Элизабет Мун - Cold Welcome

She turned from the viewport again; Jen handed her the latest memtip. Ky uploaded it to her implant. The schedule for the rest of the day; the draft of the speech she would give at dinner that evening; the faces and names of notables who would greet her after landing onplanet or be seated at the same table at dinner. For one of them, she needed no memtip: the Commandant of Slotter Key’s military academy.

She could have done without that. The last time she’d seen him, he’d told her she must resign. Now she was an admiral at only twenty-nine, and from a political point of view—something she had learned to recognize—she represented one of the Academy’s triumphs. It was bound to be awkward.

“Thank you, Jen,” she said. “Your usual excellent briefing.” Jen nodded.

The pinnace docked smoothly. Ky stood when the light came on, and the pinnace pilot came into the cabin. “Good flight, Morey,” she said to him.

“We’ll be back to pick you up anytime, Admiral,” he said. “Just let us know.”

That was another thing about this visit. Open-ended, Aunt Grace had said. It might take longer than planned. No longer than necessary, she told herself. Her life was elsewhere. “I’ll let you know the moment I know,” she said. “I don’t plan to take a vacation down there.”

“You want us to wait until you’ve boarded the shuttle?”

“No need. It’s already docked. I’ll be fine. Captain Pordre has all my contact codes.” All but one, the very secret one she shared only with Rafe Dunbarger.

Jen Bentik stood aside as Ky walked to the hatch. All lights green. A perfect match, and thus no reason to worry. She worried anyway. The past few years had given her every reason for caution and few for complacency. She still wore her personal armor under her clothes; she still carried a loaded weapon in all circumstances.

The hatch opened into a standard air lock. Beyond was the ramp down into the station itself, where the Commandant—erect as ever but showing his age now—awaited her. Professionally impassive, of course, the telltale eyelid not drooping today, and his gaze boring into her like an industrial laser. To either side, behind him, rows of media reps were held back by station security.

“Admiral Vatta,” he said. Nothing in his tone but courtesy; the sawtooth edge to his voice that had greeted her at their last meeting was undetectable. She had no doubt he could still deploy it. “Welcome to Slotter Key. The Rector of Defense and the President both asked me to convey their sincere regrets that they could not meet you here.”

She had wondered if he would call her by her rank—the rank she had assumed of necessity, not through the usual process of regular promotions overseen by a Board. But of course he did in front of the media. The snakelike tendrils of media feeds hovered over them both. People onplanet would be watching it live. It made her skin itch, but she had the experience now to handle it as blandly as he did.

“Thank you, Commandant.” He had a last name, but no one ever used it. “I am delighted to meet you again.”

His smile held a glimmer of warmth. “And I you, Admiral.” He glanced aside, and two of the enlisted personnel with him moved past her toward the hatch to fetch her luggage and Jen’s—just one regular case each, and their survival suits, packed by her own trusted crew. That last had necessitated a brief tussle with someone on the Spaceforce end, who had only grudgingly agreed that she could bring it if she wanted. The Commandant’s aide, she saw, had turned slightly aside, clearly listening to something in his earbug.

“This is my aide, Commander Bentik,” Ky said. “She is from Cascadia, in the Moscoe Confederation.”

“Glad to meet you, Commander,” the Commandant said. “Forgive me that I am not fully acquainted with Cascadian protocol.”

“It is my honor, sir,” Bentik said. “I assure you I will not take offense. Cascadian protocol is not an issue here; I must hope that I have mastered that of Slotter Key.”

“Let there be no strain between us,” the Commandant said, the proper Cascadian mode for senior to junior, and turned to Ky. “As the shuttle is ready, Admiral, we might defer further courtesies to the shuttle lounge, if that suits you.”

“Of course.”

“The Rector asked me to tell you that her new arm is in good shape, but she had a minor accident two days ago—nothing to worry about, she insists. Her physicians recommended she not come up, or she would have met you herself.”

Ky’s wariness went up a notch—accident? Or attack?—but she kept her face and voice smooth. “I was wondering about her arm. We don’t comment on her age, but a complete biograft—”

“Could be a difficulty, but has not been for her.” The Commandant’s aide, head still cocked a little in the manner of someone receiving more information, led the way down the ramp to the arrival lounge, and the six-person security squad closed around them. The media presence melted away as they left the lounge for the first station corridor.

They moved through corridors Ky recognized from what now seemed a distant earlier life, bypassing Customs & Immigration, where a knot of uniformed officers smiled and nodded. Then into the commercial section, with its storefronts, eateries, and people lined up, not quite casually, to see her. More media clustered there, holding up recorders and calling out to her. She ignored them.

“The trip down will be somewhat longer than usual,” the Commandant went on. “I presume you received the weather bulletin?”

“That front moving in?”

“Yes. You know what the early-spring storms are like. Right now it’s blowing snow downside in the capital, but they say we’ll be delayed only a couple of hours. Should be clear by 1400 or so.” He gave her a sideways glance. “We could have delayed the shuttle but the media have been very pushy. Rumor has it that you’ve come back with a warship to take revenge for the attacks on your family. That you’re in cahoots with the Rector, planning to seek and destroy the guilty. I thought it best to get you aboard quickly rather than give them a chance at you right away. A few extra orbits should see us safely past the storm; security’s better downside anyway.”

Ky shook her head as they reached the Spaceforce section. “It’s true Aunt Grace told me to come, but—”

“But rumors are rumors,” he said. “We still haven’t found out who started that one.”

He led the way to the shuttle departure area, where a group of Spaceforce personnel waited. They all stood; Ky found she remembered the insignia and marks of rank and grade, though she recognized none of the people. They looked at her with interest; she wondered how many knew about her past. Most, probably. Two were obviously flight crew, in the uniform of AirDefense rather than Spaceforce.

“Luggage just cleared Customs,” the Commandant’s aide said, finger to his earbug. “Perhaps four minutes; the crowd’s thickened. Admiral, I have the passenger list with notations, if you’d like to see it.”

“Thank you,” Ky said. She added his memtip to Jen’s and her implant began matching faces in the room to names, rank or rating, home region. Several were Miznarii, the most numerous and stringent anti-humod group on Slotter Key. No matter; they were not her concern, not in her chain of command.

“With your permission,” one of the pilots said, “we’ll start preflight.” As he spoke, Ky’s implant gave her his name: Commander Tarik Hansen. She glanced at the other pilot: Major Sunyavarta.

“Go right ahead,” the Commandant said to Hansen. “Our steward—there he is. Staff Sergeant Vispersen—”

“Yes, Commandant.” Vispersen, a slender dark man with graying hair and gray eyes, gave Ky a quick glance. “Did you want to board now or wait for the luggage?”