Elizabeth Moon: Change of Command

Admiral Vida Serrano, now securely in command of Sector Seven, read the memorandum in silence, very aware of the tension in Master Chief Valdos’ shoulders. She herself had forwarded the concerns of Barin and Captain Escovar about mental deterioration in senior enlisted personnel, under the tightest security. She had followed the subsequent medical investigation, but the details eluded her. Rejuvenation neurobiology was not her field. She needed to be briefed on it, and so far—despite several increasingly firm requests to Fleet Headquarters—no such briefing had taken place.

How could she reassure Valdos, and others under her command, without the information she needed?

What would happen if she couldn’t?

“Get me the heads of personnel and medical,” she said. “We have a situation I don’t fully understand, and I want to be sure we handle this with both discretion and fairness.”

“Sir.” A pause. “If the admiral permits—”

“Go ahead.”

“Is it true they’re looking for ways to bump out senior NCOs, an excuse not to offer any more rejuvenations?”

Just the kind of ideas she did not want floating around. But was it true?

“In my opinion, Chief—and it’s only my opinion, but I do have some data—this may have to do with medical problems from a bad batch of rejuv drugs.”

“Problems.”

“Yes. I am not going to blacken anyone’s name, because I don’t know all the facts. I’m not a medical officer. I do know that investigation of something else revealed a source of contaminated rejuv drugs, and there was concern that they might have made it into our supply chain. Meanwhile, several senior NCOs began showing neurological symptoms within a few months to a year of each other—widely separated in their duty stations, and not all in the same branch.”

“Could they—have given us bad drugs, to justify later refusal to rejuv?”

“On purpose?” He nodded. “Absolutely not. If that’s what happened, I suspect it is a simple mistake—or, if not, an enemy wished to deprive us of our most valuable senior NCOs in order to make a strike easier.”

“I hope you’re right, sir.” He went out, shaking his head.

She hoped she was right, too . . . and that he believed her. If the NCOs started worrying about whether they had been given bad drugs intentionally, the close-knit community of Fleet could unravel with fatal speed.

. . . despite the best efforts of our advertising departments to restore confidence in our product, the market share is still severely depressed compared to the 68% dominance of the market we enjoyed before the Patchcock scandal. Our competitors have taken full advantage of revelations about the inferior quality of our product, and our legal staff tells us that litigation is still increasing. This has severely affected profits, which used to make up over 20% of the total for the Conselline Sept. Non-political means of recovery have been ineffective; we need legislative relief from laws that are crippling our attempt to deal fairly and honestly with the consequences of the errors made by others. We feel it is imperative that some means be found to regain market share. Lady Venezia Morrelline continues to oppose this, and we have been unable to convince her that we cannot be held responsible for the acts of sabotage by a foreign agent. . . .

On a cold, windy day in local autumn, the prisoners of Stack Islands Military Prison were drawn up in ranks to witness another change of command ceremony from behind barriers of both steel and invisible force shields. In front of it, in the small enclosed parade ground, all but a few of the guards were also in formation, uneasily aware of the prisoners’ gazes fixed on their backs. No matter that a force shield lay between them; nothing protected them from the malevolence.

Up in front, Iosep Tolin relinquished his command to Pilar Bacarion with relief. He had not enjoyed any moment of his stay in that exile from his former sphere of power, and he had agreed to take early retirement to get quit of it. Pilar, though—he would be very glad to put the width of the Big Ocean, and later some deepspace, between himself and one of the few women who had ever been close to Admiral Lepescu.

On her part, Commander Pilar Bacarion felt an almost physical surge of pleasure in the tension on Tolin’s face. He not only disliked her, he was afraid of her. He should be. They all should be, and they would be, in time. She smiled at Tolin, letting him see that she recognized his fear, and saw the glisten of sweat on his forehead, even in the cold. Then she released him from her gaze, and turned it instead on her subordinates.

They did not flinch. She had not thought they would. Their gaze challenged her—the first female commander this prison had ever had. Was she tough enough, their gaze asked. Could she do the job? Others—whose identities she already knew—had no doubts about her toughness. They were well aware that Lepescu had been her mentor, that she had supported his agenda. Carefully disguised in her duffle were slivers of the ears she had taken; when it had become imprudent to keep these proofs of her status, she had sliced them thin herself and found hiding places for them.

She had Hunted, in the oldest Hunt of all; she had killed. She had survived the Hunt on Sirialis, having left to take command of a ship before the game ended with Lepescu dead and Heris Serrano once more in favor with Fleet brass. But no one knew it. They were all dead, and the prisoners she’d hunted had never seen her face. Her luck was strong, and her skills—she would match her skills against Serrano directly some day; she knew she would win.

She looked past the guards, past the force screen, to the prisoners in their drab ranks. In there she also had potential allies. In time.

Tolin left at last, in the whining aircar. She wished him a nasty storm on the way to the mainland, but it didn’t really matter. Let him live—and let him realize someday just what he’d seen, in their brief exchange.

The ceremony over, Pilar summoned her staff. They were unwise enough to look surprised; she allowed herself a tight smile on the way to her office, thinking how soon they would learn what she was like.

On the mainland, at Main Base, autumn had not yet moderated a brutally hot summer. It had been a dry year, and now fine reddish dust turned the sky dirty brown as the wind lifted it high into the atmosphere.

In this kind of weather, everyone who could get offbase privileges spent hours in Q-town’s bars, drinking whatever was coldest. Even combat veterans accepted the crowd in their favorite watering hole. It was too hot, and too miserable, to complain.

Margiu Pardalt, newly graduated from the Academy, and the only Xavierine in her class, had a habit of coming tops in her classes. She had to; she had to do something to make up for her sister Masiu, killed by raiders years ago. Masiu had been the family genius: brilliant, brave, everything a family could hope for. Margiu was second-best, and knew it—a poor replacement for the fallen hero—so it was up to her to make her mark, to be Masiu’s memorial. Her place in the Academy had been a gift from the Familias in memory of Masiu. Her place in the universe was to be her gift in return.

She had earned an evening’s liberty by coming first in her class yet again at Copper Mountain, and she thought it fitting that her free hours came at a time when no rational person could enjoy them. She’d have stayed in her quarters, but her training CO had told her to get off the base—and orders were orders.

Another gust of wind howled down Q-town’s main street and filled her nose with hot stinging dust. She sneezed, and her eyes watered. It reminded her too much of the Benignity’s scorch of Xavier, when she and her family had wrapped torn sheets around their heads for weeks to filter the dust and ash.