausgeber: Grace Goodwin
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Interstellar Brides® Program
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 264

Beschreibung

Commander Karter is a Prillon Warrior. His first duty is to protect his people, to defend the Coalition worlds from a fate too terrible to comprehend. Battle is his life. His heart. He fights. He has never once been selfish enough to believe he deserved an Interstellar Bride. Until he's matched at the worst possible time.Astronomer Erica Roberts has always dreamed of seeing the stars. Volunteering as an Interstellar Bride is a win-win, not only will she be able to see the galaxy, but she's more than ready to take on the two alien warriors she's been promised. She's all in. But when she transports directly into the aftermath of a battle, she quickly learns this won't be an easy match. Her two commanders are torn between battling the Hive and battling their need for her.If a new Hive weapon can destroy a Coalition battlegroup in the space of a single heartbeat, what will it do to Commander Karter's match? And how is he and his second supposed to keep their mate safe if they can't even save themselves?

Leseprobe

The Commanders’ Mate

Interstellar Brides® Program : Book 15

Grace Goodwin

The Commanders’ Mate: Copyright © 2019 by Grace Goodwin

Interstellar Brides® is a registered trademark

of KSA Publishing Consultants Inc.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, digital or mechanical including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning or by any type of data storage and retrieval system without express, written permission from the author.

Published by KSA Publishers

Goodwin, Grace

The Commanders’ Mate, Book 15

Cover design copyright 2020 by Grace Goodwin

Images/Photo Credit: Deposit Photos: sdecoret, Romariolen

Publisher’s Note:

This book was written for an adult audience. The book may contain explicit sexual content. Sexual activities included in this book are strictly fantasies intended for adults and any activities or risks taken by fictional characters within the story are neither endorsed nor encouraged by the author or publisher.

Contents

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

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1

Commander Karter, Battleship Varsten, Sector 438

“You shouldn’t be here, Commander. I can take care of this.” My second in command, Vice Commander Bard, walked next to me, shoulder to shoulder, as he had for over a decade. We were both battleship-born Prillon warriors, and I counted on him to speak the truth when I didn’t want to hear it.

Bard spoke the truth now. Being in this wreck of a battleship was not the wisest course of action I could have taken. Yet, I had no choice. I had to see the level of destruction for myself. Commander Varsten was an excellent strategist, a seasoned warrior, and he was missing. I could not quite believe that half of his battle fleet had been destroyed in a matter of hours. Battlegroup Varsten had been decimated.

“The comm would not have done it justice.” Some things needed to be witnessed.

Bard stepped over a pool of scorched blood on the floor, a frown on his usually blank face. “No, it would not.”

When the comms came in from the survivors, I had not believed them, could not believe that nearly an entire battlegroup had been wiped out so quickly.

Yet, here we stood in the scarred remains of a ship that had once housed nearly two thousand warriors, mates and children. Outside, three of Varsten’s support vessels had been obliterated, not much more than fragments left spinning in the deep black of space. The battleship itself now drifted toward the nearest planet, weak engines not quite able to resist the relentless pull of gravity with the main power source destroyed. The metal corridors creaked and moaned beneath our boots as we pulled the foul scent of charred ship and death into our lungs through our helmets.

The devastation was vast. This section had a hull breach and our helmets, with supplemental oxygen, were required, as there was no air to breathe. Only half of the large vessel was still intact, and what was left was empty. A handful of dead were all that remained. Thank fuck we’d not come across a single murdered woman or innocent child in our search. It seemed the warriors who called this ship home had managed to get their families off the vessel but how that was even possible remained a mystery. Fuck, this entire situation had endless questions yet to be answered.

We walked the corridors of Commander Varsten’s battleship. Not my ship. Not my people. Not my sector of space. But they were all mine now. The dead lining these corridors and floating in the cold emptiness of space just outside the ship were my people. This barely-functioning craft was now under my control.

They were mine. With their commander missing, the survivors who’d lived through the direct attack on this ship, as well as those in the battlegroup who’d been sent to safety, were my responsibility. And there were a shocking number of Varsten’s people packed into the remaining cargo and support ships hiding on the other side of the nearest planet’s star. It was as if Varsten had known the attack was coming and ordered all his people and half of his fleet out of danger right before the Hive could strike.

But that made no sense. Why would he evacuate non-essential personnel and knowingly move an elite class battleship into a trap? Why sacrifice a battleship and multiple support crafts? Leave Sector 438 open to Hive occupation? This area of space was neighbor to mine. Varsten and I had spoken often over comms, discussed strategy and Hive activity. He had been a patient male with two decades more battle experience than I. A wise commander. He wouldn’t have done anything without reason. Finding out what had happened here was my first priority.

As was hunting and destroying the Hive attack fleet that had caused such destruction. I’d been transported here from Battleship Karter, along with an entire squadron of medical, military and support personnel, after receiving the distress call from those sent to safety. But they had not called during the Hive attack, but after it was over.

Hours after. We still had no explanation for that.

Seven hours, to be exact. We’d received a comm call from those who had been hiding on the other vessels. Unfortunately, there were no high-ranking officers among them. No one seemed to know what had pushed Commander Varsten to make such radical and inexplicable decisions.

Nothing made sense. Nothing.

“Where is the command crew?” I asked.

“We don’t know.” Our boots echoed with each stride as he answered me. “Those who are left of Varsten’s battlegroup remain on the other side of the star. The star’s radioactive field is interfering with our short-range comms and they are refusing to activate their quantum comm links.”

“You’re telling me he cleared his entire battlegroup of people, minus the command crew, into hiding, into… what, safety?”

He nodded. “It appears exactly that.”

“Do we have ships in Sector 437 available to come here and escort them safely through a manual evacuation? The Coalition will not want to abandon these vessels.” The other cargo and support vessels—the ones that had remained clear of the attack—had transport technology, but they were not equipped to handle the transport of nearly five thousand people.

The main battleship housed one-thousand four hundred warriors and family, as well as acted as the landing base for smaller assault ships. The ship itself was heavily armored and loaded with blaster technology in order to defend the smaller ships around it. Each commander of a battlegroup was in charge of one battleship and ten to twelve smaller support ships. Each group, referred to as a battlegroup, was named after their commander and responsible for one sector of space. Fully staffed, a complete battlegroup, all ships, held nearly five thousand people.

That was too many to transport in a short amount of time. Short-range attack ships from Battleship Karter would not be able to make it all the way to Sector 438 without assistance, and the ships still here in the dock of Battleship Varsten were all but destroyed.

The best option was to transport as many people as possible to Battlegroup Karter and send the remaining cargo and support vessels from Varsten’s fleet on a direct course to intercept with the Karter and her ships as quickly as possible. But that would mean the smaller ships from Varsten’s group would be unescorted and vulnerable to attack. And even that was assuming Prime Nial and the other fleet commanders would be willing to surrender this sector of space.

Not likely. Odds were Prime Nial would command me to split my fleet and resources and hang on to both Sector 437 and 438 until Commander Varsten’s fleet and personnel could be replaced. Prime Nial would commission a new battleship and assign a new commander to this area. But that would take time.

Time the Hive might not give us.

Bard sounded as grim as I felt. “A few. If the survivors left now, they would rendezvous with our support ships in about thirty-six hours, but Varsten’s pilots are refusing to move. They said they are under strict orders from Commander Varsten not to move yet, but they don’t know why.”

“And where the hell is Commander Varsten?” That was the question I most needed an answer to. Where was my old friend, and what the fuck had he been thinking?

Bard’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Dead. They found his body in the pilot’s seat of an attack shuttle. He was flying support, protecting the main ship. And he was alone.”

“No co-pilot?” He was dead, and so, it seemed, were my hopes of getting some answers.

“No one. No navigation. No comms. He was running solo.”

Another mystery I had no time to solve. Almost five thousand people were currently stranded on ships meant to sustain half that. And their battleship was gone. Well, we stood on what was left of it. Non-functioning and uninhabitable. Even if the rest of the Varsten’s battlegroup moved out from behind the star, they would have no battleship to protect them. If they returned… if we left them here, alone and unprotected, they’d be ripe for Hive capture. That would mean five thousand new Hive drones, soldiers, breeders.

No.

“How many survivors on the other forward ships? Do we have a body count?” I asked. Only a handful of dead warriors littered the corridors. I hated to think the Hive had taken the rest. It didn’t seem possible, but then, I’d seen worse things.

Bard looked down at the tablet he carried. “Only three survivors so far. We’ve counted twenty dead, including Commander Varsten, but we haven’t searched the entire ship.”

“What the fuck was he thinking?”

Vice Commander Bard didn’t respond to my question. I knew he didn’t have that answer. Instead, he said, “Two members of his command crew have been transported to ReGen pods back on the Karter.”

Gods be damned, maybe they would know what was going on here. “And the other survivor?”

When my second didn’t speak immediately, I stopped walking, forcing him to do the same. He was a strong Prillon warrior, and I trusted his judgment and his instincts. In this instance, his silence sent alarms through my system. As if the annihilation of almost an entire battlegroup wasn’t bad enough. Battlegroup Varsten had been protecting Sector 438 since I was a boy. The devastation around me was unthinkable. As was Varsten’s death.

“He’s I.C. and he’s not talking.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, let that extra level of insanity sink in. I.C. Intelligence Core. The dark side of the fleet. “Fuck. Where is he? I’ll make him talk.”

Bard arched a brow. “Should we get a message to Commander Phan?” He grinned, his copper skin and bronze eyes narrowing with anticipation. “I’m sure she would love to take a pound of flesh from one of her own.”

A few years ago, that would have been true. Now, the Earthling was a mother. A mate. And permanently under my command. She had saved my entire battlegroup not long ago, she, a human named Kira, and the contaminated beast she’d shown up with had worked together to dismantle a network of invisible mines the Hive had placed in space. Those mines had been trapping my entire group of ships. “She’s too valuable. I won’t risk bringing her here.”

The hiss of burst vent pipes, the groan of metal as it shifted after the explosion, the deep command of voices in the distance delegating tasks to clean up this clusterfuck surrounded us. Destruction was nothing new to me, but this was… personal. Close to home, at least as close to a home one could have on a fucking battlegroup.

“You’re here,” he countered.

“I am nothing,” I said simply.

Bard opened his mouth to argue, closed it. He knew how I felt about this. I was a warrior first and always. I fought. I killed. I protected my people, the people who became mine through Hive destruction. And if I died? So be it. Another member of my military family, or another worthy Prillon warrior, would take command. I was a cog in the wheel of the Coalition Fleet. I was a warrior. Nothing more.

“Chloe is I.C., Karter,” he continued. “She can take care of herself.” I often questioned the supposed intelligence of this group as they caused us more trouble than they were worth most of the time. But then, every once in a while, someone like Commander Chloe Phan came along and saved us all. I hated their secrets, but like all warriors, I recognized that spies and black-ops were a necessary evil. No battle commander could win a war without good intelligence on the enemy. And the hard-core bastards who served in the I.C. were the best. Including Commander Phan of Earth. But she was also mine to protect, a mate to two of my best warriors and a mother to their children. There was no need for her to risk herself out here in this chaos, especially when we had zero answers. I could beat the hell out of a tight-lipped I.C. commander all by myself.

“She’s a mother,” I said.

Bard grinned. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Why don’t you tell Dara and her baby brother that you risked their mother’s life for your entertainment?” It was my turn to smile, and I made sure to show every inch of my teeth—the better to rip Bard’s throat out with. “If you make my Dara cry, I will destroy you.”

We walked on.

Dara was beautiful, with black hair and green eyes, just like her mother. I loved her like she was my own. She was small, but fearless. And the moments she wrapped her small hand around mine were the only times I felt like more than a killing machine. I would do nothing to hurt her small heart, including risking her mother’s life when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Her baby brother Christopher was full of fire and curiosity, a bright, daring child. But it was Dara’s sweet innocence that kept me sane, gave me a reason to keep fighting.

Bard insulted me with laughter but kept further opinions to himself as he took me to the lone survivor on the command deck of the small cargo ship. We stepped over the dead as we went, a killing rage boiling hotter with each drop of blood that clung to my boots.

“Why did they leave the dead?” Bard asked.

Normally, a Hive attack resulted in a complete loss of all personnel. No bodies. No survivors. The Coalition Fleet had always assumed the Hive did something unpalatable with the dead, but I didn’t ask the I.C. and I had no desire to know the answer. What they did to the living was horror enough, and I struggled with my nightmares as it was. “I don’t know. Maybe the I.C. officer will have answers for us.”

Answers I didn’t want. But want was a luxury I gave up years ago.

Within a few minutes, we rode the remaining functional lift to the command deck of the battleship and entered through an emergency airlock set up by my crew. Once inside, Bard and I removed our helmets and looked around. A Prillon warrior sat in the navigator’s seat, head in his hands. His hair was golden and fair, as was his skin. He was large, his body a mountain in the small chair. But when he turned to face me, my body froze in shock.

2

Erica Roberts, Interstellar Brides Processing Center, Earth

Everything was dark, but I could hear my warriors moving to surround me, touch me.

Claim me.

I’d been waiting for this for weeks, longing for them to give in and take me as one in front of the others…

That thought stopped me cold and my heart raced, the hard memory of the processing chair back in that cold, clinical room at the bride testing center intruded on my bliss, as did the pounding of my heart, not in fear, but in anticipation.

For as much as this woman’s mind, whoever she was, wanted this claiming, I wanted it, too. This wasn’t my body. In some far off, rational part of myself I knew that. But it feltreal.

It was a dream. But it wasn’t. But it sure as fuck felt real. It was real, to her, and somehow I was to share it with her.

When a large hand settled around my neck and my mate’s warm chest pressed to my bare back, I slipped back into the dream, or hallucination—whatever this was. I didn’t care if it was real or not. I needed my mates to touch me.

The warrior behind me tilted my chin up, warm hand around my throat a blatant mark of ownership. Around us I heard male voices chanting, at least six, perhaps seven, watching.

No, witnessing this claiming. My mates’ honored chosen, sworn to protect me. They would watch…

Before my mind could follow that path, the male at my back slipped a finger into my aching pussy and I gasped, arching against him.

“So wet, mate. Are you ready for us?” His pleasure at my eagerness thrummed through our link, the mating collar I felt wrapped around my neck. Somehow it connected us. All three of us. How? I had no idea. I just felt.

My mind again surged forward, creating a haze of confusion as I processed the other woman’s thoughts. Three of us? I had two mates? Did I want two mates? Two mouths. Four hands.

Two cocks.

And one of them had a finger in my pussy.

God, yes. It was all I could think about, melting into a puddle of need between two hard Prillon warriors. My warriors.

Which is how I knew that my primary male was watching us, his cock hard and heavy with need, holding himself back to prolong the pleasure of this moment. His emotions, his lust, were drowning me, overwhelming both of us through the collars as my second mate pumped his thick fingers in and out of my pussy. I wanted them to fuck me, claim me, make me theirs. Now. I was ready to surrender, give them everything, scream in pleasure in front of the whole damn ship if I had to.

I needed them. Inside me. I needed to come.

Need. Need. Need.

Anxious, I tried to reach for him but found my arms tied loosely above my head, not stretched, just…out of their way. It made no sense, but it seemed I wasn’t supposed to have any control.

I needed to feel. Nothing else.

I was naked, the warm air moving lightly over my skin, cool against the wet heat of my open pussy. I was positioned like I was sitting in a chair, but there was no seat. My legs were spread wide to either side of my body, my thighs and most of my weight on a support I could not see, ass hanging out and over… a swing, open and bare. A swing? I didn’t understand, but I didn’t need to.

“Do you accept my claim, mate? Do you give yourself to me and my second freely, or do you wish to choose another primary male?” God, the growl in that voice almost made me come. My second mate stopped moving his fingers, his grip tightening, just enough, on my throat. My pussy clamped down on those fingers and I moaned. I needed more.

I licked my lips. “I accept your claim, warriors.” And please fucking hurry! I knew they could feel my eagerness through our mating collars, the psychic connection linked us in a way I didn’t understand. I could feel their need as if it were my own. Their desire. Possession.

Love.

God, yes, there was love there.

And just that fast, Erica Roberts of Earth didn’t exist anymore. I gave in completely, sank deeper into the dream. Felt. I didn’t want to leave this place, these warriors. This feeling. Not ever.

“Then I claim you in the rite of naming. You are mine, and I shall kill any other warrior besides my second who dares to touch you.” My primary male spoke the vow with a voice I had never heard before, so solemn. He meant what he said. He would kill to protect me.

He stepped between my open thighs and my second mate removed his fingers from deep in my pussy, using the wet digits to spread my pussy lips, to open me up for his primary male’s cock. As the first filled me, the mate at my back spoke his own vow. “You belong to us now. You are mine, and I am yours. I will die to protect you and our offspring. Kill to protect you. Mine. Forever, mate.”

I cried out as the first male surged forward, his way eased by my eagerness and the assistance of my second. I was stretched open, filled. When he was fully seated, deep and thick, my secondary male moved his hand to my ass, pulling gently on the plug I hadn’t noticed. How had I missed something so carnal? So… daring. It came free easily, and my second pushed his fingers deep into my ass. I gasped at the intrusion, of feeling so full. I’d never had someone even play with my ass, let alone fill it. Not with a small plug or a finger, but fingers. Plural.

I clenched down, breathed through the intensity of it.

I was wet there, whatever lubricant he had used working so well I all but begged him to start fucking me. I had no idea it could feel so good.

But I didn’t want his fingers; I wanted his cock. I wanted both of them inside me. Deep. Together. Fucking me. Making me theirs. “Please. Please. I need you.” I begged. I didn’t care. They were mine, totally and completely mine. There was no shame in me, no holding back. “Pleeeease.” I jerked against the bonds around my wrists, clamped down with my pussy muscles on the huge cock inside me.

The chanting stopped. I had all but forgotten our witnesses, too distracted by my mates to care about anything but us. “May the gods witness and protect you.”

The words barely registered before the mate in front of me claimed my lips, kissing me like he wanted to devour me.

I wanted that too.

At the same time, my second mate positioned his cock at my back entrance, carefully but with intent, pushed forward, opened me. Filled me.

I groaned into the kiss, shifted my hips, tried to anyway, so I could rock back and forth. Fuck myself on their two hard cocks.

Too big, too much. More.

Instead, my first mate’s hands clamped around my waist and he held me still. My second still had one hand around my throat, and I loved it, his other went to my breast, then nipple, squeezing. Tugging.

I was surrounded. Claimed. Safe. So full of cock I was going to scream if they didn’t move. Now.

As if they realized they’d pushed me to the edge of sanity, they moved, both of them, pulling in and out together. Slowly. Fucking me together. Filling me up.

Sex felt good. Yeah, just good. Usually. For me anyway, regular old Erica from Earth.

In. Out. Rub. Stroke. Caress. Orgasms, when done by hand… literally, were good. There was that word again. That was because it was good. Just that.

Until now.

Until this.

Holy shit, THIS.

3

Commander Karter, Battleship Varsten, Sector 438

“Ronan? Fuck, I thought you were dead. Killed five years ago on Latiri 4.”

My old friend stood, and I saw the ripped remains of his uniform, the blood on his temple and chest. He had not gone untouched in the battle, which meant he’d been on this ship when it had been attacked. Why had he been here, and why was he still here now? “Why did the Hive leave the dead? And how did you survive?”

He took a step toward me and Bard stepped between us, his ion rifle raised in his free hand. Ronan lifted his brows, a hardness I recognized in his golden eyes.

Ronan’s arms slowly lifted out at his sides to show his hands were empty and he meant no threat. “Really? You’re going to order him to shoot me?”

I didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. I’d seen things he couldn’t imagine.

Or perhaps, he could.

“I haven’t seen you in five years,” I countered, tipping my chin up. No matter how pleased—and stunned—I was to find him alive, there had to be a reason for his disappearance. “You were reported killed in action on Latiri 4. You might be contaminated, controlled by the Hive, your mind not your own. You could be full of Hive implants. In which case, you wouldn’t think twice about killing all of us and betraying your own people.”

He nodded once. “Too true. I can’t blame you, old friend, not after what just happened here.” The fire left his gaze and he slumped back, sitting once more in the chair, ignoring the ion pistol pointed at him.

Bard lowered his weapon but didn’t step back, remaining at the ready. With what surrounded us, we were all tense, all on guard, waiting for more destruction.

“What happened here, Ronan? How the fuck did the Hive get this close to a battleship?”

While any ship in a battlegroup was a potential target for Hive attack, no battleship had ever been hit this far inside Coalition space. Not like this. The standard orbital distance was—had been—too far for Hive weapons to be effective, our perimeter defenses and attack vessels making the main body of the fleet a difficult, if not impossible target. Until now.

Ronan ran his hand through his hair, inspecting the blood that clung to his palm as he lowered it. Stared at the dark stain. “They didn’t get through the defense grid. Not one forward scout ship was attacked. There was no warning. No ships. Nothing. The Hive weren’t even here, Kaed.”

He called me by my nickname, one I hadn’t heard in a long time. No one ever called me by my given name, Makaed. Not anymore. Not in years. That name belonged to an ambitious, hope-filled young Prillon male who had perished what felt like a lifetime ago.

“The I.C. knew the Hive were working on a long-range weapon of some sort, but we didn’t know what it was. Or where it was.”

I frowned, set my hands on my hips. “A long-range weapon? What are you talking about? There was nothing about a new threat in the command reports.” Those reports came directly from Prillon Prime and were sent to the active fleet commanders every day, sometimes twice a day, depending on how hot the battlefields ran.

“This isn’t the first attack. They took out the entire Battlegroup Hyrad ten days ago. Every single ship.” Ronan shook his head. “The I.C. didn’t have enough information to report or recommend any new course of action.”

“What?” An entire battlegroup had been destroyed and I knew nothing of it? “You must tell the fleet commanders. First Hyrad and now Varsten. You are risking thousands of lives on the other battlegroups if you don’t provide them with accurate intel.” Rage boiled hot for the I.C. and their constant games. “I’m going to contact Prime Nial. You’ll be executed for this.”

“Prime Nial knows. He’s the one who sent me here.” He looked up at me, and this time there was regret in his eyes. The I.C. had fucked up, royally, and he knew it.

“Tell me you’re lying. Why would he allow the I.C. to keep this from us?” Us, as in the commanders in the Coalition Fleet. The warriors responsible for protecting well over two hundred planets with billions of lives. Without consistent intel, we could do nothing to protect the people. This ship, this vessel that was barely holding together, was a perfect example of what could happen.

“He sent me here because they had intel that Varsten would be next. We hoped to lure the Hive into a trap.”

I lost my temper, and I never lost my temper. I was across the room, Ronan’s throat in my hand. When I lifted him, the chair tipped over and I turned, pushed his back to the nearest wall. I lifted him off his feet and squeezed.

“Commander Karter.” My second in command, Bard, placed his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. Ronan was my oldest friend. We’d run the corridors of Battlegroup Karter when my grandfather had been in command of the ship. We’d sworn to be brothers, have each other’s backs. He had pledged to be my second if I ever took a mate.

Thank the gods that had never happened, and never would. Not now. I’d been tested for a bride years ago. No bride had ever appeared, and I was confident none ever would. I was a damaged man, mated to battle. Mated to war. I lived, ate, and breathed to save my people, not to sacrifice them to some unknown Hive weapon. And yet, here we were, death and the leftovers of evil strewn at our feet.

I loosened my hold but did not release Ronan from my grasp. “Tell me every detail, and I might not kill you.”

His face was a mottled purple and yet he smiled, but it held no humor. “Commander Varsten knew everything,” he said, his voice deep, raspy from my hold. “He knew the risks and that’s why he chose this ship as bait. That’s why he was flying. He made the call. They all did. They stayed and we sent as many as we could into hiding.”

Varsten knew his battleship was going to be attacked? I thought of the grizzled old Prillon commander. He’d raised two sons and a daughter, been mated for many years. He was stubborn as iron ore and impossible to break. If Ronan said he’d known, then he had. The risk would not have deterred him. And this information explained a few things. “Is that why most of his fleet is on the other side of this star system?”

Ronan nodded. “Varsten left the main battleship”—he waved his arm in the air to indicate this now-dead vessel—“to pilot an attack scout ship. He transported off all non-essential personnel after I arrived. All mates and children, civilians and medical staff. There was a skeleton crew on board these few forward ships. Maybe fifty warriors. Most of the ships were manned with pilots and weapons stations only. All volunteers. We told them everything, Kaed. We needed enough ships to bait the Hive into an attack.”