Rules of Engagement

Chapter Four

Brun stalked along the streets of Q-town trying to push her anger back down her throat. That sanctimonious little prig . . . that prissy backcountry chit . . . her family probably slopped hogs in their bare feet. Just because she herself had grown up rich, just because she could talk about sex without squinching her face up—!

In one corner of her mind, she knew this was unfair. Esmay was not an ignorant girl, but an accomplished older woman. Not much older, but an Academy graduate, a Fleet officer, a combat veteran—Brun would have been glad to have Esmay’s experience. She wanted Esmay’s respect.

But not enough to turn into a frumpy, tight-buttoned, sexless, joyless . . .

Esmay wasn’t joyless, though.

Brun didn’t want to be fair. She wanted to be angry, righteously angry. Esmay had had no right to ream her out like that, no right to say she had no moral sense. Of course she had moral sense. She had rescued Lady Cecelia, for one thing. Even Esmay granted that. Aside from the requisite helling around that all the people in her set went through in adolescence, no one had ever accused her of being immoral.

She hunted through her past, finding one instance after another in which she had acted in ways she was sure Esmay would approve . . . not that it was any of her business. She had protected that little Ponsibar girl at school, the one who had arrived so scared and so easy to bully. She had told the truth about the incident in the biology lab, even though it had cost her a month’s detention and the friendship of Ottala Morreline. She had been polite to Great-Aunt Trema even when that formidable old lady had regaled guests at the Hunt Ball with tales of “little Bubbles” cavorting naked in the fountain as a toddler. She’d had to fight off entirely too many of her schoolmates’ brothers after that one, but she hadn’t turned against Aunt Trema. She and Raffa on the island . . . they had saved each others’ lives.

She could not, however, find something to plaster over all the accusations. Well . . . so what? Her standards were different; that didn’t mean she had none. Just as her inner voices began to talk about that, she decided she was thirsty, and turned into one of the bars that lined the street.

Diamond Sims, the sign read. Brun assumed it referred to fake diamonds, with an implication of world-weariness. Inside, the tables and booths were full of men and women who might as well all have been in uniform as in the mostly-drab shipsuits now the favorite casual wear for the military. The way they sat, their gestures . . . all revealed their profession. A few—less than a third—were in uniform. She didn’t see any of the students from the courses here—not that she’d know any but those in her own section, anyway. But she hadn’t wanted to see anyone she knew, anyone who would wonder where her bodyguards were. She wanted new faces, and a new start, and new proof that she was who she thought she was.

With that in mind, she edged past crowded tables to the one double seat empty toward the back. She sat down, and touched the order pad on the table—Stenner ale, one of her favorites—and put her credit cube in the debit slot. She glanced around. On the wall to her right were framed pictures of ships and people, and a display of little metal bits arranged in rows. A faded red banner hung up in the far corner; she could not make out the lettering from where she sat.

A waitress deposited her frosted mug and the bottle of ale, and gave her a saucy grin. “What ship, hon?”

Brun shook her head. “I’m on a course.” The waitress looked slightly surprised, but nodded and went on her way to deliver the rest of the tray to another table. Brun poured her ale. Behind her, she heard the dim confused sound of voices, and realized that there was another room—apparently private—adjoining the main room. And on her left, the long bar, the same matte black as the stuff covering ships’ hulls . . . could it possibly be a section of the same material? Above it, suspended from the high ceiling, were ship models. Brun recognized the odd angular shape of a minesweeper among the more ordinary ovoids of the warships. And behind the bar, the expected mirrors were framed with . . . her eyes widened. She knew enough about ordnance now to recognize that every frame had once been part of a functioning weapon. In a quick glance around the room, she saw more and more . . . it was as if the inside of the bar were made of the salvaged pieces of wrecks.

She felt the hair rising on the back of her neck, on her arms. It wasn’t real—it could not be real—no one would really . . . but her eye snagged on a display at the near end of the bar. Paradox. That name—she could not forget that name. And here was a plate—an ordinary dinner plate, its broad rim carrying the same dark-blue chain design she’d seen on all the dinnerware aboard Admiral Serrano’s ship, with the four lozenges that had surrounded the name Harrier. Here, the design inside the lozenges was slightly different . . . and the plate, sitting on a stand she was suddenly sure had been made of other debris, was brightly lit by a tiny spot that also illuminated the label, for those who were too far away to see the lozenges. Beside it was a stack of crockery.

Brun looked at the mug holding her ale, suddenly feeling almost sick. Had she been drinking from . . . ? No, it wasn’t Paradox. But now that its frosting had melted, she could see it was etched with some design. She squinted slightly. R.S.S. Balrog.

She had been drinking from dead men’s cups. She was sitting on . . . a seat made from salvaged bits . . . and what bits? Her elbows rested on a table made of . . . she wasn’t sure what, but she was now sure it was something that had been part of a living ship, and had been salvaged from a wreck. She looked for clues—and there, in a dull-finished plaque set into the tabletop next to the menu screen, she found it. R.S.S. Forge, enlisted bunk 351. A tiny button to one side caught her eye; she pressed it.

The menu screen blanked, replaced by a historical note: R.S.S. Forge had been lost thirty-two years before, in combat with a Benignity strike force; all hands had died. This fragment had been salved twenty-eight years ago, and identified by the stamped part number (still on the underside of the table); at the time of the ship’s death, enlisted bunk 351 had been assigned to Pivot Lester Green.

The table’s pedestal, the note went on, was formed of a piece of shielded conduit from the same ship; the two chairs were both from Forge, but one was from the enlisted mess and the other had been that of the senior weapons tech serving the aft starboard missile battery. The five people who had taken that position during Forge’s final battle were all listed: Cpl. Dancy Alcorn, Sgt. Tarik Senit, Cpl. Lurs Ptin, Cpl. Barstow Bohannon, Sgt. Gareth Meharry.

Brun’s breath caught. Bad enough that all the names were listed, real people who had lived real lives and died a real death. But Meharry . . . she had known Methlin Meharry . . . was this a relative? A . . . parent? Aunt? Uncle?

Each name was linked, she realized, to some other information. She didn’t want it; she didn’t want those names to be any more real than they already were. But Meharry—she had to know. She activated the link.

Gareth Meharry had been twenty-six when he died; his family tree, spread across the screen, with Fleet members in blue, was more blue than gray. His parents (both now deceased, one in combat) had been Fleet; of his four sibs, two were active-duty Fleet, and two were married to Fleet members. Methlin Meharry was his sister . . . hard to think of that tough veteran as anyone’s sister. One of his nieces—her niece too—was named after her. So there would be another Methlin Meharry someday, and with both parents, and aunts and uncles, in Fleet, there was every chance that she would go into Fleet.

Sudden curiosity—and an escape from the weight of tragedy that was making it hard to concentrate—sent Brun back to the main menu. Sure enough, below the lists of drinks and food, she found data access choices. From this table, she could check on the publicly accessible records of anyone in Fleet.

Esmay—she wondered if there were other Suizas in Fleet. She entered the name and waited. Up on the screen came only one name, and Fleet’s choice of data for public consumption. Name . . . she had not known that Esmay’s full name was Esmay Annaluisa Susannah Suiza. Planet of origin: Altiplano. Family background . . . Brun caught her breath. In a few crisp sentences, she was informed that the Suiza family was one of the three most prominent on Altiplano . . . that Esmay’s father was one of the four senior military commanders . . . that her uncles were two of the others, and that the fourth was considered to be a Suiza choice. That the military influence on Altiplano’s government was “profound.”

Brun tried to tell herself that a senior military commander on a backwater planet was nothing special—her father’s militia, back on Sirialis, was just a jumped-up police force. Its commander, though given the title “General,” had never impressed her as the regulars of Fleet did. But Altiplano . . . she read on . . . had no Seat in Council. It had no Family connections at all. Which meant—she wasn’t sure what, but she suspected that a General Suiza had a lot more power than old General Ashworth.

Of Esmay herself, there was little: a list of her decorations, with the citations that went with them. Conspicuous gallantry. Outstanding leadership. Outstanding initiative. A list of the ships she’d served on. Her present assignment, to Training Command’s Junior Officer Leadership Course.

Well. Brun sat back, aware of tension in her neck and shoulders, the feeling that she’d got herself in well over her head in more than one way. She returned the screen to its default, and thought of ordering a snack. But it would come on a plate from some wrecked ship. She didn’t think she could face that. As it was, she already had tears in her eyes.

“Something wrong?” asked a deep voice behind her. She turned.

He was stocky, heavy shoulders thick with muscle; his bald head, like Oblo’s, deeply scarred. His eyes were scarcely higher than hers; he was in a hoverchair. Brun kept her eyes from dropping to see why with an effort—but that gave him a clear look at her face.

Out of the scarred face, brown eyes observed her with more insight than she liked. His wide mouth quirked.

“Lady, you’re not Fleet, and you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you?”

The “lady” threw her off-stride for a moment. In that pause, he jerked his head toward the farthest angle of the back.

“Come on over here, and let’s get you sorted out,” he said. She was moving before she realized it, compelled by something in his voice. His hoverchair turned, and slid between the tables; Brun followed.

Two tables away, someone called, “Hey! Sam!” He turned his head slightly—he could not, Brun realized, turn it all the way—and raised a hand but did not answer. Brun followed him and found a half-booth: enclosing bench and table, with space on the other side for his hoverchair.

“Sit,” he said. Then, over his shoulder to a waitress, “Get us a pair of Stenners, and some chips.” His gaze returned to Brun, as disturbing as ever.

“I’m not really—” Brun began.

“That much I know already,” he said, humor in his tone. “But let’s see what you are.” He ticked off points with a stubby finger that looked as if it had been badly moulded of plastic. “You’re Thornbuckle’s daughter, according to your credit chip, and according to the class list over there—” He jerked his head in the direction of the Schools. “You’re Brun Meager, choosing to use your mother’s family name. Target of assassination attempts—” Brun noted the plural and wondered how he knew. “By your instructors’ reports, physically agile and strong, bright as a new pin, quick learner, gifted with luck in emergencies. Also emotionally labile, argumentative, arrogant, stubborn, willful, difficult. Not officer material, at least not without a lot of remedial work.”

Brun knew her face showed her reaction to that. “And why not?” she asked, trying for a tone of mild academic interest.

He ignored the question and went on. “You’re not Fleet; no one in your bloodline’s been Fleet for over two hundred forty years. You come from a class where social skills are expected in a normal person your age. Yet you come into a Fleet bar—”

“There’s nothing but Fleet bars in Q-town,” Brun muttered.

“And not only a Fleet bar,” he went on, “a bar with special connotations, even for Fleet personnel. Not all of them will come here; not all of them are welcome here. I’ve seen kids with what you would call no social background at all come through the door and recognize, in one breath, that they don’t belong here. Which makes me wonder, Charlotte Brunhilde Meager, about someone like you not noticing.”

Brun glared at him. He gazed back, a look neither inviting nor hostile. Just . . . looking . . . as if she were an interesting piece of machinery. That look didn’t deserve an answer, even if she’d had one, which she didn’t. She didn’t know why she’d ducked into this doorway instead of another. It was handy; she’d wanted a drink; when the thought of a drink and a doorway offering drinks overlapped, she went in. Put that way it didn’t sound as if she were thinking straight, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not here; not now.

“You know, we’ve got security vid outside,” the man said, leaning back a little. “When your cube ID popped up on my screen, I ran back the loop. You were stalking along the street like someone with a serious grievance. Then you hitched a step, and turned in here, with just a glance at the sign. Anyone tell you about this place?”

“No.” Even to Brun’s present mood, that sounded sulky, and she expanded. “I was given a list of places that catered to various specialties, mostly sexual. They have a code of light patterns in the windows, the briefing cube said. Anything else was general entertainment.”

“So, just as it seemed on the vid, you were in a rage, thought of getting a drink, and turned into the first bar you saw.” His mouth quirked. “Really high-quality thinking for someone of your tested intelligence.”

“Even smart people can get mad,” Brun said.

“Even smart people can get stupid,” he replied. “You’re supposed to have a security escort at all times, right? And where are they?”

Brun felt herself flushing again. “They’re—” She wanted to say a royal pain, but knew that this man would think that childish. Everyone seemed to think it was childish not to want half a dozen people lurking about all the time, looming over private conversations, listening, watching, just . . . being where she didn’t want them to be. “Back at the Schools, I suppose,” she said.

“You sneaked out,” the man said, with no question at all in his voice.

“Yes. I wanted a bit of—”

“Time to yourself. Yes. And so you risk not only your own life, which is your right as an adult, but you risk their safety and their professional future, because you wanted a little time off.” Now the scorn she had sensed was obvious in his expression and his tone. Those brown eyes made no excuses, for himself or anyone else. “Do you think your assassin is taking time off, time to have a little relaxation?”

Brun had not thought about her assassin any more than she could help; she had certainly not thought about whether an assassin kept the same hours as a target. “I don’t know,” she muttered.

“Or what will happen to your guards if you get killed while they’re not with you?”

“I got away from them,” Brun said. “It wouldn’t be their fault.”

“Morally, no. Professionally, yes. It is their job to guard you, whether you cooperate or not. If you elude them and are killed, they will be blamed.” He paused. Brun could think of nothing to say, and was silent. “So . . . you got mad and barged in here. Ordered. Started looking around. Noticed the decor—”

“Yes. Pieces of ships. It’s . . . morbid.”

“Now that, young lady, is where you’re wrong.”

Faced with opposition, Brun felt an urge to argue. “It is. What’s the point of keeping bits of dead ships, and—and putting people’s names on them, if not morbid fascination with death?”

“Look at me,” the man said. Startled, Brun complied. “Really look,” the man said. He moved the hoverchair back a little, and pointed to his legs . . . which ended at what would have been mid-thigh. Brun looked, unwillingly but carefully, and saw more and more signs of old and serious injury.

“No regen tanks on an escort,” the man said. “It’s too small. A buddy stuffed me in an escape pod, and when old Cutlass was blown, I was safely away. By the time I was picked up, there was no way to regrow the legs. Or the arm, though I chose a good prosthesis there. They’d have given me leg prostheses too, but I had enough spinal damage that I couldn’t manage them. Now the head injuries—” He dipped his head, showing Brun the scars that laced his head. “Those were from another battle, back on Pelion, when part of a casing spalled off and sliced me up.”

He grinned at her, and she saw the distortion of one side of his mouth. “Now you, young lady, you don’t have a clue what using part of Cutlass’s hull as my bar means to me. Or to any of the men and women who come here. What it means to have crockery from Paradox and Emerald City and Wildcat, to have cutlery from Defence and Granicus and Lancaster, to have everything in this place made of the remnants of ships we served on, fought on, and survived.”

“I still think it’s morbid,” Brun said, through stiff lips.

“You ever killed anyone?” he asked.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I have.”

“Tell me about it.”

She could not believe this conversation. Tell him about the island, about Lepescu? But his eyes waited, and his scars, and his assumptions about her ignorance. Which of these finally drove her to speak, she could not have said.

“We—some friends and I—had taken an aircar to an island on Sirialis. It’s a planet my father owns.” She didn’t like the sound of that, now; she wasn’t boasting, but it sounded like it. He didn’t react. “We didn’t know that there were . . . intruders. A man—he was a Fleet officer—”

“Who?”

She felt a reluctance to answer, but could think of no way to avoid it. “Admiral Lepescu.” Was there a reaction? She couldn’t tell. “He and some friends—at least, I was told they were friends—had transported criminals . . . well, not really criminals, but that’s what they said . . .” He shifted, with impatience she could almost feel. “Anyway,” she said, hurrying now, “he and his friends transported these people to the island, to hunt. To hunt them, the supposed criminals. Lepescu and his friend stayed on a nearby island, which had a fishing lodge on it, and flew over every day to hunt. The hunted had cobbled together some kind of weapon, and shot down our aircar, thinking we were Lepescu. They captured us. When they realized their mistake, we realized that we would all be hunted; Lepescu would try to cover up his crimes.”

“And no one knew he was on this planet?” The man’s voice conveyed his disbelief.

“Dad found out later that one of his station commanders had been bribed. There was so much traffic in the system—it was the height of hunting season, with lots of guests coming and going—that the others had not noticed an extra ship at one station.”

“Umph.” Disbelief still in that, but a sharp nod made Brun go on with her story.

“So Raffa and I went off to an old hideout I remembered from childhood,” Brun said. She felt herself tense, felt the fine sweat springing out on her skin. She didn’t like thinking about that night or the next days. She rattled through the story as fast as possible: how she and Raffa had each killed one of the intruders and acquired their weapons, the discovery that the intruders had poisoned the water, their flight to the cave, and the final confrontation in the cave when Lepescu had been killed by Heris Serrano.

The man’s expression changed at the mention of Serrano, but he said only, “So you yourself actually killed someone who was trying to kill you . . .”

“Yes.”

“And did you enjoy it?”

“No!” That came out with more force than she intended.

“You were scared?”

“Of course, I was scared. I’m not a . . . a . . .” Military freak hovered on her tongue, but she was able to choke it back.

“Militarist crazy?” he asked. Brun stared. Mind-reading was impossible, wasn’t it? Then he sighed. “I do wish that somewhere in history people would quit diminishing courage in military personnel by assuming they aren’t subject to normal emotions.”

“Lepescu didn’t seem to have any,” Brun said.

“Lepescu was a serious problem,” the man said. “He damn near ruined the Serrano family, through Heris; he was probably responsible for more deaths than the enemy in any engagement he had to do with. But he was hardly typical. Even in his own family, there are good officers, not that any of ’em will have a career now.”

He took a long swallow of his ale, then put the mug down and gave her another straight look.

“So . . . back to you. What put you in a rage?”

“An argument.”

“With whom?”

“Esmay Suiza,” Brun said. Anger burst out again. “She was like you—she thinks I’m just a spoiled rich girl helling around the universe having fun. She had the nerve—the gall—to tell me I had no moral structure to my life.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do!”

“What, then, do you conceive as the purpose of your life? What is it that you do, to justify your existence? What are you here for?”

Put that way, in his easy voice that carried neither praise nor blame, Brun found the answers that floated into her mind clearly inadequate. She was her father’s daughter; she existed to . . . to be her father’s daughter. No. She didn’t want to be just her father’s daughter, but she had found nothing else.

“I’ve helped people,” she said lamely.

“That’s nice,” he said. She wasn’t sure if sarcasm edged his tone or not. “Most people have, at one time or another. You saved your friend’s life on that island. That’s a point for you. Is that your mission, saving peoples’ lives by killing those who want to kill them? If so, I must say you’re woefully undertrained for that and overtrained for other things.”

“I . . . don’t know.” Brun took another sip of her ale.

“Mmm. You’re in your mid-twenties now, right? By your age, most young people without your . . . advantages . . . are showing more sense of direction. Consider the officer you quarrelled with. By your age, she had chosen a profession, left home against some resistance to pursue it, and performed capably in her choice. She was not flitting around having adventures.”

“Just because I’m rich—”

“Don’t try that,” he said; this time contempt laced his voice. “It has nothing to do with wealth; your father, for instance, shows every sign of being an honorable, hard-working man whose service to the Familias—and his own family—are his mission. Your sister Clemmie, even before she married, had chosen to work in an area of medicine where her skills and ability actually served someone else. You, on the other hand, while willing to help out friends, have no consistent direction in your life.”

“Yes, but—”

“So I would say Lieutenant Suiza has the right of it. You are a fine lady, Brun Meager, but you aren’t anything else. And someday, if you haven’t developed the spiritual muscle, you’re going to find yourself in a situation you can’t handle—and with no tools at all to deal with it.”

Brun glared at him, unable to think of anything to say.

“All of us here have been in those situations,” he said, after a pause. “Brains aren’t enough. Physical strength isn’t enough. Life will throw things at you that brains and strength can’t deal with. Smart people and strong people can both go crazy—or worse, go bad like Lepescu, convinced that whatever they want must be acceptable, or should be acceptable. There must be spiritual strength.”

“And you think I don’t have any?”

He shrugged. “That’s not for me to say. I would have to say you haven’t shown any yet. You haven’t shown any ability to see yourself as you really are, for instance—and self-examination is one good clue to an individual’s spiritual state. You have the capacity, certainly—anyone does—but you haven’t developed it.”

“I think you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brun said. She drained the rest of that mug of Stenner. “You haven’t any idea what my life has been like, or what I’ve done, nor does your wonderful Lieutenant Suiza. You think being rich had nothing to do with it? Let me tell you something . . . the rich learn early on that you can’t trust anyone—anyone—but the other rich. And you Fleet people are just the same. You don’t trust anyone who’s not born to Fleet. Nothing I did would make any difference. You all decided I was just a spoiled rich girl, from day one, and there was no hope of changing your minds. What passes for your minds.”

She pushed herself away from the table and made her way outside, carefully not meeting anyone’s eyes. She had had it; there was no way to do what she wanted to do as long as no one would give her a fair chance. She would leave Copper Mountain; she would figure out for herself what she needed.

By the time she got back to base, she had cooled down enough to be icily polite to her security escort. They were icily polite in return. It was long after midnight; she could hear the snarling of the transports picking up teams for the field exercise. The exercise she should have been on.

She checked the outbound shuttle and transport schedules. No doubt there would be formalities, but she should be able to get away before Esmay came back. She put her name on the list for an appointment with the Commandant of Schools in the morning, and went back to her quarters to take what rest she could.

When she went in, it was clear that the Commandant already knew something. She could see it in his face, and before she even sat down, he started to apologize.

“Sera Meager, I understand a junior officer acted very inappropriately—”

“You had scan on Lieutenant Suiza?”

He coughed. “On . . . you, Sera Meager. I’m sorry, but for your own safety—”

It was intolerable. She could not even have a quarrel without someone listening in. “Well, I suppose you got an earful.”

“Lieutenant Suiza was totally unprofessional; you have my—Fleet’s—apology . . .”

“Never mind that. She was rude, yes, but she made it clear I will never be accepted on my own merits. And I’m placing an undue burden on your staff, trying to keep me safe. I’m resigning my place, or whatever you call it.”

“Does your father know?”

She could have slugged him, but his question was another proof that she was right. “I am informing him by ansible transmission this morning, sir, as soon as public hours open. I plan to take Fleet transport to the nearest civilian transport nexus—” She could not think of the name. “I will probably lease a vessel from there.”

“You need not hurry . . .”

“I would rather be gone before the field exercise is over,” Brun said. She was determined not to see Esmay Suiza again. Or Barin Serrano, for that matter—she could just imagine what his grandmother would say.

“I see.” His lips compressed. “Again, while I think your decision is probably best under the circumstances, you have my assurance that Lieutenant Suiza’s behavior will not go without official rebuke.”

Exhaustion rolled over her suddenly like a heavy blanket. She didn’t care about Lieutenant Suiza; she just wanted to be away from these people with their punctilious rules, their unbending righteousness.

“I will cooperate with all necessary procedures,” Brun said, pushing herself up. What she really wanted was a week’s sleep; she could get that once she left this miserable place. She put on her public persona to get through the remaining hours; she smiled at the right time, shook the right hands, murmured the right pleasantries, assured everyone that she had taken no offense, harbored no grievances, had simply come to the conclusion that this was not right for her.

By nightfall, her father had replied to her request that he send his personal militia to replace the Royal Space Service security when she reached civilian space. He had agreed—with what enthusiasm she could not judge—to her plan of spending a few months visiting relatives and business contacts before returning to Sirialis for the opening of the hunting season. At local midnight, she boarded the shuttle offplanet . . . and hoped that Esmay Suiza was having a miserable time, wherever she was.

Thirty hours into the field exercise, Esmay wondered why she had ever thought this was a good idea for an elective. She had led her team safely through the first third of the course; they had spotted and evaded a number of traps. But they were hungry, thirsty and tired now, and she was fresh out of ideas. Ahead lay grassland—just grassland—to the line of fence that represented safety. They hadn’t been spotted in the broken ground, but out there they couldn’t hide—and it was too great a distance to cross in a rush. If they stayed where they were, they’d probably be found, and anyway they wouldn’t get the extra points for getting to the safehold.

“A tunnel would be handy,” Taras said.

She was right, of course, but why were her good ideas so impractical?

“I don’t suppose we could find an animal burrow?”

“I doubt it.” Briefing had said the native animals were all under five kilos. Of course, briefing had left a lot out. Esmay held them all where they were until dusk, then they began a slow, careful crawl through the grass toward the fenceline.

The hood cut off sight instantly; she struck out uselessly, knowing it was useless. Her blows fell on air, but the blows aimed at her landed . . . knocked her sideways, back, sideways again, until she finally fell, her head slamming into a hummock she had not been able to see. She tasted blood; she’d bitten her tongue in that fall. Before she could react, the assailants grabbed arms and legs, and in seconds she was immobilized like a calf for branding.

Had it been like this for Barin? No, for him it had been real . . . but the harsh voice that promised pain was real now, too. A fist grabbed her hair through the hood, and yanked her head back.

Think of something else, Barin had said. It does help, though you don’t believe it at the time. That was in the manual, too, so others had found it useful. As she felt rough hands on the fastening of her clothes, and the cold edge of a blade, and then the tug as her clothes were cut away, her mind slid back toward that other time, in childhood.

No. She would not go there. She would think of something that made her feel strong.

What came into her head was the argument with Brun. In her head, in this pain-filled dark, she could think of much more to say than she had said. As the hours passed—hours she could not count—she elaborated on the argument and its causes, all the way back to that first meeting with Brun, and imagined herself and Brun and Barin. What each said, what each was thinking, what each thought the other was thinking. The verbal assaults of her captors became the things Brun had said, or would have said if she’d thought of them. The blows they dealt were the blows Brun would have dealt if she had dared fight openly.

But in the story she was telling herself, she gave as good as she got—better, in fact. For Brun’s attacks, she now had the right counterattacks. For Brun’s invincible arrogance, she now had a response that brought Brun to her knees, that forced her to acknowledge Esmay’s position, skills, knowedge . . . In her mind, at least, she could triumph.

She was vaguely conscious that her captors were considerably annoyed with her for some reason, but nothing mattered as much as Brun’s appropriation of Barin, and her own determination to defend—not territory, exactly, but her chance at—

As suddenly as it began, it ended. She didn’t notice at first, though as she came back to real space and time, she was aware that her mind had noticed, and had begun pulling her back from the story she’d been writing in her mind. She felt the cool blunt snout of a hypospray against her arm, then a wave of returning clarity. When she opened her eyes, a medic smiled at her, and gave the code phrase that meant the exercise was over. And Lieutenant Commander Uhlis, looking no grimmer than usual, reached out a hand to help her up.

“Suiza, you’re tougher than I thought. Whatever you were doing inside your head worked—keep it in mind in case you need it.”

She felt shaky when she stood, and only then noticed that her hands were bandaged. He nodded at them. “You’ll need an hour or so in the regen tank. The team kept thinking they could get to you in just another little bit. But it’s all within regs.” Now she could feel the pain, working its way past the restorative drug. Uhlis put out his arm again. “Better take hold—we’ll get you into the transport. You’re the last here—”

“The team?” she asked.

“You all passed,” he said. “Even Taras. I don’t know how you got her through it, but you did.”

“She did,” Esmay said. She felt distinctly odd, with the combination of stimulant and residual imagination, but managed not to throw up or fall down. Once in the transport, she tried to let herself relax, but she couldn’t quite. It could still be a trick . . . it could still be . . .

She woke briefly back at the base, when the medics were easing her into the regen tank; one glimpse of her hands was enough. She didn’t fight the sedative they gave her, but slid into unconsciousness.

By the time she got back to her quarters, she was more than ready for solitude and sleep. The pain was gone, and there were no visible bruises, but her body insisted that something traumatic had happened. The medics said she’d feel much better in the morning, that tank healing often left people feeling slightly disoriented and peculiar.

She had just decided not to bother with undressing, when her comunit chimed.

“The Commandant wishes to see you at your earliest convenience,” the voice in her ear said. “He will expect you within ten minutes.”

She tried to shake herself awake, staggered into the shower, and into a clean uniform. What could the Commandant possibly want? Some administrative matter, no doubt, but why the hurry?