"I know; I'm coming." With a last look at the mirror, she picked up her wrap and went out. As she'd half-expected, two more of her friends waited in the corridor outside, with flowers and a small wrapped box.
"You put this on now," said Mira. Her gold curly hair had faded a little, but not the bright eyes or quick mind. Sassinak took the gift, and untied the silver ribbon carefully.
"I suppose you figured out what I'd be wearing," she said, laughing. Then she had the box open, and caught her breath. When she looked at Mira, the other woman was smug.
"I bought it years ago, that time we were shopping, remember? I saw the way you looked at it, and knew the time would come. Of course, I could have waited until you made admiral—" She ducked Sass's playful blow. "You will, Sass. It's a given. I'll retire in a couple of years, and go back to Dad's shipping company—at least he's agreed to let me take over instead of that bratty cousin . . . . Anyway, let me fasten it."
Sassinak picked up the intricate silver necklace, a design that combined boldness and grace (and, she recalled, an outrageous price—at least for a junior lieutenant, which she had been then) and let Mira close the fastening. Her star went into the box—for tonight, at least—and the box went back in her room. Whatever she might have said to Mira was forestalled by the arrival of the others, and the six of them were deep into reminiscences by the time they got to Tobaldi's.
Mira—the only one who had been there—had to tell the others all about Sass's first cruise. "They've heard that already," Sassinak kept protesting. Mira shushed her firmly.
"You wouldn't have told them the good parts," she said, and proceeded to give her version of the good parts. Sassinak retaliated with the story of Mira's adventures on—or mostly off—horseback, one leave they'd taken together on Mira's homeworld. "I'm a spacer's brat, not a horsebreeder's daughter," complained Mira.
"You're the one who said we ought to take that horsepacking trip," said Sass. The others laughed, and brought up their own tales.
Sassinak looked around the group—which now numbered fourteen, since others had arrived to join them. Was there really someone from every ship she'd been on? Four were from the Padalyan Reef, the cruiser on which she'd been the exec until a month ago. That was touching: they had given her a farewell party then, and she had not expected to see them tonight. But the two young lieutenants, stiffly correct among the higher ranks, would not have missed it—she could see that in their eyes. The other two, off on long home leave between assignments, had probably dropped in just because they enjoyed a party.
Her glance moved on, checking an invisible list. All but the prize she'd been given command of, she thought—and wished for a moment that Ford, wherever he was, could be there, too. Forrest had known her, true, but he'd missed that terrifying interlude, staying on the patrol ship with its original crew. Carew, whom she'd known as a waspish major when she was a lieutenant, on shore duty with Commodore . . . what had her name been? Narros, that was it . . . Carew was now a balding, cheery senior Commander, whose memory had lost its sting. Sassinak almost wondered if he'd ever been difficult, then saw a very junior officer across the room flinch away from his gaze. She shrugged mentally—at least he wasn't causing her trouble any more.
Her exec from her first command was there, now a Lieutenant Commander and just as steady as ever, though with gray streaking his thick dark hair. Sassinak blessed the genes that had saved her from premature silver . . . she wanted to wear her silver by choice, not necessity. She didn't need gray hair to lend her authority, she thought to herself. Even back on the Sunrose. . . . But he was making a small speech, reminding her—and the others—of the unorthodox solution she had found for a light patrol craft in a particular tactical situation. Her friends enjoyed the story, but she remembered very well that some of the senior officers had not liked her solution at all. Her brows lowered, and Mira poked her in the ribs.
"Wake up, Sass, the battle's over. You don't need to glare at us like that."
"Sorry . . . I was remembering Admiral Kurin's comments."
"Well . . . we all know what happened to him." And that was true enough. A stickler for the rulebook, he had fallen prey to a foe who was not. But Sassinak knew that his opinion of her had gone on file before that, to influence other seniors. She had seen the doubtful looks, and been subject to careful warnings.
Now, however, two men approached the tables with the absolute assurance that comes only from a lifetime of command, and high rank at the end of it. Bilisics, the specialist in military law from Command and Staff, and Admiral Vannoy, Sector Commandant.
"Commander Sassinak—congratulations." Bilisics had been one of her favorite instructors, anywhere. She had even gone to him for advice on a most private and delicate matter—and so far as she could tell, he had maintained absolute secrecy. His grin to her acknowledged all that. "I must always congratulate an officer who steers a safe course through the dangerous waters of a tour at Fleet Headquarters, who avoids the reefs of political or social ambition, the treacherous tides of intimacy in high places . . ." He practically winked: they both knew what that was about. The others clearly thought it was one of Bilisics's usual mannered pleasantries. As far as she knew, no one had ever suspected her near-engagement to the ambassador from Arion.
"Yes: congratulations, Commander, and welcome to the Sector. You'll like the Zaid-Dayan, and I'm sure you'll do well with it." She had worked with Admiral Vannoy before, but not for several years. His newer responsibilities had not aged him; he gave, as always, the impression of energy under firm control.
"Would you join us?" Sassinak asked. But, as she expected, they had other plans, and after a few more minutes drifted off to join a table of very senior officers at the far end of the room.
It hardly needed Tobaldi's excellent dinner, the rare live orchestra playing hauntingly lovely old waltzes, or the wines they ordered lavishly, to make that evening special. She could have had any of several partners to end it with, but chose instead a scandalously early return to her quarters—not long after midnight.
"And I'll wager if we had a spycam in there, we'd find her looking over the specs on her cruiser," said Mira, walking back to a popular dance pavilion with the others. "Fleet to the bone, that's what she is, more than most of us. It's her only family, has been since before the Academy."
Sass, unaware of Mira's shrewd guess, would not have been upset by it—since she was, at that moment, calling up the crew list on her terminal. She would have agreed with all that statement, although she felt an occasional twinge of guilt for her failure to contact any of her remaining biological kin. Yet . . . what did an orphan, an ex-slave, have in common with ordinary, respectable citizens? Too many people still considered slavery a disgrace to the victim; she didn't want to see that rejection on the faces of her own relatives. Easier to stay away, to stay with the family that had rescued her and still supported her. And that night, warmed by the fellowship and celebration, intent on her new command, she felt nothing but eagerness for the future.
* * *
Sassinak always felt that Fleet had lost something in the transition from the days when a captain approached a ship lying at dockside, visible to the naked eye, with a veritable gangplank and the welcoming crew topside, and flags flying in the open air. Now, the new captain of, say, a cruiser, simply walked down one corridor after another of a typical space station, and entered the ship's space by crossing a line on the deck planking. The ceremony of taking command had not changed that much, but the circumstances made such ceremony far less impressive. Yet she could not entirely conceal her delight, that after some twenty years as a Fleet officer, she was now to command her own cruiser.
"Commander Kerif will be sorry to have missed you, Commander Sassinak," said Lieutenant Commander Huron, her Executive Officer, leading the way to her new quarters. "But under the circumstances—"
"Of course," said Sassinak. If your son, graduating from the Academy, is going to marry the heiress of one of the wealthiest m
ercantile families, you may ask for, and be granted, extra leave: even if it means that the change of command of your cruiser is not quite by the book. She had done her homework, skimming the files on her way over from Sector HQ. Huron, for instance, had not impressed his captain overmuch, by his latest Fitness Report. But considering the secret orders she carried, Sassinak had doubts about all the Fitness Reports on that ship. The man seemed intelligent and capable—not to mention fit and reasonably good-looking. He'd have a fair chance with her.
"He asked me to extend you his warmest congratulations, and his best wishes for your success with the ship. I can assure you that your officers are eager to make this mission a success."
"Mission? What do you know about it?" Supposedly her orders were secret: but then, one of the points made was that Security breaches were getting worse, much worse.
Huron's forehead wrinkled. "Well . . . we've been out on patrol, just kind of scouting around the sector. Figured we'd do more of the same."
"Pretty much. I'll brief the senior officers once we're in route; we have two more days of refitting, right?"
"Yes, Commander." He gave her a quizzical look. "With all due respect, ma'am, I guess what they say about you is true."
Sassinak smiled; she knew what they said, and she knew why. "Lieutenant Commander Huron, I'm sure you wouldn't listen to idle gossip . . . any more than I would listen to gossip about you and your passion for groundcar racing."
It was good to be back on a ship again; good to have the command she'd always wanted. Sassinak glanced down at the four gold rings on her immaculate white sleeve, and on to the gold ring on her finger that gave her Academy class and carried the tiny diamond of the top-ranking graduate. Not bad for an orphan, an ex-slave . . . not bad at all. Some of her classmates thought she was lucky; some of them, no doubt, thought her ambitions stopped here, with the command of a cruiser in an active sector.
But her dreams went beyond even this. She wanted a star on her shoulder, maybe even two: sector command, command of a battle group. This ship was her beginning.
Already she knew more about the 218 Zaid-Dayan than her officers realized. Not merely the plans of the class of vessel, which any officer of her rank would be expected to have seen, but the detailed plans of that particular cruiser, and the records of all its refittings. You cannot know too much, Abe had said. Whatever you know is your wealth.
Hers lay here. Better than gold or jewels, she told herself, was the knowledge that won respect of her officers and crew . . . something that could not be bought with unlimited credits. Although credits had their uses. She ran her hand lightly along the edge of the desk she'd installed in her office. Real wood, rare, beautifully carved. She'd discovered in herself a taste for quality, beauty, and indulged it as her pay allowed. A custom desk, a few good pieces of crystal and sculpture, clothes that showed off the beauty she'd grown into. She still thought of all that as luxury, as frills, but no longer felt guilty for enjoying them in moderation.
While the cruiser lay at the refitting dock, Sassinak explored her command, meeting and talking with every member of the crew. About half of them had leave; she met them as they returned. But the onboard crew, a dozen officers and fifty or so enlisted, she made a point of chatting up.
The Zaid-Dayan wore the outward shape of most heavy cruisers, a slightly flattened ovoid hull with clusters of drive pods both port and starboard, aft of the largest diameter. Sassinak never saw it from outside, of course; only the refitting crews did that. What she saw were the human-accessible spaces, the "living decks" as they were called, and the crawlways that let a lean service tech into the bowels of the ship's plumbing and electrical circuitry. For the most part, it was much the same as the Padalyan Reef, the cruiser she'd just left, with Environmental at the bottom, then Troop Deck, then Data, then Main, then the two Flight Decks atop. But not quite.
In this ship, the standard layouts in Environmental had been modified by the addition of the stealth equipment; Sassinak walked every inch of the system to be sure she understood what pipes now ran where. The crowding below had required rearranging some of the storage areas, so that only Data Deck was exactly the same as standard. Sassinak paid particular attention to the two levels of storage for the many pieces of heavy equipment the Zaid-Dayan carried: the shuttles, the pinnace, the light fighter craft, the marines' tracked assault vehicles. Again, she made certain that she knew exactly which craft was stowed in each location, knew without having to check the computers.
Her own quarters were just aft of the bridge, opening onto the port passage, a stateroom large enough for modest entertaining—a low table and several chairs, as well as workstation, sleeping area, and private facilities. Slightly aft and across the passage was the officers' wardroom. Her position as cruiser captain required the capacity to entertain formal visitors, so she also had a large office, forward of the bridge and across the same passage. This she could decorate as she pleased—at least, within the limits of Fleet regulations and her own resources. She chose midnight-blue carpeting to show off the striking grain of her desk; the table was Fleet issue, but refinished to gleaming black. Guest seating, low couches along the walls, was in white synthi-leather. Against the pale-gray bulkheads, this produced a room of simple elegance that suited her perfectly.
Huron, she realized quickly, was an asset in more ways than one. Colony-bred himself, he had more than the usual interest in their safety. Too many Fleet officers considered the newer colonies more trouble than they were worth. As the days passed, she found that Huron's assessment of the junior officers was both fair and leavened by humor. She began to wonder why his previous commander had had so little confidence in him.
That story came out over a game of sho, one evening some days into their patrol. Sassinak had begun delicately probing, to see if he had a grievance of any sort. After the second or third ambiguous question, Huron looked up from the playing board with a smile that sent a sudden jolt through her heart.
"You're wondering if I know why Commander Kerif gave me such a lukewarm report last period?"
Sass, caught off guard as she rarely was, smiled back. "You're quite right—and you don't need to answer. But you've been too knowledgeable and competent since I came to have given habitually poor performance."
Huron's smile widened. "Commander Sassinak, your predecessor was a fine officer and I admire him. However, he had very strong ideas about the dignity of some . . . ah . . . prominent, old-line, merchant families. He never felt that I had sufficient respect for them, and he attributed a bit of doggerel he heard to me."
"Doggerel?"
Huron actually reddened. "A . . . uh . . . song. Sort of a song. About his son and that girl he's marrying. I didn't write it, Commander, although I did think it was funny when I heard it. But, you see, I'd quoted some verse in his presence before, and he was sure . . ."
Sassinak thought about it. "And do you have proper respect for wealthy merchants?"
Huron pursed his lips. "Proper? I think so. But I am a colony brat."
Sassinak shook her head, smiling. "So am I, as you must already know. Poor Kerif . . . I suppose it was a very bad song." She caught the look in Huron's eye, and chuckled. "If that's the worst you ever did, we'll have no problems at all."
"I don't want any," said Huron, in a tone that conveyed more than one meaning.
Years before, as a cadet, Sassinak had wondered how anyone could combine relationships both private and professional without being unfair to one or the other. Over the years, she had established her own ground rules, and had become a good judge of those likely to share her values and attitudes. Except for that one almost-disastrous (and, in retrospect, funny) engagement to a brilliant and handsome older diplomat, she had never risked anything she could not afford to lose. Now, secure in her own identity, she expected to go on enjoying life with those of her officers who were willing and stable enough not to be threatened—and honest enough not to take advantages she had no intention of releasing.
But her duty came first, and the present circumstances often drove any thought of pleasure from her mind. In the twenty years since her first voyage, Fleet had not been able to assure the safety of the younger and more remote colonies; as well, planets cleared for colonization by one group were too often found to have someone else—legally now the owners—in place when the colonists arrived. Although human slavery was technically illegal, colonies were being raided for slaves—and that meant a market somewhere. "Normal" humans blamed heavyworlders; heavyworlders blamed the "lightweights" as they called them, and the wealthy mercantile families of the inner worlds complained bitterly about the cost of supporting an ever-growing Fleet which didn't seem to save either lives or property.
Their orders, which Sassinak discussed only in part with her officers, required them to make use of a new, supposedly secret, technology for identifying and trailing newer deep-space civilian vessels. It augmented, rather than replaced, the standard IFF devices which had been in use since before Sassinak joined the Fleet. A sealed beacon, installed in the ship's architecture as it was built, could be triggered by Fleet surveillance scans. While passive to detectors in its normal mode, it nonetheless stored information on the ship's movements. The original idea had been to strip these beacons whenever a ship came to port, and thus keep records on its actual travel—as opposed to the log records presented to the portmaster. But still newer technology allowed specially equipped Fleet cruisers to enable such beacons while still in deepspace, even FTL flight—and then to follow with much less chance of detection. Now the plan was for cruisers such as the Zaid-Dayan to patrol slowly, in areas away from the normal corridors, and select suspicious "merchants" to follow.
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