This was his first real break, since the major repairs were completed and all that was left was details. He’d grabbed at the new CO’s suggestion, more like order, to take some leave. The ship wasn’t due to leave for its next mission for two months. So he’d headed down to his real home in Huntsville to visit friends and reacquaint himself with the trails, baby-head sized rocks, roots, boulders, downed trees, screaming downhills, and extremely rough and technical climbs of Monte Sano Mountain.

He pulled his left foot out of the pedal and planted it as he braked just before the whoopdie-doos. Just as he started down, his cell phone rang. The ringtone — “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns’n’Roses — was barely audible over his pounding heartbeat. Bill welcomed the break, he was that fragged. He bit the tube hanging from the helmet strap in front of his face and sucked down water from his CamelBak between gasps for air.

Despite the fact that he was on leave, he was required to be on call. Since he not only had a deeper grasp of the science behind the drive but a knowledge of every bolt and system in the ship that was unsurpassed by even its commander and XO, sometimes there were questions that only he could answer. And it appeared that there was another one.

“Weaver,” he said, panting for breath. The earbud he was wearing automatically activated at his voice.

“Commander Weaver, Captain Jeller, SpacComOps. You’re required to report at the earliest possible moment to your ship.”

“Shit,” Bill muttered. “Uniform?”

“Whatever you’re wearing at the moment, Commander,” the captain on the phone said. “There has been an incident…”

Eric tuned out the priest as the sermon started. It was a new one since he’d left for the Corps, a woman of all things. His family was Episcopal but while Eric had heard there were no atheists in foxholes, he didn’t recall praying much on the last mission. Mostly he’d been too scared spitless to remember any.