Weapon by Jesse F. Bone — Read

The Dauntless was one of the / most powerful ships in the / Confederation space navy. / Yet, in the showdown with / the Eglani, victory was not / necessarily to the mighty.

Bright chatter flowed around her, filling the clean conditioned air of the room with inconsequential noise that hid the tension in a froth of words. It was what wasn't being said that was important, Ellen Fiske thought as she listened to the high-pitched voices. Of course, one never paraded feelings. It was indecent, -- something like undressing in public. But this matter of keeping a stiff upper lip could be carried to extremes. You went to these get-togethers, played cards and talked about dresses and children and grocery bills just as though there was no war, as though the Eglani never existed, as though the men in the Navy would come back as regularly and predictably as they did from commercial runs in the old days. But try as you did, you couldn't keep the undercurrents hidden. Fear clung to the sharp shards of sound. There was longing, grief, resignation, and hope, all mixed with a firm unreasoning conviction that if one buried her feelings deep enough everything would solve itself and wind up with a happy ending.