The four silver rectangles denoting her new rank of captain felt heavier than they should have and Erika found that she could not tear her eyes from them.
It was hard to believe that they had back on Earth for two full days already and her ears still rang from the sheer volume of the applause that had greeted them when they stepped back onto Spacedock. Seeing Admiral Forrest there, leading the cheers, had been a big enough shock but when President Gomez stepped forward to give a clearly prepared speech on the heroism and valor of Enterprise's crew in the wake of impossible odds, Erika's brain had stopped working. And from the stunned expressions on so many of her crew … of Enterprise's crew, she wasn't the only one struggling to comprehend that the Xindi conflict was officially over.
Her
