Whoever said “You can’t go home again” may just have hit on something.

“Trail of Tears”

By Joseph Manno

Commander Erika Benteen had longed for this moment, never imagining that it could actually occur outside the province of dreams.

Now that she at long last stood on the bridge of USS Lakota, though, the weight of the intervening years nearly crushed her to its deck.

She had come aboard and set about seeing to her charge’s wounds with all the concern of a doting mother, or perhaps a guilt-stricken one, working everywhere—everywhere but the place a captain belonged.

Déjà vu all over again, she thought, and settled into the center seat.

It gave her no comfort at all.