“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 mercantile 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 ground-car 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 218Zaid-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.