The space vista displayed on the screens was as empty as the personal file of the Moon’s quartermaster.

The patrol cruiser Scimitar was steadily docking at the second level of the maintenance tower. The tower had been nicknamed The Fifth International by NS News reporters for its iconic design that brought the Russian Futurist Vladimir Tatlin’s vision to life.

We had taken damage during a Toylang raid on our forward base in the Lead Sun sector, and the giant mobile dock Beethoven completed its repairs yesterday. The Beethoven had finished undocking from the Fifth International half an hour ago, and was now slowly crawling away from the Pallas asteroid, preparing to go on a jump trajectory.

Three light Flamingo-class corvettes were hanging in high orbit of Pallas with their main engines off. They were waiting for the unwieldy Beethoven to complete its tedious maneuver.

The captains of the corvettes were under orders to take the mobile dock into their care and escort it to the Sandhei region, where our fleet’s main forces were concentrated.

The mobile dock had to replace the spent engines on two cruisers of the 5th Battle Cruiser Brigade, and then, under the cover of the roaming fortresses of Sandhei, serve as a forward supply base and hospital for 2,000 crew capsules and passengers. The previous hospital, the Paracelsus, had been destroyed by a Toylang raiding party two weeks ago, along with all its patients, personnel, and an unconventional stockpile of combat-ready torpedoes.

The corvettes, mobile dock, Scimitar, and four space defense batteries were all we had in the Pallas sector.

We didn’t need anything else. The war was being waged across the galaxy but never came within five parsecs of the Solar System.

We were fighting the war with confidence, unhurried. Enemy number one was retreating to its metropolis, the Frangarn system. It seemed like the Toylang just needed one more push to accept our terms of surrender, which would throw them back to the age of sailing fleets, two-handed swords, and sluggish experiments with natural electricity.

Being a ship’s security officer was rather like amateur gardening. Automatic systems water the eggplants in the garden beds, and you lie in a hammock, the idleness driving you crazy. Want to feel like a hero? Pick up a watering can, work for half an hour, and then... Then back to the hammock and finding unity with your inner self.

Maintaining order on a real combat giant—a dreadnought or a roaming fortress—was alright. There was a large crew there, and lots of young people who would sometimes get rowdy at the bar, giving security a chance to flex its muscles once a week by pulling troublemakers apart. Again, dreadnoughts still saw action. Fires raged on board, the armor plating cracking from the heat under a blown reactor, and there was the thrill of battle.

There was and could be no thrill in serving on the Beethoven. Even the fact that my authority equaled the captain’s induced no response in my soul. Nor did the fact that, in some ways, it surpassed his.

Authority... privileges... status... Being a major at my age was a pathetic joke.