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.  And yet she’s all mine .
     
    She pressed against the cockpit as the battleship grew larger.  The damaged hull plates had been removed, she noted; the destroyed turrets had been replaced, hopefully with their weak points heavily armoured or removed altogether.  No one had taken a battleship into combat until the war - the Second Interstellar War - had broken out; no one had realised, absent that very real combat experience, the true strength and weaknesses of the design.  HMS Vanguard had been through the fire, enduring more than any of her predecessors would have been able to handle, but the unknowns had come very close to destroying her. 
     
    And if we had been a mite less lucky , she thought, we would have been destroyed .
     
    The shuttle pilot circled the battleship once before shaping a course towards her officers dock, positioned towards the prow of the giant battleship.  It was traditional for a new commanding officer to arrive in the main shuttlebay, where her crew could greet her formally, but Susan had already been in command of the battleship.  There was no time to waste on pointless formalities, particularly formalities that did nothing beyond stroking her ego, when there was work to be done.  She strode back to her seat and collected her knapsack as a low thud echoed through the shuttle, followed by a hiss as her hatch opened slowly.
     
    “Thank you for the flight,” she said, as she walked to the hatch.  “Are you heading straight back to Titan?”
     
    “I have orders to report to Nelson Base,” the pilot said.  “Good luck, Captain.”
     
    Susan nodded and stepped through the hatch, feeling the gravity quiver around her as she left the shuttle’s gravity field and entered Vanguard’s .  It felt harsh, after the lighter gravity of Titan, but she was damned if she was admitting any kind of weakness.  Besides, it wasn't as if a month was enough to cause muscle degradation, not with the enhancements spliced into her genetic code.  A week or two and she'd probably have forgotten that she’d ever felt ... uneasy ... with the higher gravity.
     
    The inner hatch hissed open.  “Captain,” a familiar voice said.  “Welcome back.”
     
    “Paul,” Susan said.  Commander Paul Mason was an old friend - and a co-conspirator when she’d plotted her contingency plans.  “Congratulations on your promotion.”
     
    “Congratulations on yours ,” Mason said.  He saluted, smartly.  “We only got the word a couple of hours ago.  I’m afraid we haven’t quite dusted everywhere yet.”
     
    “I’m sure the finishing touches can wait an hour or two,” Susan said.  She felt an odd lump in her throat as she surveyed her crew.  “I hope ... I hope matters were not too hard on any of you.”
     
    “You took all the blame, it seems,” Major Christopher Andreas said.  The Marine CO leaned forward to shake her hand.  “It didn't stop General Ramón from bawling me out, Captain, but I think most of us were in the clear.”
     
    Mason cleared his throat.  “This is Lieutenant-Commander Jean Granger,” he said, introducing a redheaded woman.  “She’s been assigned as our tactical officer.”
     
    “Captain,” Jean Granger said.  “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
     
    “And you,” Susan said.  She supposed that not all of her former crew could be bumped up a rank or two, although she’d expected Lieutenant David Reed to get the tactical slot.  But then, the Admiralty would probably want someone in place who hadn't been contaminated by any ... contingency planning .  “I’ll speak to you later, if you don’t mind.”
     
    “Not at all, Captain,” Jean said.  Very few officers would mind talking to their commanding officer - and if they did, they should know to hide it.  “I also have a tactical brief from the Admiralty for your attention.”
     
    Susan nodded, quietly making a mental note to ensure she spoke to Jean within the day.  “I thank you all for