David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

Actually, she knew a good bit more, but a lot of what she knew was most definitely not for public distribution.

"None of which," she went on more pointedly, "has any particular bearing on whether I have or haven't cultivated the same band of sneaks and informants you have. So instead of looking exasperated, suppose you tell me what's so special about Hexapuma besides the fact that she's a brand-new ship."

"Nothing in particular, I suppose. Except, perhaps, for her captain, that is." His tone was so elaborately casual that she considered throttling him, but then he laughed. "All right, I'll come clean. It just happens, Helen, that Hexapuma 's newly assigned skipper is one Captain Aivars Terekhov. The Hyacinth Terekhov."

Helen's eyes widened. She didn't need Aikawa to tell her who Aivars Terekhov was. Everyone knew his record, just as everyone knew about the Manticore Cross he'd won for the Battle of Hyacinth.

"Wait a minute." She came to a complete stop, looking down at Aikawa with a perplexed expression. "Terekhov. Isn't he some sort of distant relative of Bashanova's?"

"Yeah, but just some kind of twelfth cousin or something. Worth remembering if you want something from him, but otherwise-?" Aikawa shrugged and grimaced. He was from the capital planet of Manticore, not Gryphon, but his attitude towards the more self-important (and self-absorbed) members of the Manticoran aristocracy was as contemptuous as any Highlander's.

"But if they're related, why in the world would Bashanova want to be reassigned out of Hexapuma ? I'd think his family would want him to make his snotty cruise under a relative-especially one in command of a brand, shiny new heavy cruiser. It's the way their minds work."

"Unless there's been some sort of family falling out," Aikawa suggested. "If Terekhov's feuding with the rest of the family-and from what I know about the Noble Rodent's immediate relatives, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if someone like Terekhov couldn't stand them-maybe Daddy Rat would feel better keeping his adorable little son out of the line of fire. Or," he shrugged, "it may be that there's something special about Intransigent that I haven't been able to find out about-yet. It's just as possible the Noble Rodent's trying to cop an inside advantage as that he's trying to avoid some sort of problem, you know."

"I suppose," she said doubtfully, tugging her locker back into motion as she started off down the shuttle pad guideline once more. And Aikawa did have a point, she conceded. But even as she told herself that, she knew her metaphysical ears were straining for the sound of a falling shoe.

HMSS Hephaestus was always crowded, especially now. With the abrupt, disastrous resumption of the war with Haven, the largest single shipyard the Navy owned was running at well over a hundred percent of its designed capacity. The destruction of the Grendelsbane satellite yards-and all the partially built warships in them-only made Hephaestus' frenetic pace even more frenzied.

The concourses were an almost solid mass of humanity, with civilians employed by the various contractors piling in on top of the military personnel assigned to-or simply passing through- Hephaestus . Getting through the massive space station's main arteries in anything remotely resembling a hurry was effectively impossible.

Which, unfortunately, didn't keep some people from trying to, anyway.

One such person-a large, well fed, and obviously (in his own eyes, at least) important civilian-was forging through the press of human bodies like a superdreadnought through a squadron of old-style LACs. He might not have the superdreadnought's impeller wedge, but he was using his beefy shoulders and elbows as a suitable substitute. Since he stood right at a hundred and eighty-eight centimeters in height, most of those who weren't restrained from shoving back out of good manners were intimidated by his sheer size and obvious willingness to trample lesser mortals.

Most of them, anyway.

His bulldozer progress came to an abrupt halt as what he had confidently believed was an irresistible force ran into what was in fact an immovable object. In point of fact, it was a man in a blue and gray uniform he'd never seen before. A very tall man, the better part of twelve centimeters taller then he was. And a very broad man, who must have weighed at least two hundred kilos… none of it fat.

The civilian hit that hundred-and-sixty-five-centimeter chest and bounced. Literally. He ended up flat on the seat of his trousers, the wind knocked out of him, staring up at the ogre he'd just flattened himself against like a bug on a windshield. Mild brown eyes regarded him with vague interest, as if wondering whether or not he might have been the source of the insignificant impact which had drawn their owner's attention.

The beefy young man had already opened his mouth, his face taut with fury, but it snapped shut even more abruptly than it had opened as he truly saw the man he'd run into for the first time. The uniformed giant gazed down at him, still mildly, then stepped carefully around him, beckoned politely for two other pedestrians to precede him, and continued on his own way without so much as a backward glance.

The severely shaken civilian sat there for several more seconds before he pushed himself rather unsteadily to his feet and resumed his own progress… much more circumspectly. He kept an eye out for additional ogres, but he'd never even noticed the tallish, slender young junior-grade lieutenant following in the first ogre's wake. Probably because, despite her own height, for a woman, her head didn't even top her escort's massive shoulder.

"I saw that, Mateo," Lieutenant Abigail Hearns said quietly, gallantly attempting to put a repressive edge into her voice.

"Saw what, My Lady?" Mateo Gutierrez inquired innocently.

"You deliberately changed course to plow that… person under," she said severely.

"How can you possibly suggest such a thing, My Lady?" Gutierrez shook his head sadly, a man clearly accustomed to being misunderstood and maligned.

"Possibly because I know you," Abigail replied tartly. He only shook his head again, adding a sigh for good measure, and she managed not to laugh out loud.

It wasn't the first time she'd noticed that Gutierrez seemed to take special offense when he encountered someone who used physical size or strength to intimidate others. Mateo Gutierrez didn't care for bullies. Abigail had been a bit surprised by how little astonishment she'd felt on the day she realized that for all his toughness and amazing lethality, he was one of the gentlest people she knew. There was nothing "soft," or wishy-washy about Gutierrez, but although he went to considerable lengths to hide it, he was the sort of man who routinely adopted homeless kittens, lost puppies… and steadholder's daughters.

Her temptation to laugh vanished as she remembered how she and Gutierrez had met. She hadn't expected to survive the brutal, merciless encounter with the pirates raiding the planet of Refuge. And she wouldn't have, without Gutierrez. She knew, with no sense of false modesty, that she'd held up her own end of that exhausting, endless running battle, but it hadn't been her sort of fight. It had been Mateo Gutierrez's kind of fight, and he'd waged it magnificently. That was what a professional noncom in the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps did.

She understood that part. What she wasn't quite clear on was precisely how a Manty Marine platoon sergeant transmuted into a lieutenant in the Owens Steadholder's Guard. Oh, she was certain she detected her father's inimitable touch, and as a Grayson steadholder, Lord Owens clearly had the clout to "convince" the Royal Manticoran Marines to allow one of their sergeants to cross-transfer to the Owens Guard. What she couldn't figure out was how her father had convinced Gutierrez to accept the transfer in the first place.