For frek’s sake, Admiral! Do you think we’re all stim-baked skriffs?”Admiral Hoff Heston folded his hands on the glossy black table of the operations center and met Captain Ocheron’s blazing brown eyes with a calm look. “We’re not going to do anything,” he said.Ocheron blinked. “We have a Sythian Fleet on our doorstep—Gors eating all of our food—” Ocheron gestured to Tova, who sat at the foot of the table, glaring unblinkingly at Hoff. “—the Hydroponics Guild is raising prices on all shipments from food to caf and salves, and you want us to do nothing?”“I have the situation in hand.”“How exactly do you have it in hand?” Ocheron demanded, his thick black mustache twitching as he loomed across the table. Hoff eyed the man’s shiny bald head, and wondered absently if he might be able to see his own reflection there. Ocheron was a big brute of a man, the former Outlaw Captain of crime lord Alec Brondi’s fleet, now one of Admiral Heston’s own captains in the legitimate Imperial Fleet.
