“Different?”

“I hadn’t had time to mention it, but when we were rescued from Ambrosia that time, the Fleet cruiser that came was this one. The Zaid-Dayan. I never saw the captain, but it was a woman. That’s why I used the name in the cover I gave Varian and the others back on Ireta. It was a deja-vtt situation, you and this ship ...”

Sassinak grunted. “Couldn’t have been this ship. Wasn’t the Ambrosia rescue before Ireta and your cold-sleep? Forty years or so back? That must have been the ‘43 version . . . that ship was lost in combat the year I graduated from the Academy.” She nodded to the squad of marines that had flattened themselves along the bulkhead to let her by, and waited for Lunzie to catch up.