Winning Colors

Chapter Fifteen

A line of passengers crammed the corridor as she came out; most of them gaped at her. She tried to remember which was the shortest way around to Sweet Delight. Then she heard someone calling her.

“Lady Cecelia!” Brun, waving a frantic hand. Sirkin was with her.

“Brun—whatever are you doing there? Why aren’t you on the yacht?”

“Don’t you know about it?”

“What?”

“The invasion. The Benignity is coming. With a fleet or something. Captain Serrano doesn’t think she can hold them off; they’re evacuating this station and telling people planetside to go into shelter. Underground if possible.”

Across her mind scrolled the broad acres of Marcia and Poots’s studfarm, the great log barns, the handsome paddocks, the gleaming horses . . . admittedly horses with conformational faults, but still horses.

“You’re serious?”

“Yes—Captain Serrano told Sirkin and me to go downside, find you, and take care of you. She’s having a military team crew the yacht—”

“Where is she?”

“On the cruiser,” said Brun. “Wait—I’ll explain—but you have to get into this line. You have to come with us—downside—”

“I don’t want to go back down there,” Cecelia said, aware even as she said it that it sounded foolish. “I’ve been there. I want to be on my ship.”

“Come on,” said Brun. “You can’t do that—there’s no crew, and when there is a crew it won’t be people you know—come on, get in line with us.”

Cecelia wavered. “Well . . .”

“Come on.” Brun stepped back, making room, but as Cecelia started toward the gap, angry voices rose.

“Hey! No cutting in front—you got no right—”

Brun turned on them. “She’s an old lady; she’s my mother’s friend—”

Another voice louder than the others. “A Rejuvenant! I’m not losing my chance to get home safe for any damned Rejuvenant!” People shoved forward, slamming into Brun and Sirkin, who could not help slamming into those ahead.

“Damn you!”

“Stop it!”

“No shoving there . . . keep order, keep order . . .” That was two harried-looking station militia. “What’s this now?”

Voices erupted, accusing, explaining, demanding. Finally things were quiet enough for explanation.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t have even one space left on the down shuttles. One’s filling now—hauling maximum mass—and the one you came in on will be the last down. You bought a one-way; you assured the clerk you were bound outsystem on your own ship—”

“That’s right,” said Cecelia. “But I can’t just abandon these two—” She nodded at Brun and Sirkin. “They’re friends’ children—”

“Sorry, ma’am . . . the clerk did try to warn you. As it is we don’t have shuttle capacity for everyone. Some’s got to stay and risk it—”

“I’m staying,” Brun said, swinging a long leg over the rope that kept them all in line.

“Brun, no!” Cecelia said. “If there’s real danger, I want you safe.”

“There’s always danger,” Brun said. “And Captain Serrano said to keep you safe. I can’t do that from down there—” She jerked her head in the direction of the planet. The line had closed in behind her, without a word but with absolute determination.

“Brun—” Sirkin turned, started to move.

“No!” Brun and Cecelia spoke as one. “No,” Brun said a moment later. “Not you.”

“Yes, me.” Sirkin too stepped over the rope. “I’m a navigator; I’m good for something in space, and nothing much onplanet. I know I don’t have your kind of flair, Brun, but I can free someone else by doing my own work.”

Over her head, Cecelia met Brun’s eyes. Nice child, Cecelia thought, and if we get out of this alive I will find her a safe berth on some quiet commercial line. Surely I have that much influence. She smiled at the station militia.

“Then you now have two more places for those who thought they must stay,” she said. “Do you need these tickets?”

“No, ma’am. Thank you.” One of the militia jogged toward the head of the line, and the other nodded to them.

“Well,” said Cecelia. “Come along, before the yacht vanishes into space and we’re left up here wondering how to run a space station.”

“It’s a lot like a ship,” Brun said. “I’ve been talking to the people who work here, and met this man who’s in charge of—”

“Fine,” said Cecelia. “Then if we’re stuck we have a chance of survival, but in the meantime, let’s catch a ship.”

No one was aboard the Sweet Delight. Brun and Sirkin both knew the dockside access codes, and the hatches opened for them. Cecelia lugged her gear to her own suite, and activated her desk. A stack of messages had accumulated since the last time she’d retrieved them, including one from Commerce Bank & Trust which informed her that her balance was more than adequate to purchase all the Singularity straws she wanted. She unpacked her duffel, and decided to shower. Whatever emergency was coming, she might as well meet it clean, in comfortable clothes. She stuffed her dirty clothes in the wash hamper, and turned the shower to full pulse.

She was finally feeling clean, all the travel grime and irritation out of her system, when the lights blinked off and back on so fast that her new panic in darkness didn’t have time to reach full strength. She elbowed the shower controls, from water pulse to radiant heat and blow dry. Her pulse slowed, as the lights stayed on, and the fan whirred steadily. She turned, running her fingers through her hair to let the warm air reach her scalp. Then she saw the shadow beyond the shower door, a moving shadow.

“What the hell—!” A male voice, a strange one. The door opened, yanked hard from outside, and Cecelia found herself face-to-face with a uniformed man armed with one of her own hunting rifles, the expensive ones Heris had bought for her back on Sirialis. At second glance he looked more like a boy dressed up to play soldier—a fresh-faced youth who couldn’t have been over twenty. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Kindly hand me my robe,” Cecelia said, not bothering to hide what he’d already seen. It wasn’t her problem anyway, even if he was turning an unnatural red around the collar. She felt wickedly glad that he was seeing her younger body, not the eighty-six-year-old version. When he didn’t move to comply, she lifted her chin. “It’s drafty—and my robe is right there, beside you on the warming rack.”

“Uh . . . yes, ma’am.” Without looking away, he reached out and snagged the robe, fingering the pockets quickly. Cecelia’s brows rose, then she realized he thought she might have weapons concealed in it, and her brows rose higher. Weapons? In a bathrobe? Her? He handed it over, and she shrugged into it, tied it around her waist.

“I’m coming out,” she said, when he showed no inclination to move, and he stepped back, giving her room. Without haste, she picked up one of the towels on the warming rack and finished drying her feet, then took another and toweled the rest of the dampness out of her hair. She moved to the mirrors, and picked up the comb on the shelf. “I’m Cecelia de Marktos,” she said into the mirror as she shaped her hair with the comb. “This was my yacht . . . it’s technically Heris Serrano’s now, but I’ve hired it. And who are you?”

“Pivot Major Osala . . . from the R.S.S. cruiser Vigilance. Ma’am.”

“And what are you doing on my ship?” Her hair was fluffing into an untidy brush after the shower; it needed trimming. Her lips felt dry; station and ship air was so much drier than the humid surface of Xavier. She spread a protective gloss on her lips and glanced at the soldier in the mirror. He was looking at her as if she were something else—a monster of some sort, a freak.

“Commander Serrano said—is that the same person you called Heris Serrano?”

“I suppose,” Cecelia said, turning to face him directly. “Heris Serrano, formerly an R.S.S. officer, and now my captain. She told you to come aboard? I suppose it’s all right then.”

“Commander Serrano . . . she’s taken command of the Vigilance.” He sounded unsure.

“She has? Good for her. Even though she did kill a raider with this yacht, if there’s trouble coming, she’d much better have a cruiser to fight with.”

“But ma’am . . . aren’t you scared at all? Of . . . of me?” The confusion on his young face almost made her laugh. “I have a weapon—”

Cecelia snorted. She couldn’t help herself, even if it was cruel, but she suppressed the laughter that wanted to follow. “Young man . . . pivot major is it? . . . didn’t Commander Serrano tell you about me?”

“Uh . . . no, ma’am. The ship was supposed to be empty, only we found the entry hatch open, and Jig Faroe went to the bridge with the rest of the crew except me and Hugh, we were supposed to look for stragglers.”

“Well, young man, if you ask Commander Serrano, she will explain that I’m a very old lady who has been rejuvenated, and I’ve been face-to-face with more firearms than you might think. You can kill me, but you are unlikely to scare me.”

“Oh . . . are you . . . are you an undercover, too? Like Commander Serrano was?”

What was this? Undercover? Heris? A luxuriant vine of suspicion began unfurling in her mind, extending tendrils in all directions . . . Bunny . . . that vicious weasel Lepescu . . . the coincidences . . . and hadn’t Heris mentioned some relatives who were admirals? Could Heris possibly have been fooling her all along? While that ran through her mind, she simply stared at the young soldier, until he looked away. “If I were undercover, would I tell you?” she asked finally. “I don’t know what your security clearance is.”

“Uh . . . no, ma’am. I mean, you don’t . . . you wouldn’t . . . but I still have to tell them you’re here.”

“Of course you do,” she said reasonably. “Tell Commander Serrano I’d like to speak with her at her earliest convenience. When I’m dressed.” She headed for her bedroom, and the muzzle of his weapon wavered, then fell away. Idiot, she thought to herself. Suppose I were a spy or whatever he suspected. I could have an arsenal under my pillows.

She pulled open drawers, rummaging through the clothes she’d left in the ship when she went down. She felt something practical was called for, rather than grand-ladyish. The cream silk pullover, the brown twill slacks, the low boots with padded ankles. When she glanced in the mirror, the soldier had disappeared, no doubt to report her existence. Idiot, she thought again. Heris would have something to say to him about that.

Her desk chimed from the outer room, and she strode out to answer it. There was the young man, looking embarrassed, by the door to the corridor. Another stood with him. Cecelia gave them a distracted smile and touched her control panel.

“Cecelia, what are you doing on that yacht?” Heris, sounding impatient. Cecelia queried for video, but found that the signal carried no video.

“I got fed up with Marcia and Poots, and came back; I was going to ask you to take me to Rotterdam.”

“And no one told you about the emergency?”

She didn’t feel like explaining why she hadn’t heard what she’d been told, not on an all-audio link. “I didn’t know, until I arrived at the station, on the last up-shuttle, which was going to be overfull going down.” A pause. Heris said nothing. “I found Brun and Sirkin,” Cecelia added. “We’re all safe.” The next pause was eloquent; Cecelia could easily imagine Heris searching for a telling phrase.

“You’re not safe,” Heris said finally. “You’re square in the midst of a military action. This system is under attack by the Benignity; their ships are in the outer system now, and I need that yacht and its weapons . . . not three useless civilians who were supposed to be down on the surface digging in.”

Anger flared. “Civilians aren’t always useless. If you can remember that far back, one of them saved your life on Sirialis.”

“True. I’m sorry. It just . . . the question is, what now? I can’t get you to safety onplanet . . . if that’s safe.”

“So quit worrying about it. Do you think I’m worried about dying?”

“I . . . you just got rejuved.”

“So I did. It didn’t eliminate my eighty-odd years of experience, or make me timid. If I die, I die . . . but in the meantime, why not let me help?”

A chuckle. She could imagine Heris’s face. “Lady Cecelia, you are inimitable. Get yourself up to the bridge; someone will find you a place. Jig Faroe’s in command. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

“Good hunting, Heris,” Cecelia said. She felt a pleasant tingle of anticipation.

Even in more normal conditions of war, when Heris had had time to make plans and go over them with her crew, the last hours before combat always seemed to telescope, accelerating toward them in a way that the physicists said didn’t make sense. This was far worse. A change of command so close to battle was tricky at best, when it resulted from a captain’s sudden illness or other emergency. She had not had time to gain the crew’s confidence; she had not had time to assess their competence, their readiness for combat.

The normal thing to do—the textbook thing to do—was get out fast and get help. She had no orders to defend Xavier. She was clearly outnumbered; the loyalty of her crews was questionable. Or, if she chose to stay, it would be prudent to send the yacht, with its civilians . . . it could reach a safe jump radius in time to get away, long before an attack could reach it, and go back to a Fleet sector headquarters and report.

If the Benignity invaders hadn’t mined the nearest jump point insertions. They could have, and that could be the reason for the gap in the financial ansible’s transmissions. Many communications nodes for ansible transmission were located near jump points, for ease of maintenance and repair. She had an uneasy feeling about the jump points.

I have complete confidence in your judgment. Her aunt admiral had said that, her aunt who had not commented on her performance since the Academy. What did “complete confidence” mean in a situation like this? Would her aunt back whatever decision she made, or did her aunt really think she had some special ability to choose the best course of action?

She could not let any of these thoughts interfere with her concentration. The only plans she had were hasty improvisations: very well, that beat no plans at all. As far as her officers could tell, her plans came down from the admiralty. That the plans were in direct defiance of common sense wouldn’t bother them overmuch—it wasn’t their judgment on the line. If the message capsule she’d sent reached the Fleet relay ansible—if no one was suppressing such messages—someone would, eventually, consider her judgment, her decision to stay, her choice of tactics. With luck they might even get help before the Benignity blew them away.

“What we’ve got,” she told her more senior officers, “is a very unorthodox force for defending an inhabited planet.” They knew that, but they needed to hear the obvious from her, at least at the beginning. “One cruiser, one patrol craft, one armed yacht, one very ancient Desmoiselle-class escort, three atmospheric shuttles, one of them armed with phase cannon—inadequately mounted, but perhaps good for a single round, assuming a suicidal crew.”

“Phase cannon in a shuttle?” Major Svatek looked as shocked as Heris had felt when she first heard.

“It’s what they had,” she said. “It’s never been fired—of course. We’ve warned them. It would take weeks of refitting to strengthen the mounts, and we don’t have that time. Grogon is supposedly hyper-capable, but I don’t trust its FTL generator, and neither did my engineers when they inspected it. The yacht is, of course, and it’s carrying substantial weaponry for its hull—” She pulled up the display and pointed it out. “But the tradeoff there was on shields—she has only her light-duty civilian screen shields. Nothing else in the system is hyper-capable; the mining colonies have little shuttles and one ore-carrier. It’s a big hull, but it’s underpowered. And no weapons.”

“So—what’s our plan?” That was Major Tinsi, on the tightbeam from Paradox.

“Harassment with deception,” Heris said. “We won’t have real surprise, because of Hearne on Despite, but she didn’t know about everything. Unless we’re extremely lucky, we won’t destroy the incoming ships—or even deflect them permanently—but we probably can delay their attack on the planet itself, by making them unsure how many of us there are. Even if they never use the phase cannon, for instance, they’ll light up someone’s weapons scans. So will old Grogon.” Something else nagged at her memory, and finally broke through. She called Koutsoudas into the conference line.

“Did Livadhi falsify his ID at the commercial level that time when he hailed us with the wrong name?”

“You saw through it,” Koutsoudas said.

“Yes, but we had military scan, as you know. I didn’t bother to check what a commercial scan would have shown. How did you do it, how long does it take, and could you have falsified your beacon to military scanning?”

“It’s pretty simple,” Koutsoudas said. “It’s all in knowing how; it takes maybe an hour or two, that’s all. Yeah, you could do it for both kinds of beacon transmissions . . . of course it is illegal.” He said that in a pious tone that made Heris chuckle. “Captain Livadhi didn’t want anyone in Fleet to mistake him.”

“I’m sure,” Heris said, with deliberate irony. “Could you do it for this ship?”

“Well . . . yes. Why?”

“Oblo has installed two different fake beacon IDs in the yacht. If we could patch something up for this ship, and Paradox, we could give the Benignity something to think about.”

“We still have only two real warships—”

“But they don’t know that. They know Despite said that, running away, which can’t have been the plan. They were expecting Garrivay and friends to be here, welcoming them in. They probably had a name, possibly even a familiar contact. They drop out of FTL and find one of their expected allies fleeing, telling them not to worry there’s only a single cruiser and patrol. Would you believe that, if you were a CH captain?”

“No . . .” Koutsoudas looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t. I’d think double-cross. The conspirators discovered . . . betrayal. Something like that, anyway.”

“Right. Is this a hands-on patch, or can you explain to Paradox how to change their beacon too? I want both ships to be able to switch back and forth—”

“It’s doable, but it doesn’t change the basic scan—nothing’s going to convince them that there’s more ships, if the beacon data on a masspoint suddenly changes.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Heris said. “Just get hold of Oblo, and the two of you give us some fake identities that would hold up to Fleet standards. I have an idea.” She had more than one; ideas flickered through her mind almost too fast to see.

Off to one side, she imagined the Benignity formation commander—he would be one of their Elder Sons, equivalent to the R.S.S. admiral minor. Hearne’s message would make him bunch his formation, counting on its weight of weapons and numerical superiority as long as he found what he expected: a cruiser smaller than any of his ships, a patrol ship, a lightly armed yacht, and a slow-moving, nearly toothless scow. But if the scan data didn’t fit—or worse, if it was inconsistent, suggesting that Hearne had lied—he would hesitate, pause behind his screening barrage, and prepare for a more extended combat. He might even be unwise enough to detach a ship or so.

If each of her three ships could appear to be one or two other ships—and if she could use the Benignity’s barrage as a screen for her own movements—

“We could fake some beacons, as well—launch them—” That was Tinsi, over on Paradox. Heris nodded; she hadn’t expected him to show that much imagination.

“No mass readings,” Koutsoudas said. “It won’t fool them more than a few seconds—”

“If we could get mass?” Another glimmer of an idea. Xavier’s system wasn’t overly full of handy rocks the right size, but those shuttles, loaded with anything massive from the station, and with faked beacons, might distract the CH commander.

“You and Oblo get on it,” Heris said to Koutsoudas. “We need it done before their scans clear from jump insert.”

“Yes, sir.”

Heris looked around at the others, and saw thoughtful looks, only the reasonable amount of tension. “Let’s get going,” she said.

When she reached the bridge, Koutsoudas called her over. He had the first reasonably detailed scans of the arriving force.

“They’re sticking to normal tactics,” Koutsoudas said. “Throwing out a screening barrage on jump exit . . . it’ll have tags keyed to their IDs. Coming on in a clump—”

“When will they have scan return?” Heris asked.

“Normally—a solid twelve hours after jump exit, and that’s with efficient boosts. They exited eight to nine hours ago, so that means we have three blind hours for certain. But with Despite’s signal, if they picked it up—”

“They’ll have a lot more detail than the best scans would give them. Current ship IDs. But not everything.” That was less comforting than it might have been.

“I’m getting some separation in that clump, though,” Koutsoudas went on. “Looks like one or two may be trailing back a bit farther than normal.”

“Jump-exit error?”

“Could be. I’ll stay on it.”

Cecelia strolled into the bridge compartment trailed by the two young soldiers. Sirkin sat at the navigation console, looking scared. Brun perched where Petris usually sat, looking excited. Cecelia could not tell who was in charge, and was annoyed with herself for not knowing what all the insignia and markings were.

Cecelia had had no direct experience with the military until she hired Heris. Now she watched as the young man with two comma-shaped bits of metal on his collar organized his crew and set about carrying out Heris’s orders. He looked to be Ronnie’s age, or perhaps a few years older—she couldn’t tell—but he had a hard-edged quality unlike her nephew’s. Not courage, exactly—Ronnie was brave—but a definition, a focus, as if he were carved out of a single hard material by a sharp tool. So were the rest. She had noticed that with Heris’s old crew, but assumed it was the result of the ordeals they’d been through as a result of Lepescu. And they had been cordial to her, once they knew her. Even Oblo. Of course, she’d never seen them in anything but civilian shipsuits. These all wore R.S.S. gray, with sleeve and shoulder patches and marks that meant something to them and nothing to her. Most seemed very young, but the one sitting where she remembered Oblo had a grizzled fringe around the margin of his bald head.

“You’re Lady Cecelia,” the young man in charge said. “I’m Junior-Lieutenant Faroe. Jig Faroe is the more common way to say it. Commander Serrano says you offered to help out—”

Cecelia grinned at him. “I presented her with a dilemma, is what you and she both mean. There’s bound to be something simple that you need done. Watching gauges or something.”

His expression suggested that that had been a stupid idea. “I wish I knew her better—how she thinks. What she thinks you might do—”

“That I can help you with,” Cecelia said briskly. “I’ve worked with her for a couple of years now—” She admitted to herself that the time she spent in an apparent coma wasn’t exactly “working with” Heris, but the start of a war was no time for long explanations. And she certainly knew more about Heris’s thought processes than this young man. One had only to see someone ride across country to know more about their character than any dozen psychological analyses, no matter what the experts said.

“Oh—you were part of her . . . uh . . . cover?” He looked both eager and embarrassed, someone who wanted desperately to ask what he knew he should not.

“I don’t think I should discuss it,” said Cecelia. Especially when she hadn’t the faintest idea what Heris had actually said and done.

“Oh—no, sir—of course not. Sorry.” He dithered visibly, in the way Cecelia found so amusing in the young, and finally blurted, “But feel free, ma’am, to . . . to advise me whenever you have any insight into Commander Serrano’s wishes.”

“I will,” Cecelia said, sorting rapidly through the little she had heard or read about covert operations and Fleet procedures. If Heris had been fooling her, then what would this youngster think she was? All that came to mind was the explanation for the officer’s misuse of “sir”—in the military, officers of both sexes were called sir. Which meant that for some reason he thought she was an officer. Odd: surely he would have some sort of list which proved she wasn’t. But his mistake could be useful. “For one thing, I can tell you that Commander Serrano found Brigdis Sirkin a most accomplished navigator. She said often that Sirkin should’ve been Fleet.”

“Yes, sir; she told us. Says Sirkin has special knowledge of this ship’s capabilities.”

“So does Brun,” Cecelia added. Should she mention that Brun was Thornbuckle’s daughter? Probably not. It wouldn’t add anything to the mix at this point. “She’s been working with Meharry, I believe it is, and Oblo.”

The bald man turned to face her. “That civilian kid has been working with Methlin Meharry? And Ginese? And Oblo?”

What was that about? She had expected them to know Heris’s name, but the others, as far as she knew, had been enlisted. Enlightenment came just before she made a fool of herself. Foxhunters knew foxhunters, and stud grooms knew stud grooms—of course Heris’s top people would have their own fame.

“Meharry,” said Cecelia, as if pondering. “Tallish woman, blonde, green eyes? Yes. Brun, didn’t you tell me she’d . . . er . . . prodded you through some level of weapons certification?”

“Yes, Lady Cecelia,” Brun said. Her eyes sparkled; whatever else happened, Brun was having a marvelous time.

“What level?” growled the bald man to Brun.

“Spec third,” Brun said promptly. Cecelia had no idea what that meant.

“And what did Oblo have you doing?”

“Well . . . we only got up to second, on account of Captain Serrano asked me to spend more time with Arkady.”

A short nod, and a glance at Jig Faroe, who was almost prancing from foot to foot.

The communications board lit, and the bald man touched the controls, then moved back to clear the pickups for the captain. Koutsoudas appeared on screen, with Oblo behind him. “Let me speak to Sirkin and Brun, please, Captain Faroe.”

“Right away.” He sidled along the arc of the bridge, making room for Sirkin and Brun to squeeze past, into range of the pickups.

“We need to enable the alternate beacon IDs,” Oblo began. “Brun, you remember how I showed you the lockout sequences?”

“Yes—you—”

“You’ll want them all in readiness; you’ll be switching them at your captain’s order. Is Cesar there?”

“Yo, Oblo!” That was the bald man, leaning toward the pickups now.

“She doesn’t know how to set up that kind of switching, so give her a hand. Quick learner, and she does know the lockouts cold.”

Cesar nodded. “Right. Priority?”

“Yesterday. Now—Sirkin—”

“Yes?”

Koutsoudas took over. “Brigdis, Serrano wants you as primary nav for the yacht, because you know the . . . uh . . . special capabilities for FTL insertions and exits. As well, do you remember that little packet I gave you to take downside?”

“Yes, I have it.”

“Good. Set it beside your main nav board, right under the shift control. It is not—repeat NOT—to be activated by anyone but yourself, and that is Commander Serrano’s direct order. Is that clear?” A chorus of sirs, of which Sirkin’s was the weakest. Koutsoudas glared out of the screen. “It’s keyed to you anyway, but just in case one of those others gets too curious, it can blow the entire navigation board if you upset it. Hands off.” A long pause. “You do remember the activation code, don’t you?”

“Yes, it’s—”

“Don’t repeat it—just use it when it’s time.”

Cecelia could see that this mysteriousness gave Brun and Sirkin more prestige with the military, but why? Then Koutsoudas appeared to see her for the first time. “Oh! Sorry, sir—didn’t recognize you for a moment.” As if anyone else would be wearing a silk pullover shirt; as if anyone else could be mistaken for her, with that red hair and plain face. And he knew perfectly well she wasn’t a “sir”—she was the civilian who hadn’t even wanted him aboard. “Lady Cecelia . . . I believe Commander Serrano would like to speak to you.”

Again? But Heris was there now, looking at her with an expression half-concerned and half-gleeful. Damn the woman, she was looking forward to this battle. “Lady Cecelia.” She said the name in audible quotes, implying that it was a pseudonym. “Captain Faroe has been instructed to give you every consideration. You have my authorization for the necessary decisions.”

What necessary decisions, Cecelia wanted to ask, but she could tell that this was not the time. If she was a Fleet officer who had been pretending to be a civilian, she should know that already.

“Thank you, Captain Serrano,” she said with what she hoped was appropriate military formality. Then she ventured further. “I presume that our primary objective remains . . . ?”

“As it was,” Heris said, with a look that refused any more inquiries. “When the time comes for you to jump out of the system, don’t hesitate.” Cecelia blinked. Was Heris telling them to run away and leave her stranded? Not a chance.

“Should that be necessary,” Cecelia said, stressing the unlikelihood, “I’ll have a word with your aunt.”

“You do that,” Heris said. “Now I need to speak with Captain Faroe.

“Let Sirkin show you the critical jump distances,” Heris told Faroe. “We’ve put her into jump much closer than the usual: it’s part of the nonstandard equipment aboard. You’ve got the information from Ginese and Meharry on weapons capability?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Remember to change beacon IDs based on your determination of the situation, once the CH splits up. Give them as many different vectors as you can—”

“Yes, sir. I understand.” Cecelia could tell that Heris wished she had her own hands on the controls. She herself wished she could see Heris on the bridge of the cruiser—it must, she thought, be a sight. But the woman couldn’t ride two horses at once; she had to let go the reins of this one. She moved back into pickup range.

“We’ll do fine, Captain Serrano. I have every confidence in Captain Faroe.” For some reason, that made Heris look bug-eyed for a moment. Then she regained her calm.

“Well, then. I’ll expect acknowledgment when the last orders go out.” And the beam cut off.

“Do you have any idea what Heris is up to?” Brun whispered a few minutes later. Captain Faroe had insisted that they were off duty for the next six hours, and they’d gone back to Cecelia’s suite to relax.

“Aside from fighting off an invading fleet, not a clue in this world.” Cecelia rubbed her temples. “I’m so far behind I can’t even hear the hounds. I didn’t even know that an R.S.S. battle group was here, let alone that she’d taken command of it. I was down there touring breeding farms and getting into a row with Marcia and Poots—paid no attention to the news, except when the financial ansible went pfft and convinced Marcia that I’d gone broke. Idiot fools. I told her to check her own balances, and she had the gall to tell me she didn’t need to, she knew her standing, and that’s when I stormed out and came back.”

Brun was trembling, but with suppressed giggles. “Lady Cecelia, you’re incredible! Didn’t they tell you at the shuttle port?”

“I suppose the man tried. He kept talking about no round-trip tickets, but of course I didn’t want a round-trip ticket. I kept telling him I had a ship here, and would be leaving the system. Would you please explain?”

Brun laughed aloud. “Ronnie’s so lucky to have an aunt like you. Well, briefly, our Captain Serrano discovered that the captain of the cruiser and some of the others were traitors, planning to help the Benignity take the Xavier system. And she and Petris figured out that they had to get command of the ships, so they got invited aboard—”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But I know she took Petris, Methlin, Arkady, and Oblo with her, and the next thing we heard, she was in command. Koutsoudas told me, before he transferred to the cruiser, that the traitors were dead. The cruiser’s command computer accepted her—”

“But she’s not in Fleet anymore. How could she—?”

“I don’t know, I said. She and her old crew had their heads together—sent Brig and me away, said we shouldn’t be party to it, so we couldn’t be blamed later. She meant us to go downside and take care of you—” Cecelia snorted and Brig grinned. “I know, that bit was silly. You don’t need taking care of. But that’s why we don’t know what she did, exactly. I think I can find out—there’s a couple of these new people that will let it slip if I hang out with them.”

“I’m sure they will,” Cecelia said. “And meantime I’ll try to be inscrutable.” Inscrutability came easier when she really did know nothing.