A/N: Taking a break from "All Is Lost" to mourn Shana and get over how much Paige and Emily's relationship is irritating me at the moment. I figured there was no better way to get psyched about the characters again than by making them badass space commanders!

Title from the Isaac Asimov book of the same name.

"This is Tiger Leader, calling all Sharks," Paige said, keying on her intercom, "Sound off."

Paige flicked the switch guards up on her grav-engine controls, scanning the instrument panel one last time as she went through her mental pre-flight checklist. Satisfied with what she found, she flipped all eight switches, and sighed into the sound of all engines humming to life and the steady thrum beginning to rumble through her spine. She'd missed that hum through her body- it reminded her she was alive more than her own heartbeat did. She gradually leaned back, her body acting as the ship's throttle, nosing it into a steady float several feet above the grav-runway. She looked down the bay line at her right, all eight of the remaining runways filled with the rest of her squad rising to follow her lead.

"Tiger 2 standing by," Shana's smooth voice came over the intercom. Shana had earned her own team by now, but Paige was loathe to lose her favorite wingman- Paige didn't have enough engines on her Assaulter to count the number of times Shana's speed and ferocity had saved her ass.

"Tiger 3 on standby," Sean sounded like he was barely containing his excitement and Paige knew he'd been feeling cooped up on the AGC-Hollis-all of them had. They were approaching a nearly month long no-fly status as they moved through demilitarized Homeworld space to pick up their new Captain, and tempers had been short with the Sharks confined to barracks duty. Paige had only just managed to gain clearance for the exercise after weeks of nagging Allied Flight Control.

"Hammer Leader, ready to go!" Sydney sounded thrilled and Paige had a momentary pang of concern over promoting a rookie to team leader so quickly. She has good instincts, Paige reminded herself. And an obsession with the vid-training room, she thought with a smile, remembering all the times she'd come upon the girl rewinding old vids of Paige's missions, twisting the projection in her hands to get every angle on a dogfight.

"Keep your formation tight, Shortcut." She reminded the girl as the rest of Sydney's team sounded off.

"This is Blacktip Leader, ready to fucking go already." Noel growled over the intercom, and she saw his ship inch forward with his frustration.

"We all know you need the head-start Blacktip Leader, but keep it in line." Paige chided, trying to strike the delicate balance between humor and authority needed to handle her gifted, unpredictable, and non-team player of an ace. Giving him his own team had been Paige's attempt at seeing if he could cooperate- recognize other's skills and lead with an eye towards mission success rather than individual success. It had taken a team promotion to break Paige in for command, and she hoped Noel would fall in line too.

"Blacktip 2. Reporting." came Nate's surly check-in. Paige frowned. Nate had been a recent transfer and Paige had a sense that he resented her command. Exactly why, she wasn't sure, but he would either get over it quick, or she would bust him out of the squad entirely.

"Blacktip 3. Uh, present?"

Paige clicked over to a private channel to speak to her rookie- straight out of flight school and scared shitless.

"How you doing, Lucas? Ready to fire up all eight engines this time?"

Lucas laughed shakily, "You know you really only need four in training exercises-"

"You'll be fine, rookie. Stick close to Kahn."

The prospect of staying on Noel's tail was probably more frightening than making use of his ship's eight engines. But scared was alright to start with- scared could be good. She had a feeling he'd find out what happened when you pissed yourself in Zero G, but they had plenty of non-com flight hours coming up and she was confident his initial jitters would pass.

There was a bank of four thruster levers on her right, another four on her left, and a readout of each engine's exact percentage of thrust on the smart glass cockpit, a set-up that had earned the Assaulters the nickname "stick-shift from hell."

Paige cracked her knuckles, loosening them up for the strain of the flight.

"Keep engines at 50 percent heading out, Sharks. Don't want to leave any grav-engine burn on our Head Engineer's sparkling clean docking bay."

She leaned forward slightly, the supporting chassis around her responding to the hardware in her suit, and moving the ship forward with surprising speed, even at minimal power. While the Assaulter's could technically land anywhere, it was always best to take off from a grav-runway- it gave the squadron incredible speed in entering a dogfight when taking off at full power. The Sharks could scramble from their barracks and be out the hangar doors in a minute thirty, pre-flight check and all, another reason Assaulter pilots were so sought after.

Paige waited while the Control Deck cleared their take-off, fidgeting and wiping a smudge off the inside of her cockpit's smart glass. As soon as the grav-runway lit blue and began pushing her ship forward, she snapped all thrusters to half-power and threw her body forward.

She shot out of the hangar bay, flicking the right thruster engines to send her into a spin- at once a joyous expression of finally being able to stretch out into the great expanse of space- the irony of feeling like she could actually breath now that she was outside- and to check the rotation of her cockpit chassis. The spherical smart glass enclosing her spun, but she remained stubbornly "upright," the ship keeping her in complete equilibrium so she could steer.

Paige bit down on the pressure sensitive panel of the comlink between her back teeth, clicking over to another programmed private channel.

"Caleb, pull the readings for the port-aft engine, it's still not evening out with the rest." The S-8 Assaulters were equipped with eight grav-engines, and being able to manipulate each individually was the key to the ship's superior agility. Aside from the difficulty in piloting them, the engines were notoriously finicky to calibrate, and Paige's ship in particular seemed to respond to no one's touch but their Head Engineer's.

"Sure thing, Commander, do you need to scrub the run?"

"No, the Sharks need some space to move. I'll adjust manually for now, but have a look before next drill."

"Heard, Commander."

Paige acknowledged and clicked back over to her squadron frequency.

"A, bring up the Nav HUD," Paige ordered the computer. The Alpha Prime Computer system-or just A as everyone shipboard called her- was linked to the squadron and the AGC - Hollis itself, projecting a fully tracking map sphere of all nearby vessels. She would be able to rotate is as needed while she took the Shark's through their paces.

She watched her squadron move through the hologram for a moment, all of them executing loops and spins, reversals and dives, testing themselves and their machines. She gave the command to fall into formation, watching as eight Assaulters circled back to her position, arraying themselves around their leader. Paige led them through several practice scenarios and basic drills, breaking them off into their separate teams occasionally to watch how her leaders handled their own choreography. Satisfied with their progress, she decided it was time to start the real training.

"I think it's time we all had a light tag match." Paige announced.

"Yessssssssss!" Sean practically bellowed through her comlink, and there was a chorus of other positive chatter, although she could have sworn she heard a groan that sounded suspiciously like Lucas.

"A, switch all weapons to light markers and run the damage simulation program."

Paige flicked her smart glass over her right eye, checking that the targeting reticule moved as her eye focus did. She slid her boots into the stirrups that would function as her trigger once she yanked down on them and addressed her full squadron before she switched over to Tiger team frequency.

"Team battle, Sharks, watch out for your wingmen and they'll watch out for you."

Shana and Sean looped to form a tight triangle with Paige, Shana keeping low on her right and Sean performing excited spins on her left.

The three Blacktip members made an immediate sweep turn to engage Paige's team, Lucas' ship lagging just behind the formation. Paige was unsurprised at the move- Noel was anxious to be the first to light tag Paige's Assaulter. He'd been trying to get a bet going on when it would happen but so far there had been no takers.

Nate's Assaulter looped under Noel's, neatly taking Kahn's position to challenge Paige and forcing the Blacktip team leader to pursue Shana instead. Paige knew Noel wouldn't be happy about that. She kept her Assaulter skipping side to side even as Nate flew a head on course for her. It was a reckless and aggressive move on his part- they were more likely to tag each other out than anything flying like this.

As soon as Nate was in firing range, Paige cut all power to her rear and starboard thrusters, throwing her body to the right and all thruster power to port side engines. The Assaulter jumped almost completely laterally out of Nate's incoming path, neatly out of the way of the bolts of orange light he was firing. Nate streaked past her Assaulter's near forward standstill, but began correcting into a tight pursuing loop. Paige had continued to press into her lean, adding thrust to her rear port engine to send her Assaulter into a tight rolling loop, bringing her round fast enough to momentarily catch the side of Nate's ship in her sights. Paige focused her targeting reticule over Nate's Assaulter and slammed her boots down, a spray of magenta light splattering all along the side of Nate's ship.

Nate's incapacitated ship drifted away as the rest of Tiger team fell back into formation, Shana and Sean having evaded the rest of the Blacktips. Lucas' ship was drifting aimlessly, a flash of dark purple light from Sean's guns across its starboard side and Noel's yellow gun marks across the back.

"Lucas got in the way of one of Noel's maneuvers and tagged him before I did. I'd be jealous that he stole my kill, but I think I'll buy him a drink for that one." Sean chuckled gleefully over her comlink. Sean was more likely to get the drink thrown back in his face, but Paige thought Noel might deserve a little humiliation from the squadron- if he couldn't be coaxed into communicating with his team, perhaps he could be shamed.

Paige's thoughts on her unit's cohesion were cut short as she watched three ship's heading towards their position on the HUD.

"3 and 8 o'clock Tigers, evasive!" Paige yelled in her comlink, as Sean and Shana's ships barely skated out of the light trail Sydney's team was painting behind them. Sydney's teammates flew through the gap created in the Tiger's formation, effectively splitting them up. Clever teamwork, Paige thought, even as she banked upwards to avoid the light blasts from Sydney's Assaulter behind her.

Sydney's teammates descended on Sean and tagged him in a bright mess of green and blue light before Paige tagged the first in a flyby, then stalled her engines and flipped round to tag the pursuing Assaulter with her magenta bolts. Shana swooped away from Sydney, the rookie hot behind her and sending light blasts into space as Paige's wingmate juked erratically to throw her off. Shana reversed all engines in an attempt to shake her, but after a split second delay Sydney had reversed her own engines to follow. A split second was all Shana needed though, as she reversed her thrusters yet again and looped her Assaulter to face Sydney's ship head on.

"Bye, kid." Shana said, a vivid spray of red appearing across Sydney's cockpit as Shana banked sharply upward, reversing her underside thrusters to avoid a collision. Paige's grin at her wingmate's victory was short-lived, as Noel Kahn's Assaulter cut in from above, practically painting Shana's ship in light, an overkill of gaudy yellow as he screamed past so close he left grav-engine marks over the fresh light.

"Just you and me, Commander. Care to dance?" Noel spoke in her ear.

"Let's see how good your footwork is," Paige replied, sending bolts of magenta after Noel's Assaulter, "I'll lead!"

Noel dodged her fire at the last moment, adding an extra spin at the end, confident as a musician adding a trill to an already complex piece. Kahn flew beautifully- as proud of the lines he cut in an Assaulter as he was of the the lines of his own sharp features.

Noel's Assaulter twisted around to return fire, Paige diving beneath his approach to avoid the blasts. Noel looped in tight behind her, ready to tail and tag her.

"A, you sweet sunbeam, send Kahn a message from me. Tell him his ass is slow."

Paige reversed all thrust on her back engines, toggling bursts to the center and front engines and sending her Assaulter up and over Noel's ship in a loop so tight that it was actually a complete flip, the rest of the ship upside down even as Paige's chassis kept her upright. her fore engines just barely eased behind Noel's aft ones, and if Paige had miscalculated a millimeter this training exercise would have been deadly.

But Assaulter pilots lived and died by millimeters, and Paige never miscalculated.

A bright magenta light tag bloomed across the Assaulter's rear four engines. The ship-board computer recognized the simulated damage and registered the hit as a kill. Noel Kahn's Assaulter floated dead in space. A message icon popped up on his smart glass and A helpfully opened his message.

"You have one message from the Commander. Replaying: Your ass is slow."

Emily Fields ran her fingers over the box that held the final piece of her uniform. She hadn't looked at the small platinum starburst since it had been presented to her by Captain Fulton in view of the Allied Galactic Fleet Admiral, her entire graduating class, and several dozen holo-vid reporters.

"I don't understand." Emily had said, standing in Captain Fulton's office before the ceremony.

"You're Valedictorian." Fulton answered, "It's tradition that you be awarded with a command post on a vessel."

"Not a front-line ship. Not a Cruiser." Emily replied, unconvinced.

Fulton frowned, steepling her fingers behind her desk.

"You completed your tour of duty as a First Officer with glowing recommendations. Your performance at the Academy has been exemplary- your classmates not only admire you, they follow you. And-" Fulton paused, "your experience at the front as an Assaulter pilot did much to convince certain key individuals of your fitness for the captaincy."

Emily crossed her arms, too anxious about where this conversation was going to remain at attention in front of her mentor.

"I was tagged out on my third mission. Not exactly a stellar career move."

Fulton nodded, "And you survived. Very nearly unheard of."

"And I suppose that's what really convinced certain key individuals to give me this captaincy? "

Fulton clasped her hands and leaned forward across her desk, Emily knowing from experience the Captain's body language when she wanted to engage in a 'serious talk.'

"Emily, what happened to you is always going to be a part of who you are. You don't have the luxury of hiding it," Fulton began.

Emily ran her hand up and down her left arm, trying to ward off the tingle of fear she felt in her skin, feeling more exposed in the sleeveless dress uniform than usual.

"I know that isn't fair, I know you didn't make the choice to be under this much scrutiny. But you have a choice now- you can take this Captaincy. You can lead. There's no more courageous decision."

"I'd rather be qualified for the post than be a political statement." Emily sighed.

Fulton chuckled, an edge of resignation in her laugh, "You'll soon find that every decision you make as Captain will be a political one."

The older woman watched her protégé's face fall. Her own face softened.

"But that isn't all they are. The political veneer we have to disguise our decisions in doesn't erase the basis of why we made them. You're a good choice, for many reasons, some of them political, yes, but you are also a good officer. You can bring people together, not just because of what you are," Fulton said, pointing to Emily's arm, "but who you are."

Fulton stood, turning to face the window of her office; a view overlooking the rest of the Academy space station, and the shipyards beyond, a dozen Cruiser class ships in varying states of construction floating tethered in the backdrop of endless space.

"We are at war. And the front lines of that war are not always clear- the battles we undertake are as frequently ideological as they they are physical. There are a thousand ways we can lose this war, Emily, even while still technically being victorious. Your promotion to such a high profile position is one more step towards bringing lasting peace. For everyone."

"But the Hollis-" Emily said softly.

"I love that ship." Fulton looked over her shoulder and Emily could see the sadness in her profile, "It is my home, my family. My life's work. I wouldn't entrust it to anyone else for any smaller reason. Or to anyone I didn't believe in more."

Emily clicked open the clasp on the box, pulling the pin from it's fold in the purple velvet interior. She stood in front of her mirror, flicking dark wavy hair over her shoulder.

The starburst was the insignia of the Allied Galactic Cruiser Hollis, and the platinum- Emily refused to let her fingers shake as she snapped it into the hole in her collar- meant she was it's Captain.