Shadowed Glory

Morningstar V

Book I: Exiled to Glory
Book II: Stolen Glory
Book III: Tarnished Glory
Book IV: Desperate Glory
Book V: Shadowed Glory

Christopher G. Nuttall

Cover By Tan Ho Sim
https://www.artstation.com/alientan

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Contents
Cover Blurb
Author’s Note
Prologue I
Prologue II
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two: Peppermint Orbital Defence Command/SAS Thunder
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two: Mining Ship Peek-A-Boo, Orbital Command Station One
Chapter Thirty-Three: Leo/Commodore Lafarge
Chapter Thirty-Four: Leo/Commander Alice Hagias/Commodore Lafarge
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Afterword
How To Follow

Cover Blurb

After a cataclysmic interstellar war that came very close to exterminating humanity, the Daybreak Republic has risen from the ashes and embarked upon a mission to unite hundreds of human colony worlds under its banner, in hopes of preventing a second and final conflict that will complete the destruction of the human race. But not everyone agrees that the empire’s ends justify the means.

Daybreak has always valued forthright manly behaviour, and prized the right to speak one’s mind, but this time Leo Morningstar may have gone too far. After he challenges government policy publically, in a manner that cannot be ignored, he is hastily reassigned to an experimental starship and sent back to the front lines, with orders to take the offensive against the rebel forces as quickly as possible. But with an unproven starship and superiors who don’t trust him, and a powerful rebel fleet bearing down on him, Leo is caught between two fires…

And this time, he may be burned.

Author’s Note 

As the series grew and developed, it became necessary to write a number of scenes from the point of view of characters other than Leo Morningstar. Those chapters have specific headings, identifying the POV character.

I apologise for any confusion this may cause.

Thank you.

Chris

Prologue I

From: The Political Biography of Leo Morningstar. Baen Historical Press. Daybreak. Year 307.

The outbreak of open war between the Daybreak Republic and what came to be known, variously, as the Secessionist Alliance, the Cognoscenti, and simply the rebels was greeted with a certain relief on Daybreak itself. They were a warrior people who saw success in battle as proof of their own superiority, and so a newborn war offered the chance for their established leaders to prove themselves worthy once again and allowed up-and-coming young commanders to rise to the very top. Indeed, given how military success and political success were closely interlinked on Daybreak, it is unlikely Daybreak would have considered peace negotiations even if such negotiations had been possible. They were not, of course. The Republic simply had too many enemies for anything less than total victory or total defeat to be contemplated.

And yet, despite this, the opening moves of the war provoked a political crisis on Daybreak, centred on the figure of Admiral Alexander Blackthrone, scion of the long-established Blackthrone Family, who could trace their ancestry all the way back to the Founders (and never let anyone forget it). It was his misfortune to be in command when the phony war gave way to open conflict. His decisions during the First Battle of Yangtze might have been entirely reasonable, based on what he knew at the time, but they turned out to be suicidal when faced with what was later described as a superweapon surprise and his squadron was decisively defeated. His contingency plans, which few had taken entirely seriously, proved inadequate to deal with the disaster, although they bought enough time for a counter-attack—the Second Battle of Yangtze—to evacuate the planet and give the rebels a bloody nose. It was not enough to save his career, and he was summoned back to Daybreak to face a general court martial. Few expected him to do anything other than fall on his sword.

His career was interlinked, for better or worse, with the career of Commander Leo Morningstar, who was the first to make direct contact with the rebels, the first to realise just how dangerous a threat they posed and the first to take a mixed fleet of Daybreakers and colonial personnel into battle. Given how Leo Morningstar had interacted with the Blackthrone Family, detailed in earlier chapters, it is ironic indeed that he might have proved the salvation of his commanding officer. However, it is undeniably true.

The irony only grows deeper as one realises precisely why Leo Morningstar succeeded in the first place. The treachery of Commander Sun Li, a colonial-born officer in naval intelligence, convinced the Admiralty to place heavy restrictions on the careers of other colonial-born officers, a decree that understandably alienated officers and enlisted men who had spent their lives in service to Daybreak. Many of those officers were reassigned to harmless postings, such as asteroid mining stations, or simply invited to take early retirement. Others were placed under the command of Leo Morningstar and expected to assist him in refitting a fleet of surplus and/or outdated naval and commercial vessels for military service. It is greatly to the credit of Leo Morningstar that he recognised that these officers and enlisted deserved better treatment from the Navy, and that he argued their case to his superior. And it was this that allowed the so-called Gypsy Squadron to harass the rebels and play a major role in the Second Battle of Yangtze.

Some men are born to be at the heart of the storm. Leo Morningstar is one such man. But being recalled to Daybreak meant taking his talents into a very different environment, where wars were fought with a combination of forthright, manly speeches and shadowy manoeuvres that everyone pretended didn’t exist. It meant moving from a realm he understood to a world with unwritten rules and conventions that were never discussed in his Academy years.

And in a bid to do the right thing, it is no surprise that he ran into trouble he couldn’t handle.

Prologue II

The study was strikingly shabby for a man whose mere word was law across the Republic.

It was a large chamber, but it looked smaller because of the cluster of mismatched chairs, sofas and tables that had been thrust together without rhyme or reason. Valuable antiques dating all the way back to Old Earth rested beside furniture that looked to have come out of a charity shop and a command chair pulled out of a starship too badly battered in combat to be worth restoring and returning to active duty. The walls were lined with bookshelves, their contents a mixture of history, politics and fiction from a dozen different genres; the lighting was oddly misplaced, casting strange shadows across the room. The only hint of true modernity was a simple computer terminal resting on a desk, and even that looked strange, a boxy machine right out of a romantic fantasy about the past. It was a very strange place to be.

And yet, Louis Blackthrone reflected as he was shown into the chamber, it said much about its owner. Grand Senator (Admiral) Tobias Sullivan had no need to bow to convention, no need to present himself as anything other than what he was: a man with the power and influence to do pretty much whatever he pleased as long as he didn’t go too far and overextend himself. Sullivan had a long history as a naval commander, and a politician, while his family were wealthy businessmen who’d built an empire that stretched across the Republic and even—some whispered—into the Beyond. And he had an eye for talent and loyalty. His army of clients, some in very powerful places indeed, served him well. Few would pick a fight with Sullivan without taking the precaution of making out their will first.

As he rose from a shabby sofa to greet his guest, Louis saw that he was shorter than he’d expected, shorter and uglier. Cosmetic surgery was seen as a sign of moral weakness on Daybreak, but few would have raised eyebrows if Sullivan had altered his looks to be more acceptable. His skin was tanned, his lips set in a genial smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes; his body, what little could be made out under the loose tunic he wore, was hard and muscular. His family was proud to proclaim that no one was ever born into their family, that they were expected to become worthy of the family name. Louis had to admit, as they exchanged handshakes, that Sullivan had done his family proud. He wasn’t powerful enough to be an autocrat—the system would never allow it, as his lessers banded together to bring him down—but he was as close to all-powerful as a single man could become. It made Louis wonder, deep inside, just what would happen when Sullivan finally died. His heirs weren’t anything like the father’s match when it came to gathering and wielding power, influence and patronage. He doubted they could keep his empire after their father’s death.

“Louis,” Sullivan said. His tone was light, friendly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Thank you,” Louis said. “And it’s good to see you too.”

Sullivan smiled the smile of a man who knew they were both being polite. “Would you like tea? Or coffee?”

“Please,” Louis said. It was a sign he was welcome, although he doubted it was truly so. “Tea would be great, thank you.”

“Of course.” Sullivan motioned for Louis to pick a chair, any chair, while he prepared the tea. It said something about him that he was doing it himself, rather than summoning a serving maid, but Louis didn’t know what. Keeping a retinue of servants was another sign of moral weakness, yet everyone understood a man like Sullivan needed someone to take care of such details while he worked to keep his empire alive. Did he not trust his servants? Or was it a simple reluctance to let himself be babied? Making tea was hardly a difficult task. “Milk? Sugar?”

“Milk, please,” Louis said. It felt awkward to accept a mug of tea from such a powerful man … perhaps that was the point. It was a disconcerting experience. The mug itself was chipped and old, yet in better condition than the one Sullivan himself used. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“You’re welcome,” Sullivan said. “It’s always good to see you again.”

They exchanged polite nothings for long moments, comparing notes on families, friends, and football clubs. It was expected of powerful politicians that they would fund such public institutions out of their own pockets, forcing them to give back something of what they owed to Daybreak. Louis himself backed two, and he was fairly sure Sullivan backed more, which was oddly appreciated because everyone understood his refusal to take sides. How could he betray one of his clubs in favour of another?

“I’ll get to the point,” Louis said, when they’d exhausted the small number of unimportant topics they could discuss. “My family requires your support.”

“It does, does it?” Sullivan’s eyebrows crawled upwards so slowly Louis knew it was an affectation. “What could you possibly want from me?”

Louis hid his annoyance with the ease of long practice. Sullivan knew what Louis wanted, or he wasn’t the man Louis knew him to be. Sullivan would probably have planned for the meeting well in advance, working out just how much he was prepared to offer his rival and what he wanted to demand in return. Louis, in turn, had tried to work out what Sullivan might want, although there was no way to know for sure. There was nothing obvious, nothing at all. They might wind up owing him a favour to be redeemed at a later date. And failing to pay the debt would cripple the family.

“My cousin has been recalled home to face a general court martial,” Louis said, bluntly. He didn’t see any point in being coy. “We want the charges dropped.”

Sullivan raised his eyebrows again, this time much more naturally. “And you are sure the Senate will go along with me?”

“Yes,” Louis said.

“And you don’t think Alexander Blackthrone deserves to be put in front of a firing squad, pour encourager les autres?”

Louis kept his face under tight control. If Admiral Alexander Blackthrone had fucked up spectacularly, particularly if the fuck up had been entirely predictable, Louis would have thrown him under the oncoming battleship without a second thought. Loyalty was all very well and good, and it was the bread and butter of an extended clan like his family, but you couldn’t defend the undefendable. Nor was there any point in playing out a losing hand. The failure had to be removed for the good of the family. There was no other rational choice.

But Admiral Alexander Blackthrone hadn’t fucked up by the numbers. He’d been caught by surprise, his fleet pinned down and shot to pieces by an enemy armed with a weapon no one knew existed … and he’d recovered well, launching a counterattack that had given morale a shot in the arm after the early painful defeats. The family’s media connections had been talking that up for weeks, trying to influence public opinion by pointing out that the only battle that truly mattered was the last one—and that had been a victory … from a certain point of view. It was hard to tell if the campaign had had any effect on public opinion. The first defeat had been costly as well as embarrassing. And too many families were mourning the dead for anything to be taken for granted.

“There is a certain danger in putting officers caught in unexpected situations in front of a court martial board,” Louis said, after a moment. “They cannot be held accountable for failing to predict the unpredictable.”

“Some would argue that the disaster could have been predicted,” Sullivan pointed out, mildly.

Louis shrugged. “You know as well as I do that there are always people sitting behind desks, light-years from the front lines, who will argue as much,” he said. “You also know that those people rarely have any real feel for what is truly going on.”

“True.” Sullivan’s tone didn’t change. “It could be argued he chose to ignore the warning signs.”

“And warning signs are, by their very nature, pieces of an incomplete jigsaw that are tricky to put together until it is too late,” Louis said, curtly. “If we tried to draw up contingency plans for every piece of hypothetical technology, from FTL communications to microjump missiles, we’ll all go mad. His decisions made perfect sense based on what he knew at the time.”

“So you have said, time and time again,” Sullivan said. “And what would you say to the families of the men who died under his command?”

“I would say they knew the risks when they signed up,” Louis said. “You would say the same.”

Sullivan didn’t bother to argue. It was true, and they both knew it. They’d been naval officers in their time, real naval officers. Daybreak scorned the REMF, and anyone with political ambitions knew that heading to the front was the quickest way to win acclaim, citizenship and an open passage to political power. They knew the ideal of naval service, they understood the allure of grandiose and complicated plans for victory; they also understood the realities that made such plans more dangerous to the men trying to carry them out than the enemy. It was easy to nitpick when your arse wasn’t on the line. It was harder to do it when you might have to be the one getting your arse blown away.

“It could be you, next time,” Louis pointed out. “Or one of your clients.”

“Quite,” Sullivan agreed. “But it isn’t quite the same, is it?”

Louis shrugged. A client could be ditched, if they went too far. No one would blame Sullivan for discarding someone who made themselves a liability, if it was clearly their fault. There were limits to loyalty, and everyone knew it. But he had to save a cousin …

He leaned forward. “What do you want?”

Sullivan lifted his eyebrows, once again. “You’re being very direct today.”

“You were a naval officer for years,” Louis said, sardonically. “Do you not understand the value of directness, when set against a growing emergency?”

“Quite,” Sullivan agreed. He made a show of stroking his chin. “What do I want?”

Louis waited. Sullivan would want something—of course he would. It was the nature of humanity for someone to want something, in exchange for his services. No one did anything without an expectation of something in return, even if it was just sincere gratitude or the private knowledge they’d done a good thing. And no one entered politics, certainly not at the level they shared, without wheeling and dealing and a great deal of secretive backroom favour-trading. Sure, being forthright and manly was a virtue—and having foreign politicians hanging around served as a comforting standard of wetness against which local politicians could measure their own behaviour—but there were limits. Sullivan wanted something, in exchange for what Louis wanted. And he wouldn’t hesitate to name his price.

Sullivan smiled, drawing out the moment. “I want something. Yes.”

“And?” Louis didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “What do you want?”

Sullivan told him.

Chapter One

Leo felt naked.

It wasn’t true, of course. He wore his groundside dress uniform, so heavy and uncomfortable that it was hard to forget he was wearing it, and carried his cap in his hand as he stood before the Board of Inquiry. He’d had to arrange the dress uniform to be tailored at short notice—his original uniform had been left behind on Yangtze—and he couldn’t help feeling that he’d picked the wrong tailor. It was just a little too uncomfortable for his peace of mind. But perhaps that was a good thing. He had no friends in this room.

The chamber was large and yet completely bare, save for a single military-issue folding table and three chairs. The men sitting in front of him wore their own dress uniforms, the white outfits bearing mute testament to lifetimes in naval service and careers that moved from the military to the political sphere and then back again, insofar as there was any real difference between the two. Leo had never met any of the Board of Inquiry before, but he knew them by reputation. Admiral Bainbridge, a tall, dark-skinned man; Admiral Wellstone, a shorter woman with a pinched face; General Singh, a pale man with a neatly trimmed beard and a reputation for never losing a battle, no matter the odds against him. Leo wasn’t on trial—he knew he wasn’t—but it still felt as though he were being judged. Perhaps he was. The Board of Inquiry knew, all too well, just how easily reputations could grow in the telling.

Admiral Bainbridge spoke with quiet authority. “Would you, in your own words, tell us precisely what happened at First Yangtze?”

It’s all in my report, sir, Leo thought, hiding his irritation as best he could. He’d written out a full report as soon as he’d reached safety, then dispatched it and the sensor records to higher authority. He doubted the Board of Inquiry hadn’t read it. They’d certainly have raised a stink if his report had never reached them. You know what happened there.

He took a breath. “The enemy caught Task Force Yangtze by surprise, sir,” he said, as calmly as he could. “They deployed a device to trap our ships in realspace and then struck the fleet with thousands of missiles. The fleet was badly damaged and had to fight its way out of the system, only a handful of ships making it clear before it was too late. The planet itself surrendered shortly afterwards.”

“You were not assigned to Task Force Yangtze,” General Singh said. “What were you doing in the system?”

Leo wondered if the question was an attempt to unsettle him. It didn’t matter.

“I was returning to report to Admiral Blackthrone,” he said. That had been included in his report too. “The enemy fleet arrived before my ship entered orbit. I made the decision to remain in stealth, rather than trying to intervene in the engagement.”

Admiral Bainbridge leaned forward. “And you did not try to jump out at once?”

“I believed it was vitally important that we have a solid record of the engagement,” Leo said, calmly. “There were no reinforcements within reach, sir; there was nothing to be gained by trying to leave before the dust settled.”

“Did you expect Admiral Blackthrone to be defeated?” Admiral Wellstone sounded as though she was biting into something sour. “On paper, the odds were in his favour.”

“No, Admiral,” Leo said. “I expected him to win or to extract his ships with minimal losses. I had no inkling of the looming disaster until it was too late.”

“And yet, you were the one who captured the rebel arsenal ship,” Admiral Wellstone said. “A ship that has no practical value, unless the target can be pinned down in realspace. Why didn’t you assume the worst?”

Leo felt his face heat. “With all due respect, Admiral, there was no suggestion such technology was even possible. We planned for faster missiles, with heavier warheads, or overpowered energy weapons. If we’d encountered either of those, we could have jumped out, preserving much of the fleet for a later engagement on better terms. Instead, we were caught by surprise.”

He paused. “Hindsight tells us we should have wondered why they’d built the ship,” he added. “We did. We just never worked it out until it was too late. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

“Quite,” Admiral Bainbridge agreed. “What did you do following the defeat?”

“I returned to my squadron and laid plans to transfer my command to our secondary base and carry out delaying operations against the rebels,” Leo said. “I also attempted to get back in touch with Admiral Blackthrone, while planning on the assumption it wouldn’t be possible. And then …”

Admiral Wellstone raised a hand, cutting him off. “Why did you prepare a secondary base well before it was required?”

Leo sensed danger, although he wasn’t sure why. “Our base started life as a pirate base before we captured it, last year,” he said. “It was quite possible the rebels had either obtained the coordinates from the pirates themselves or their agents on Yangtze, Admiral, and if that was the case I feared we could be attacked at any moment. I saw to the establishment of a second base, completely off the books, and when the war started in earnest transferred most of my command there. And it turned out to be a wise precaution, as our base was attacked shortly afterwards.”

“And you had reason to suspect the location would leak from Yangtze?”

Leo leaned forward. “Admiral, with all due respect, there were a lot of people on Yangtze who sympathised with the rebels,” he said. “The attempted coup last year took many of them off the playing field, but we don’t know how many remained in place, ready to get back in touch with the rebel network and continue relaying information to their offworld bases. I had no way to be certain there were no spies with access to the coordinates, no way to be sure the location was completely safe. And I had no way to know if the information had leaked until the enemy fleet arrived. I hoped for the best and assumed the worst.”

Admiral Bainbridge shot his fellow Admiral a look. “Do you believe the contingency planning held up to the crisis you faced?”

Leo hesitated. “Overall, sir, I believe so.”

“You believe so?” Admiral Bainbridge sounded stern. “In what manner do you believe so?”

Leo took a breath. “The general thinking was that the squadron could handle anything the rebels threw at it, sir, or jump out if it turned out we’d underestimated the enemy,” he said, resisting the urge to point out he’d said that once already. “All our contingency plans were based on that assumption, and there were no plans for a near-total defeat. The plans we did have managed to cope with the crisis, which was all that we could ask for at that point.”

“And when you reported back to Admiral Blackthrone,” Admiral Wellstone said, “did you have any doubts about his ability to handle the crisis?”

“That’s not a fair question,” General Singh said, sharply.

“But I would like an answer,” Admiral Wellstone said. “Commander Morningstar?”

Leo felt sweat prickling down his back. The question was dangerous. Asking a junior officer—and he was still very much a junior compared to any flag officer—to criticise his superior was a severe breach of navel etiquette. There were times when misconduct had to be reported, true, but misconduct was very carefully defined. Leo couldn’t point to a single thing Admiral Blackthrone had done that met the legal definition of misconduct, let alone anything more serious like gross incompetence or outright treason. He’d planned as best as he could, based on what he knew at the time, and it was his misfortune he hadn’t known something very important indeed. 

“You may speak freely,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “Regardless of the outcome, court martial proceedings are sealed. Admiral Blackthrone will not know who testified for or against him.”

And I can believe as much or as little of that as I like, Leo thought, grimly. The proceedings might be sealed, but Admiral Blackthrone wasn’t stupid. There weren’t many officers with both the means and the motive for landing Admiral Blackthrone in hot water, and Leo himself would top the list of suspects. The hell of it is that part of me wants to do just that.

He took a breath. “Admiral Blackthrone was caught by surprise, just like the rest of us,” he said. There was simply no point in suggesting otherwise. He hadn’t seen the looming disaster and nor had anyone else, at least as far as he knew. If an analyst had spotted the thread and filed a report, only to have that report dismissed … the Board of Inquiry would dig it up and throw the book at the officer who’d dismissed it. “When he realised that he’d been pinned down, and his fleet was being shot to pieces, he took action to extract his remaining vessels from the cauldron before it was too late.”

“Taking heavy losses in the process,” General Singh mused.

“At that point, heavy losses were inevitable,” Leo pointed out, sharply. He still had nightmares about the brief and bloody engagement. “He got as many ships out of the trap as he could, sir, and it worked. He did about as well as anyone could.”

Admiral Bainbridge’s expression was unreadable. “And afterwards?”

“Admiral Blackthrone arranged for his fleet to be repaired and resupplied, while dispatching my command on a raiding mission that hopefully knocked the enemy back long enough for the fleet to be reinforced and prepare to go on the offensive again,” Leo said. “When given an opportunity to engage the enemy on better terms, Admiral Blackthrone took it—and gave us a victory.”

“Wars are not won by evacuations,” General Singh pointed out.

“There was no hope of recovering Yangtze,” Leo countered. “Getting the evacuees off the surface and out of the system was the best we could do, sir, and even that was costly. Our victory may not have been decisive, nor did we give the enemy enough of a bloody nose to make them hurt, but we did as well as we had a right to expect.”

He paused. “And Admiral Blackthrone deserves full credit for not only planning the operation, but committing to it and carrying it out. It was in the finest traditions of the navy.”

The words hung in the air for a long moment. Daybreakers were supposed to seek victory at all times, to go on the offensive time and time again until the enemy was truly beaten … to soak up losses, no matter how high, as long as victory was in the offing. It was dishonourable to retreat if there was still a chance of victory … and anyone who retreated would face accusations of a lack of moral fibre, even charges of being an outright coward. Admiral Blackthrone had been right to flee Yangtze, in both engagements, Leo knew, but that wouldn’t save him from the whispers. There were just too many people who had reason to tear his family down.

“An interesting argument,” Admiral Wellstone said. Her tone was oddly light, contrasting with her words. “But you would support your commanding officer, wouldn’t you?”

Leo was torn between a sudden flash of anger and an urge to giggle like a loon. He had no love for the Blackthrone clan, although he was honest enough to admit that Admiral Blackthrone had proved himself to be a better man than his nephew … and, to be fair, that his wretched nephew had grown up a lot over the past year too. If there had been a clear case that Admiral Blackthrone was as incompetent as a man could be, Leo would have buried the knife in his chest without a second thought. And yet, there was no such case. Leo certainly hadn’t seen the looming disaster. Nor had anyone else.

“No, Admiral,” Leo said. “I support the navy, to which I swore my oath.”

“And you served under Admiral Blackthrone, who gave you a command far beyond your rank,” Admiral Wellstone said. “Are you a Commander or a Lieutenant-Commander? I’ve quite lost track.”

In truth, Leo wasn’t sure. His promotion to Commander had never been quite fixed. Such promotions, particularly when made in the field, needed approval from the Admiralty, and it hadn’t arrived before the war started in earnest. The Paymaster Corps was going to have a field day trying to figure out how much they owed him; technically, he was owed the commander’s stipend, as a starship commander, even though he didn’t have the rank that should have gone with the post. It was something he’d intended to sort out during the last two weeks. But instead he’d been trapped in useless meetings that could have been handled with a handful of messages.

“I have held both ranks,” he said, finally. Technically true, at least for the moment. “And I believe I acquitted myself well.”

“You are not on trial here, Commander Morningstar,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “We are trying to determine if we should recommend a court martial for Admiral Blackthrone or not.”

Leo took a breath. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Of course,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “We need your honest observations.”

“Yes, sir.” Leo braced himself. Some officers were good at hearing things they didn’t want to hear. Some blamed the bearer of bad news. “My first contact with any member of the Blackthrone family was at the Academy, where I clashed with then-Senior Cadet Francis Blackthrone. Our relationship was … unpleasant, sir, and I wound up beating the stuffing out of him, for which I accepted NJP and a stern warning that if it happened again, NJP wouldn’t be an option. He left the Academy at the end of the year, and I didn’t see him again until he was assigned to Task Force Yangtze, four years later.”

He paused. “That was when I met my second member of his family, then-Commodore Alexander Blackthrone. Despite my record as both commanding officer of RSS Waterhen and de facto Sector Commander, I was relieved as commander and forced to serve as XO to Francis Blackthrone, who assigned me to Boulogne as naval liaison and, in my absence, managed to lose Waterhen to a rebel attack. I was forced to mount a desperate gamble to reclaim control of my ship.”

Admiral Wellstone cleared her throat. “Is there a point to this, Lieutenant-Commander, or are you merely rehashing your grievances?”

“Let him finish,” General Singh said.

Leo shot him a grateful look. “Admiral Blackthrone then assigned me to an infiltration mission that went sour, costing me Waterhen,” he continued. “And then I was assigned to take command of a squadron of worn out ships that had been hastily pressed into service, with crews that were understandably dissatisfied at best and outright mutinous at worst. And then …”

He paused. “I have no reason to be grateful to the Blackthrone family, Admiral. I have plenty of reason to dislike them. And yet, despite that, I am pointing out that Admiral Blackthrone did as well as could be expected, after running into an enemy superweapon that caught him by surprise and forced him to fight on extremely disadvantageous terms. He also allowed me to ameliorate the treatment of colonial personnel, after the treachery of Commander Sun Li cast a long shadow over their careers. His conduct deserves respect, Admiral, and I say that as someone who would quite like to see his family take a tumble.”

“You have nerve, Commander,” General Singh said. “Did you ever consider joining the Marine Corps?”

Admiral Bainbridge snorted. “This is not the time for a recruitment speech,” he said. There was a hint of a smile in his tone as he addressed Leo. “Your argument is that we can trust your opinion because you have an excellent motive to bury a knife in their backs and you are not doing so, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said.

“And you do not think he should have prepared for a superweapon surprise?” Admiral Bainbridge met his eyes. “Not even considered the possibility?”

“Admiral, there are hundreds of superweapons that are just around the corner … or so we are assured,” Leo said. “I’ve seen people telling me we can design missiles that travel faster than light in realspace, or teleporters, or a dozen other ideas that don’t exist outside science-fantasy. If we try to plan for them all, devoting resources to prepare for threats that may never exist, we’ll run right into the Superiority problem in reverse. The planning was as good as it could be, under the circumstances. We were just caught by surprise.”

“I see,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “Do you feel he should be put in front of a court martial?”

Leo blinked. That was hardly his call. “No, sir,” he said, finally. “Instead, the battle should be studied carefully, then learned from.”

Admiral Bainbridge nodded. “Thank you for your time, Commander,” he said. “Please don’t leave the planet, at least without permission from the Admiralty. You may be called upon to testify again, or you may be reassigned without further ado. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. 

He sighed inwardly as he saluted, then left the compartment. He’d already been to see his family, and there wasn’t much else he wanted to do on Daybreak. The debriefings had been interesting at first, a chance to see the engagements from different points of view, but now they were just going over the same ground time and time again. He wanted a new ship and crew, a chance to get back out there and stick it to the rebels before the war was over … hell, he’d accept another outdated ship if it meant getting back into space. But he had no idea if there was a ship waiting in his future. If Admiral Blackthrone was put in front of a court martial, Leo would have to remain on the planet to testify.

And everyone wants a scapegoat for the defeat, he mused, as he made his way out of Admiralty House. The thought bothered him, in a manner he couldn’t quite articulate. He didn’t like Admiral Blackthrone very much, but the man had earned a certain degree of respect. If Admiral Blackthrone’s family can’t save him, he’s doomed.

“Leo,” someone called. “Long time no see!”

Leo turned and blinked. “Ruth?”

Chapter Two

Leo felt an odd little pang as Ruth gave him a hug.

Their relationship had started in a moment of passion and then developed into something a little more … he wasn’t sure how to describe it. She’d been a many-night stand and also someone he’d grown to respect, a leader in her own field even if the field wasn’t one he pretended to like. They’d taken advantage of each other, he acknowledged in the privacy of his own mind; they’d shared a relationship where they’d both understood the score right from the start. It could not have lasted, even if they’d wanted it. They were from very different worlds.

She hadn’t changed much, he noted as he returned her hug. She still looked messy, as if she couldn’t be bothered taking proper care of herself. Her dark hair was a wild mess, her outfit was so baggy it protruded in all the wrong places; her skin was so natural that it was clear she’d made a very deliberate choice not to use any cosmetics. That was hardly uncommon on Daybreak, especially in the navy, but still … he couldn’t help noticing she looked authentic in a manner few could match. In its own way, it was as much a disguise as his own naval uniform. Few looked below the surface to see the frighteningly smart mind hidden behind her dishevelled appearance.

“It’s been a while,” he said. His younger self would have suggested a hotel room and taken her response, everything from enthusiastic acceptance to a slap across the face, with good grace. Now, Madeleine’s death had left him too broken to even consider it. He hadn’t realised how much he’d come to care for her until it was too late. Her death left him unable to confess or to do something, anything, to make it up to her. She’d deserved better. “How’ve you been?”

Ruth gave him a sharp	 look. Leo cursed himself under his breath. Ruth made a living from her observations, and she was hardly unperceptive— particularly when it came to someone she knew well. They’d shared an adventure as well as a bed, and she knew him well enough to know when he was out of sorts. Part of his mind wondered if she’d wanted to go straight to a hotel, the rest knew it wouldn’t be good for either of them. It wouldn’t end well at all.

“I’ve been fine,” Ruth said. She looped her arm through his and led the way down the street. “Do you have a moment to join me for lunch?”

“Sure.” Leo had nowhere else to go. He’d already seen what he wanted to see of the city, and leaving it would raise eyebrows, no matter what he’d been told by Admiral Bainbridge. It wasn’t as if he had a ship that needed care and attention, or a crew that needed careful supervision. “Where can we go?”

Ruth smiled and pulled him onwards, past the Street of the Unconquered and the Monument to the Fallen Heroes. Leo took a moment to admire the line of statues, each one hailing a hero who’d fought and won for Daybreak … the truly great heroes, he noted with a flicker of amusement, the heroes who hadn’t come home from the wars. Their legends shone all the brighter for their lack of an second act, for the lack of anything that might knock them from their pedestal and bring them down into the tawdriness of human life. It was easier to pretend they’d been gods amongst men, he reflected, when they had no personal lives worth the mentioning. The history books often implied they sprang into existence as captains and admirals and then vanished again, with neither a childhood nor a happy retirement. Perhaps there was more truth to it than he’d thought, when he’d been younger. God knew he hadn’t followed a regular career path either.

He frowned as he spotted the line of protesters beyond the Pale, the invisible line that marked the gap between the city and the political centre of the Republic . The core of the Republic was open to all citizens, he’d been told in civics class, but there were strict limits on how many civilians could enter, and those who did—citizens as well as civilians—were held to strict standards of behaviour that were ruthlessly enforced. A woman who walked around topless anywhere else might be scolded, or face the scorn of her neighbours; here, she would be arrested and either caned or sentenced to a week’s hard labour. A protester who attempted to disrupt proceedings would be lucky if he wasn’t dispatched to a penal colony, a one-way ticket to a place of no return. The rules were harsh, but they existed for a reason. No one could be allowed to win through simply outshouting their opponents.

The protesters didn’t look very savoury, he noted, as they walked around the edge of the protest. Young men and women, shouting and screaming for victory or peace … it took him a moment to realise there were several different groups, all bunched up into the same place. One placard demanded an end to foreign immigration; another demanded an end to restrictions on foreign labour. One group demanded the navy hunt down and destroy the rebel homeworld, something the navy would happily do if they knew where to send the fleets; another, composed of older people, wanted peace talks instead. They were deluded. Leo had seen the rebels, fought with them. There could be no peace.

Except we brought much of this on ourselves, he mused, sourly. How many colonials only joined the rebels because of the way we treated them?

He sighed, inwardly. It was unlikely any of the protesters had ever been offworld. The handful who had left Daybreak had probably gone to Old Earth, still the cultural centre of gravity for the entire human race, or one of the other long-settled worlds. They’d never seen just how desperately poor some far-flung colonies could be, or how Daybreak’s massive interstellar corporations played a role in draining them dry. They had no idea just how much hatred Daybreak had sown for itself, nor did they understand the tempest bearing down on the Republic … they had sown the wind and now they were reaping the whirlwind. And too many naval officers had already died trying to hold back the tide.

Ruth nudged him. “In here,” she said, steering the way into a small cafe. “This place is very private.”

Leo wasn’t so sure. The place was cramped beyond words, the tables and chairs crammed so close together it was lucky there were only a handful of customers. The owner looked up from behind the counter, his eyes lingering on Leo’s dress uniform for a long moment before motioning them to a table. Probably an immigrant, Leo guessed. A native Daybreaker would have thanked him for his service or, if he was a prior serviceman, saluted. The owner walked over as soon as they sat, holding out a pair of menus in one beefy hand. Leo took them and nodded his thanks. Ruth took one, then removed a privacy generator from her purse and placed it on the table. Leo’s ears itched briefly, a moment later. The field was working.

“My treat,” Ruth said. “I have an expense account.”

“And you’ll expect me to sing for my supper,” Leo said, inspecting the menu. “You do realise my singing is classed as a terror weapon?”

Ruth snorted. “It’s that bad?”

“Armed police will storm the walls five minutes after I start caterwauling,” Leo said. He was good at many things, and he wasn’t modest enough to pretend otherwise, but singing wasn’t amongst them. “Glass will shatter. A 	squadron of heavy assault shuttles will fly overhead.”

“I won’t ask you to sing,” Ruth said. “Pick what you want. The accountants won’t ask questions unless you order a burger wrapped in gold leaf or …”

She shrugged. Leo grinned and scanned the menu. The cafe offered very simple food, from bland burgers with a handful of toppings to poached eggs, chips and sausages, the latter a mixture of beef, lamb and chicken. There was no danger of overspending, he decided, as he placed an order for egg and chips. The most exotic item on the menu was something called Teh Tarik and it was really nothing more than tea made with condensed milk. It was so simplistic that he couldn’t help feeling he was back home, eating with his mother. Perhaps that was the point.

Ruth leaned forward. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Leo hesitated. He’d been told in no uncertain terms that he was not to discuss the Board of Inquiry proceedings with anyone, even though his inbox had been relentlessly spammed by countless requests for information and interviews. The entire planet knew Admiral Blackthrone was facing a court martial—the news networks had been discussing the matter endlessly for weeks, with programs based on reality and programs based on utter nonsense—and they presumably knew Leo had been summoned to serve as a witness. Ruth was a friend, but … it wasn’t something he could discuss with her. He’d wind up facing a court martial himself. 

“I can’t talk about proceedings,” Leo said, finally. “There’s rules against it.”

“Not that,” Ruth said. She paused as the owner returned with their meals. “I mean, about the girl that changed you.”

Her lips twisted as he stared at her in shock. “A woman can always tell when a man’s been changed by another woman.”

Leo shook his head. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“It might be good for you if you did,” Ruth said. “It’s clearly weighing on your mind.”

“Yeah.” Leo let out a long breath. “Between you and me?”

“It won’t go any further,” Ruth assured him. “And I mean it.”

Leo believed her. Ruth was a roving reporter. The last thing she needed was a reputation for betraying her sources, particularly over something so minor. No one would ever talk to her again, if that got out, and she’d lose her job shortly afterwards. Her bosses wouldn’t keep her once it became clear she’d crippled her own career. And yet … he’d been with her, he’d been inside her … part of him didn’t want to discuss anything with her, certainly not something so raw and personal as Madeleine’s death. But …

“I was sent to take command of a ragtag squadron,” Leo said. “She was my XO … technically. She should have commanded her own ship, and she was certainly on the short list for promotion, but … she was put aside after Sun Li’s treachery.”

“She was a colonial officer,” Ruth said, tonelessly.

“Yeah.” Leo stared down at his hands. “She was suddenly under suspicion. They all were. And so she got shipped to the base instead of being shuttled into her own command chair. And then she was put under my command.”

“How terrible,” Ruth said.

Leo shook his head. How could he explain to someone who had no direct experience of military life? He’d known—there was no way to avoid it—that he’d been jumped up several ranks when he’d been given de facto command of Waterhen, but she’d been outdated, and her crew had been the dregs of the service. And everyone who knew her legal captain had decided it was better to look away and let Leo hold the reins than risk inviting that disgrace back into the command chair. That had been an exceptional situation. But giving him command of Gypsy Squadron, promoting him over the heads of officers who had done nothing to deserve being passed over save for being born on the wrong world … no. It would have provoked resentment under any circumstances. He couldn’t blame Madeleine for being angry at how she’d been treated. He would have felt the same way too.

“How would you feel,” he asked, “if someone barely out of diapers was promoted over your head? And because of something you couldn’t control, such as not being related to the big boss?”

Ruth nodded, slowly. “Point.”

“Madeleine had every reason to be mad at me,” Leo said. “She was a good naval officer. The best. And she got pushed aside, into a shithole, and forced to serve under me. I wouldn’t have blamed her for leaving in disgust.”

“Forced to serve under you,” Ruth said. “And that’s bad?”

“It is when she knew she should have been promoted herself,” Leo said. “Normally, the idea of me being in command of a squadron, at my age, would be absurd. She knew it too.”

He took a bite of his food and smiled to himself. It was like being back home. “We had our differences at first and then we bonded,” he said. “I did what I could for her and she … rewarded me. And then she sacrificed her own life to buy us time to get the evacuees off Yangtze before it was too late. She deserved so much better, perhaps even a statue of her own out there”—he waved a hand toward the door—“and instead, everyone is crediting me for the whole affair.”

Ruth’s eyebrows rose. “And you don’t want the credit?”

“I don’t deserve it,” Leo said. “It wasn’t my plan. It wasn’t my sacrifice. It was …”

Ruth leaned forward. “Sounds to me as though you were in love with her.”

Leo flushed. “I …”

He wasn’t sure what to say. He knew himself to be a horndog, like so many other young men who knew their lives could end violently at any moment. He’d grown up in a rough neighbourhood, gone to a naval academy that normally had a handful of fatal accidents every year, then embarked on a career that could easily have gotten him killed several times. He’d chased dozens of women, and a handful had even proven receptive to his charms, allowing him to take them to bed and make love to them. He’d never really seen any of those relationships as permanent; the only time he’d wondered if there was something there—long-term—it had ended badly. And yet, he had liked Madeleine for more than her beauty and undoubted intelligence.

“It wasn’t love,” he said, and wondered why he felt like a liar. “It was …”

He let out a long breath. “It was … she was me.”

“Really?” Ruth quirked a single eyebrow. “I’ve heard about falling in love with yourself, but really …?”

Leo flushed. “Not in the sense we were the same person, not really,” he said. He’d heard about a wealthy man on Old Earth who’d married his opposite sex clone, an act of degeneracy that wasn’t banned on Daybreak because no one thought anyone would want to do it, but really. “She was very much like me. Ambitious. Driven. Determined to climb into the command chair and stay there. She should have gone far.

“And yet, she’d been knocked down through no fault of her own. She’d given her life to the navy—hell, she did give her life. She deserved better than …”

He shook his head. “I had to pack up her shit afterwards. There was no one else to do it. She had so little and … she deserved so much better.”

Ruth reached out and gently squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Leo said. “I’m sorry too.”

He stared down at his hands for a long moment. Madeleine had been offered a choice between surrendering to her family’s demands and leaving … and she’d chosen to leave, pledging herself to Daybreak. And yet, Daybreak had betrayed her. She had been loyal—she’d given her fucking life—only to be tossed aside the moment it became inconvenient to trust her. She’d deserved so much better. She really had.

“You’ve grown up a lot,” Ruth said, as they finished their meal. “Are you still the person I knew?”

“I like to think so,” Leo said, although he knew what she meant. He’d been immature when they’d met, and now … he liked to think he’d grown up a little. The seasoning he should have received as a midshipman, under the care of senior chiefs and mid-ranking officers, had been replaced by the school of hard knocks. “What about you?”

Ruth smirked, like the cat that ate the cream. “My career is on the rise,” she said. “For the moment. It’s never a done deal—one moment you’re up, the next you’re on the way down again. I guess it’s the same in the navy?”

“I seem to be a special case,” Leo admitted. “I don’t know what they’ll do with me.”

He sighed, inwardly. Technically, he wasn’t senior enough to assume command of anything; practically, the navy would be foolish to avoid giving him something useful to do. He was a war hero, after all, and the fact he’d accomplished as much as he had as a relatively young man only added to his lustre. The Admiralty was probably under pressure to give him a battlecruiser or a battleship, despite knowing it would piss off every other commanding officer in the navy. They’d be wise to resist, and yet resistance might prove worse than futile. It might have been smarter not to call him home. Such irregularities were easier to overlook when they took place hundreds of light-years from Daybreak.

“Good luck,” Ruth said. “What are you doing now?”

“I don’t know,” Leo admitted. “You?”

Ruth gave him a sidelong look, her eyes glinting with mischief. “How about we go to the zoo? Have you ever been there before?”

Leo blinked, then took her meaning. “No,” he said. The zoo wasn’t much of a date, true, but it was a good place to relax and forget everything. He’d be called back soon enough, he was sure, and he’d better spend some time looking after himself first. “I’d love to go with you.”

Chapter Three

Leo felt relaxed, almost despite himself, as he strode down the road towards Grand Senator (Admiral) Tobias Sullivan’s townhouse. It was smaller than he’d expected, with surprisingly little visible security, but few Senators would risk doing anything that suggested they were scared of their constituents. Outright political violence was rare, almost unknown, on Daybreak, and the few cases where the perpetrator had survived long enough to be arrested and interrogated had ended very badly for everyone involved. A man who looked weak could and would be removed at the ballot box, when his opponent pointed his weakness out for everyone to see. It was a rough system in many ways, but it worked.

He took a long breath, feeling the evening air brushing against his bare skin, before walking up to the door and knocking. The last few days had been very relaxing, with Ruth taking him everywhere from the zoo to the public baths, the latter oddly intimate without being genuinely intimate. They hadn’t slept together, not even once … it was strange, he reflected, how that didn’t bother him as much as it would have done, a few years ago. He was sure she wouldn’t have refused, if he’d tried to seduce her, but … he shook his head. He hadn’t been celibate since they’d parted ways, and he doubted she’d been celibate either. If she had someone else, that was none of his business. And besides, he needed all of his wits about him now.

The door opened, revealing a pretty young woman with blonde hair, green eyes and a strikingly perfect face. Leo straightened to attention, then nodded … he knew the girl even though they’d never actually met. Angeline Sullivan was Grand Senator Sullivan’s oldest child, his de facto heir … it was odd, according to the gossip sheets, that he’d waited so long to become a father. Leo wondered, idly, what it meant, then shrugged inwardly. It was none of his business. Messing with his patron’s personal life—and his daughter—was sure to end badly.

“Commander Morningstar,” Angeline said. Her accent was pure Daybreaker, although there was a hint of something cultured that spoke of Old Earth. Perhaps she’d gone to study there for a year or two, something that was growing increasingly common despite the older generations regarding Earth as effeminate at best, dangerously corrupted at worst. “Please, come in.”

Leo nodded, stepping into the townhouse. He’d half-expected a towering mansion, a building that was as much an office as a residence, but the townhouse was surprisingly small. It wasn’t really a centre of operations, he supposed; the real work was done elsewhere, a long way from the city. The townhouse was really a place for the Grand Senator to live and work near the Senate, to allow his political allies and clients to call on him any moment they chose … although they’d be wise to notify his staff first. Angeline serving as his hostess was partly a political statement—her father employed as few servants as possible, thus avoiding the servant trap—and partly a way for her to get to know the movers and shakers without compromising herself. She’d probably be going to the Academy next year, Leo decided, as she led him into the study. There were limits to how far one could rise on Daybreak without some kind of military service.

“Father, Leo Morningstar,” Angeline said, as she opened a door. “Would you like tea or coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Leo said. 

He stepped past her, at her invitation, and walked into the chamber. The study was a mess, with dozens of pieces of mismatched furniture crammed into a tiny space. He wasn’t sure what it meant, unless it was a display of power and sloppiness that grated against his naval sensibilities. The Grand Senator himself was rising to his feet, a man moving with surprising grace for someone of his age. Leo reminded himself, sharply, that the gap wasn’t as wide as it looked. Captain Sullivan hadn’t been that old when he’d extended his patronage to Leo’s father and the rest of his family.

“A pleasure to meet you, once again,” Sullivan said. He shook Leo’s hand firmly, then gestured for him to choose a chair. Leo couldn’t tell if it was a test of some sort or if the older man didn’t care where he sat. “I missed you at graduation.”

“I was hastily reassigned to Waterhen,” Leo said, as he sat on an older sofa. “There was no time to attend the graduation before my ship had to depart the system.”

“Ah, the politically correct answer,” Sullivan said, with a thin smile. Political correctness was a swear word on Daybreak, with good reason. It was anathema to people who prided themselves on forthright and manly behaviour. Pretending obviously true things weren’t true wasn’t kindness and acceptance, but weakness and cowardice. “I do know the truth, you know.”

Leo felt his face heat. His patron had never shown any special interest in his career, no matter that his father had saved the older man’s life, but the mere existence of a patron had cast a long shadow over Leo’s time at the Academy. He’d wondered just what explanation the staff had given the Grand Senator for Leo’s absence from the graduation ceremony, but … in hindsight, he should have expected the man to poke and prod at the official story, leaving the truth exposed to his scorn. It was just a little too pat to be believable.

“Boys will be boys, I suppose,” Sullivan said, his tone unchanging. “I do trust you have grown up a little since then?”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. “I believe my record speaks for itself.”

“Quite,” Sullivan agreed. “And I hope you understand that you’ve been very lucky.”

“I do, sir,” Leo said.

“Command at such a young age … oh, not on paper, but we all know the truth,” Sullivan said, thoughtfully. “De facto command is often better than de jure … we all know Captain Dunsel could take all the blame, if all hell broke loose. Don’t we?”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said.

Sullivan raised his eyebrows. “Do you really believe that? You can speak freely here.”

Leo took a breath. “I was the man on the spot,” he said. “The buck stopped with me.”

“An interesting argument,” Sullivan observed. “And one that might not be accepted if a Board of Inquiry chose not to accept it.”

He took a sheaf of papers from a table and held it out. “I have followed the current proceedings with great interest,” he said. “What do you make of them?”

Leo frowned as he studied the papers. “I think I’m not supposed to talk about it,” he said, slowly. The papers were an annotated transcript of his most recent session with the Board of Inquiry. “Am I …?”

“I am a Grand Senator,” Sullivan said. “I am cleared for everything by default.”

“I think the proceedings are a waste of time,” Leo said, flatly. “Admiral Blackthrone did the best he could, under the circumstances, and there’s nothing to be gained by feeding him through a mincing machine now.”

“I read your comments to the board,” Sullivan said. His lips twitched in a humourless smile. “You have nerve, using your dislike of the family as proof you’re not standing up for him out of some kind of obligation.”

Leo hesitated. “A naval officer should show loyalty to his commander,” he said, speaking as someone who’d been a commander. “And if he is loyal, he may be tempted to downplay his commander’s failures—and the board will assume he is doing so, which will encourage them to downplay his words. A naval officer with means, motive and opportunity to stab his enemy in the back, but who chooses not to do so, is one whose word might be a little more reliable.”

“An interesting argument,” Sullivan said. “Not one I would use, I suspect, but interesting nonetheless.”

He leaned forward. “What is your opinion about the war?”

Leo paused, scenting a trap. “I …”

Sullivan cut him off. “It may surprise you to know, young man, that I have hundreds of people who will happily tell me what they think I want to hear, or what they want me to hear,” he said. “I ask for your unvarnished opinion because I have reason to trust you know what you’re doing and”—his lips quirked—“that, like your father, you won’t hesitate to tell me what I need to hear.”

Leo felt flattered, yet torn. Sullivan leaned forward.

“The war may well be the defining event of our generation, Leo,” he said. “I need your honest opinions.”

“My general feeling is that things will get worse before they get better,” Leo said. He no longer had access to certain military channels, and in any case the news was outdated long before it reached Daybreak, but he knew the sector well and could read between the lines. “The rebels … and really, we are doing ourselves a disservice by calling them such … the rebels are well-organised, have a fleet on a par with our own, a research and development base that may be much closer to home than we like to think—and a cause. They know where our bases are located, but we have no idea where to find theirs. That gives them an edge we cannot blunt in a hurry, if at all.”

Sullivan frowned. “You think we cannot locate their bases?”

Leo said nothing for a long moment. Sullivan had been a serving naval officer … still was, in a sense. There was nothing shabby about his career either. He’d been there and done that and seen the elephant and every other cliché in the book. He understood the realities of naval combat in a way no civilian, even one as intelligent as Ruth, could match. The question was odd, to say the least. Sullivan should already know the answer.

“There are hundreds of stars within a few dozen light-years of the Rim,” Leo said. “It will take months to even skim through them all, and anything less than an intensive search will not turn up a hidden base, unless they make a dreadful series of mistakes. Our ability to pin them down and destroy them is very limited, and they know it.”

“True, as far as it goes,” Sullivan said. “Do you think they have allies a little closer to home?”

Leo hesitated. There was no shortage of autonomous planets or star nations within the Republic who dreamed of freedom, or at least more autonomy from Daybreak, and that was more than enough motive to quietly supply the rebels with everything they needed to wage war. The Office of Naval Intelligence believed at least one autonomous world was doing just that, although so far the culprit remained unidentified. Leo had a suspicion, and he knew there were ONI officers who shared it, that the mystery enemy had quietly established a shipyard well beyond the Rim, a facility that could be used to construct rebel ships without risking a supply chain that ran all the way back to their homeworld. It would be an impressive achievement, if true; impressive and dangerous. Who knew how many enemy starships were completely off the books?

“I don’t know, sir,” he said. “They would have to be insane to try …”

He scowled inwardly, trying to keep the expression from showing on his face. If he’d been in their place, he would have been looking for a way to resist too. Of course he would. He wasn’t the kind of person who gave in after a setback. But cold logic suggested resistance would be worse than futile. There were few autonomous worlds who could stand up to even a single naval starship and, for the few who could, a single battleship squadron would be more than enough to teach them the error of their ways. The Articles of War were very clear. No mercy to rebels. None at all. And there was no shortage, either, of commanders willing to beat up anyone who looked at them funny, in hopes of winning military glory.

“History is full of insane men doing insane things,” Sullivan observed. “Some insane things made sense, based on what they knew at the time. Others were just insane even at the time.”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. “But they’d be gambling with their entire world.”

“Quite,” Sullivan agreed. “Do you have any more insights?”

Again, Leo hesitated. He wasn’t wholly blind to politics, as much as he might like to tell himself it was a dirty business. He’d played politics a couple of times, and he knew he’d have to do it in the future, as he rose in the ranks and became someone who was both a politician and a military commander. And yet …

“There was an issue I raised with Admiral Blackthrone,” he said. “Our treatment of the colonial officers and crew.”

Sullivan’s smile shifted, so briefly Leo wondered if he’d imagined it. “How do you mean?”

“There is no denying that Sun Li betrayed us,” Leo said. “I was there”—I was sleeping with her, his thoughts added—“and she came very close to defeating us completely. If she’d survived long enough to stand trial, I would have testified against her and volunteered to serve on the firing squad.”

“Assuming ONI didn’t want to drain her dry,” Sullivan pointed out. “They would, you know.”

Leo nodded. “The point is, it was a mistake to take her actions out on every other colonial officer,” he said. “How many good officers and crew did we lose because we treated them as criminals for the actions of another? How many more have become hidden enemies, biding their time until they strike? How many more will resent us for the rest of their lives and do nothing but the bare minimum for us? How many …”

“This is about Commander Chevallier,” Sullivan said, flatly.

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. “I put her in for the Golden Cross, sir, and she deserves it.”

Sullivan said nothing for a long moment. The Golden Cross was almost always a posthumous award, offered in memory to those who gave their lives for Daybreak. There was only one living recipient, and he had been so badly wounded that the award committee had figured he was unlikely to survive. By the time they’d realised their mistake, it had been too late.

“There are few who would benefit from the rewards the Golden Cross brings in its wake,” Sullivan said. “Not for her …”

“That’s not the point.” Leo started with quiet earnestness, but as he went on, his voice rose. “The point is that she deserves recognition for her sacrifice. The point is that we have to reassure the colonials, other colonials, that their service does not go unnoticed. The point is that we had a knee-jerk reaction to a single filthy fucking traitor and that reaction led us to kick thousands of innocent people, people who served us loyally, in the nuts. And then we wonder why they hate us.

“And that’s not the only problem. We treat the worlds along the Rim poorly. Of course we do. We bring law and order, we hunt down pirates and settle disputes, but we also give our own corporations an edge that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the colonies to build their own economies. They hate us, sir, with good reason. We have to do something about that before it is too late, if it isn’t already.”

“Some would say it is already too late,” Sullivan said, tonelessly.

“I’ve been there, along the Rim,” Leo said. “I’ve felt the hatred they feel for us.”

“And now you are championing their cause, like dear Tiberius,” Sullivan observed. “Is that a good idea, you think?”

“Someone has to,” Leo said. “Sir, in trying to prevent another Great Interstellar War, we may have made one inevitable.”

“A war we’ll win,” Sullivan said. “Or do you feel otherwise?”

Leo met his eyes. “We did everything right, in the lead-up to the First Battle of Yangtze,” he said. “We covered our vitals, we patrolled the spacelanes, we searched for enemy bases and assembled auxiliary units to cover the gaps in our formations … and we still took heavy losses because the enemy hit us with a superweapon surprise. We did everything right, and we still lost. Who knows what they’ll invent next? If they come up with something that renders the entire navy obsolete, the war will be lost along with our ships!”

He took a breath. “This war won’t be the end, win or lose,” he said. “There will be another, and another, and another … and they only have to get lucky once.”

Sullivan leaned back in his chair. “I understand your concerns, young man,” he said. There was a faint hint of condescension in his tone. “Under other circumstances, I might share them. But the fact remains that honouring Commander Chevallier, and rewarding both colonial officers and the colonies themselves, is politically impossible at this moment. There are too many powerful politicians who would band together to resist it, to refuse any sort of concessions. They would see it as an admission of weakness at the worst possible time.”

“Madeleine died for us,” Leo snapped. “She deserves so much more!”

“I do understand,” Sullivan said. “But the politics tell against it.”

He leaned forward. “The Board of Inquiry will make its recommendations shortly,” he added. “Admiral Blackthrone will know his fate. At that point, I will arrange for you to be assigned to a new ship. I suggest you keep your head down and wait.”

You suggest, Leo thought, with a hint of bitterness. That’s an order, isn’t it?

“I understand,” he said, out loud.

“Glad to hear it.” Sullivan stood, indicating the interview was over. He gave no obvious signal, but Angeline opened the door as Leo stood. “I look forward to hearing about your next posting.”

Leo saluted, then allowed Angeline to lead him back to the door. It was hard to think clearly. Madeleine deserved so much better, and yet … ice congealed in his heart. It was time to do right by her, by himself if no one else stepped up. And if that meant putting his career at risk …

I’ll do what I must do, he told himself, as he was shown back onto the streets. And the pieces can fall where they may.

Chapter Four

Senator Tiberius Quinton’s office was located in the most deprived part of the city in a simple, two-story building surrounded by small shops, cafes and a handful of other offices owned by companies that wanted a presence in the capital and yet couldn’t afford anything better. He made a point of claiming he slept in the office when he was on Daybreak itself, according to his press releases, and Leo suspected there was a certain degree of truth to it. The media would certainly have found out if he hadn’t spent much of his time in the office. Being accessible was part of a Senator’s job, and one who didn’t make himself available was one who was likely to lose his seat during the next election cycle.

It was odd, therefore, to note that there were only a handful of people in the office—mainly young and idealistic campaign workers—and no one waiting outside for the chance to meet with the Senator. The job was far more than just attending the Senate and casting votes in the best interests of one’s constituents, or so he’d been told in civics class; a Senator was meant to assist his people where possible, even the people who hadn’t voted for him, and a Senator who failed in that duty was unlikely to remain a Senator for long. Even someone as politically isolated as Tiberius Quinton was still a Senator, still a man whose word commanded respect. Hell, given that he was pretty much a lone voice in the wilderness, his conduct was seen as admirable even by those who disagreed with his cause.

The office itself was strikingly bland, so crude Leo couldn't help wondering if they’d only just moved in. The walls were bare and barren, the desks and tables nothing more than common wood; the only sign of anything modern was a pair of terminals sitting on the desk. It was hardly unknown for a politician to wrap himself in austerity, making a point of denying himself the luxuries of a foreign potentate who ruled his people with a rod of iron while bending the knee to Daybreak, but Quinton took it to extremes. Leo wasn’t sure if it was a way of showing he wasn’t beholden to anyone or simple personal taste. Probably the former. Even if he happened to be dependent solely on his salary, Quinton could have turned the office into a hedonistic paradise if he’d wished.

“Captain Morningstar!” The secretary was a young woman, barely of working age. “It is you, isn’t it?”

Leo grinned. He’d always wanted to be famous, to be one of the great naval heroes who was immortalised in song and story and, after his death, granted a statue in the streets so that all would remember his name. It hadn’t come about the way he’d expected, but there was something to be said for being the most famous junior officer in living memory. People took his opinions seriously, just because of who he was and what he’d done. It meant there were few places he could go without being recognised, but … it was better than being ignored and sidelined.

“Yeah,” he said. A year ago, he would have flirted with the young woman. Perhaps she was interested, perhaps she was being friendly … a little flirtation never harmed anyone. “I’ve come for a meeting with the Senator.”

“He’s right inside,” the young woman said, standing. The outfit she wore was tight enough to raise eyebrows anywhere outside the red light district, an outfit none of his female classmates from school would ever risk wearing unless they wanted to be marked absent and sent home to change. That was interesting, and not in the obvious way. Culture was changing, and not necessarily for the better. “I’ll take you to him.”

She shot Leo a bright smile, then motioned for him to follow her through the door and into the inner office. Senator Quinton sat behind a desk, reading a datapad. He stood as Leo entered, looking him up and down with an expression that suggested he hadn’t expected to see anyone this morning. Leo wasn’t sure why. Even a lone Senator should have so many visitors it would be difficult to handle them all … perhaps that was why the office was so austere. It filtered out the serious callers from the time wasters.

“Commander Morningstar,” Quinton said. They shook hands firmly. “It’s been quite some time.”

The secretary cleared her throat. “You know each other?”

“We’ve met,” Leo said.

“Quite, Linda,” Quinton said. “Tea for our guest, please.”

He motioned for Leo to sit, then sat back himself. Leo took a moment to study the older man thoughtfully, noting how little he’d changed over the last few months. He was a middle-aged man, appearing to be in his late forties. The streak of grey in his brown hair lent him an air of simple dignity, as well as marking him as a Daybreaker. His outfit wasn’t the simple tunic Leo recalled, but the severe formal dress of a bygone era. It wasn’t forbidden to dress in such a manner, and it certainly didn’t violate acceptable standards for a politician, yet … it was an odd choice. There was probably some kind of deeper meaning to it that passed Leo by.

“The news from the front isn’t good,” Quinton said, curtly. Linda returned, placed two mugs of tea on the table, along with milk and sugar, and retreated as silently as she’d come. “Just how bad was it at Yangtze?”

“The enemy whipped us,” Leo said, bluntly. There was no point in pretending otherwise. It wasn’t common practice to hide such things from the general public, let alone a sitting senator. “They pinned the fleet down and shot us to pieces. Admiral Blackthrone was lucky to get even a tiny handful of his ships out of the trap. Our counterattack rocked them back on their heels, true, but …they’re still in possession of the sector. All we really did was bloody their nose.”

“So I hear,” Quinton said. “And Admiral Blackthrone is in some trouble.”

“Yes,” Leo agreed. He wasn’t sure how much he could talk about the Board of Inquiry. A senator was cleared for everything, no arguments there, but it was unlikely Quinton was on the oversight committee. He had too few friends in the Senate to get such a posting. “That’s not why I came here.”

Quinton took a sip of his tea. “That is something of a relief,” he said, dryly. “Why are you here?”

Leo had to smile. Blunt, direct, straight to the point … he rather liked Quinton. Perhaps his father would have been a man like Quinton, if he’d survived the disaster that had killed him and left his wife a widow. Or perhaps … Leo didn’t remember his father very well. If he’d grown up with a father in the house, would he have been a very different person?

“Justice,” he said. “I want justice for a naval officer killed in the line of duty.”

Quinton’s eyebrows crawled upwards. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to seek greater recognition for a dead naval officer, but it was rare for a serving officer to try. It was normally a family member who thought their relative had been slighted, denied a posthumous promotion or award that would increase their pension or ensure their position amongst the pantheon of naval heroes. Sometimes, the senator could convince the navy to correct the injustice. Sometimes, the effort vanished without trace. And sometimes, Leo knew from his classes, there was a very good reason why the dead man hadn’t been honoured as his family thought he deserved.

“Justice,” Quinton repeated. “You should be aware, young man, that I have made enemies who will gladly band together to block any motion of recognisance, even for a naval hero such as yourself. Me taking up the case might be enough to doom it.”

He leaned forward. “Who and why?”

“Commander Madeleine Chevallier,” Leo said. “And I believe it is in your interests to push for her recognition too.”

Quinton listened, coldly, as Leo ran through the story once again. Madeleine had been a loyal naval officer, her sacrifice enough to answer any charges that might be brought against her by politically-minded bottom-feeders. She had given her life for Daybreak. If that wasn’t enough to overcome the stain of being born on another world, what was? She deserved recognition.

“It would certainly fit in with my political theme,” Quinton agreed. “We have alienated countless loyal allies, and we will pay a price for it, over the months and years to come. If we do get her recognised, it might tip the balance back towards us … if. Like I said, I have enemies who will unite to block it.”

Leo gritted his teeth. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds it was I who proposed it,” Quinton said. “Oh, they’ll come up with something else, they’ll dig into her career for signs of degeneracy or something else they can use to dismiss the suggestion she should be formally recognised, but the truth is that they don’t like me, and they’ll look for anything they can use to tarnish my name. If I speak for her, it could easily backfire. Do you understand me?”

“So you’re saying no,” Leo said.

“I am saying we might not succeed,” Quinton said. “And even if we do, there will be a price to pay.”

“Fuck,” Leo muttered. The choice was easy, which made it perversely hard. He owed Madeleine his life. And yet, if it cost him his career … no. He’d do it for her. “What do you have in mind?”

“If I push for her recognition, it will backfire,” Quinton said. “But if you—the great war hero—are the one pushing for it instead, it may go through without a fight.”

Leo frowned. “May?”

“There are no guarantees in politics,” Quinton said. “I can’t promise anything. No one can. But right now, you are a naval hero. That gives you a platform. You can use it to push for justice for her.”

He paused. “But, at the same time, it will make you powerful enemies. It could easily end very badly for you.”

“That was always true,” Leo muttered. He was trained to live and work in space. An accident that would be brushed off, if it took place on a planet’s surface, could be lethal. A single moment of carelessness was enough to get someone killed—or worse. And if he went into combat … he’d been lucky so far, but a lone missile or plasma pulse could easily end his life, if his luck failed him at the worst possible time. “I’ll take the risk.”

“Be very sure,” Quinton warned. “There’ll be no way to undo the damage if you blow up your own career.”

Leo said nothing for a long moment. He’d wanted command … he’d had command. Starship command, de facto if not de jure, at such a young age … squadron command too, for all that the starships were outdated and his orders little more than vague directions he’d trusted his crews to interpret and put into motion. He wanted a modern starship, he wanted a heavy cruiser or a battlecruiser or even a battleship … and yet, if he attained such heights, he would still never regain the near-independence of commanding a lone starship in a far-flung sector, his superiors hundreds of light-years away …

And yet, would he continue to climb the ladder? His career was hardly regular in any sense of the word. He was too experienced and high-ranking to serve as a junior officer, yet he was too junior to be simply given a first-rate starship. The older captains would protest in a body and the hell of it, he conceded sourly, was that they’d probably be right. He’d missed out on a number of career milestones that every officer was supposed to pass, missed the experience of knowing what it was like to be serving on the lower decks … even as Francis’s de facto XO, he’d been well above the rest of the crew, and they’d known it. Would he be quietly shuffled aside, to save the navy the trouble of explaining why they weren’t putting him in command of a modern battlecruiser? He was mildly surprised the Admiralty hadn’t already found him an outdated command and sent him out on patrol before the public noticed what they were doing to their hero.

But none of that matters, he told himself. Madeleine deserves better, and if it costs me … it costs me.

“I’m sure,” he said.

Quinton studied him for a long, thoughtful moment. “Good,” he said, finally. “Have you ever seen Dive Into Daybreak?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Leo said. “It’s a political interview show, right?”

“Yes.” Quinton held his gaze. “It isn’t a standard interview. It’s a detailed in-depth discussion, a back and forth between the interviewer and his interviewee. The questions flow naturally, the interviewer adjusting his plans for later questions depending on the first set of answers. There’s no rehearsal, no … no sense there’s anything remotely scripted about the process. The star and his staff go to great lengths to make it as spontaneous as possible, and it works, by and large. It comes across as more natural, for better or worse, than a more formal interview.”

Leo leaned forward. “Couldn’t the interviewee wargame out the possible questions first?”

“Of course,” Quinton said. “There’s always some prep, even if it often covers questions that are never actually asked. Some questions are predictable, others are right out of left field. The host does a pretty good job of avoiding unfair booby traps, such as asking when you stopped beating your wife, but … you will be thinking up answers on the fly.”

“And you want me to go on this show,” Leo said. “To talk about Madeleine?”

“Yes,” Quinton said. “It’s probably your best bet, if you want her recognised. The host has built up a sizeable following, even amongst people who dislike his political positions, and he’s earned a great deal of respect and trust. You’re also a naval hero, which works in your favour. It would start the ball rolling in a manner it would be very hard for your enemies to block. They might give you what you want without a fight to keep the political headache from growing out of control.”

“Or they might try to block it anyway,” Leo said. “Right?”

“Yes.” Quinton didn’t try to sugarcoat it. “What do you want from this?”

“I want Madeleine recognised as the naval hero she was, and colonial personnel not to be treated with suspicion, no matter their homeworld,” Leo said. “Do you understand how much damage that did to our morale?”

Quinton gave him a droll smile. “I have been beating that drum for quite some time.”

Leo nodded. “She was from Gaul, not … whatever hellhole Sun Li’s parents hailed from. Sun didn’t grow up on a foreign world, she grew up here. She was a success story until she wasn’t. And her treason still stained every other colonial in the navy!”

“I’m glad someone agrees with me,” Quinton said. He let out a long sigh. “I can set the interview up for you, and I can get the ball rolling in other ways, but I cannot predict the long-term consequences. This could cost you everything, Leo. Be very sure you want to go ahead.”

“I do,” Leo said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” 

Leo took a breath. He’d been drilled, endlessly, on his legal rights and responsibilities as a serving naval officer. There were some things you were not allowed to let pass, even if it involved going up the chain of command and reporting—tattling—to a superior. If your immediate superior turned up for duty drunk, you were obliged to report it; if your commander ordered you to murder prisoners without due process, you were obliged to defend the prisoners … with lethal force if need be. Misconduct could not be tolerated, and you had to report it, even if—after an inspection—it turned out that it wasn’t misconduct at all. Better to be safe than sorry, he’d been told. The fact you might piss off a superior by reporting him was something he wasn’t allowed to take into account.

And a cunning superior has plenty of ways to punish you without making it look like obvious retaliation, he mused. Tattletales and sneaks were never popular, no matter what they were reporting. A man who tattled on someone else was a man who could easily tattle on you. This is on a bigger scale, but it isn’t that different.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “It has to be done.”

“Very good,” Quinton said. “And I hope I can count on your support further down the line.”

Leo cocked his head. “Why don’t they just concede the point now?”

Quinton met his eyes. “You want to know a filthy little secret about politics? Everyone, and I mean everyone, isn’t selfish, but they sure as hell are self-interested. A politician will vote in the manner that suits his self-interest, or at least how he sees his self-interest, and if that is different from the interests of his constituents …”

“Too bad for his constituents?” Leo shook his head. “I thought we were supposed to be better than that.”

“Politics encourages such behaviour,” Quinton said. “That’s why it’s so important to hold politicians to account for their conduct. When we don’t, standards start to slip, and that’s the beginning of the end.”

He stood, signalling the meeting was over. “I’ll make the arrangements,” he said. “But I advise you to think carefully. Once you let the demon out of the bottle, it can be very hard to cram the bastard back inside.”

“I know.” Leo understood. He also knew the importance of making a decision quickly and then sticking to it. “But it has to be done.”

Chapter Five

“Be careful,” Ruth had said, when Leo had told her about his plan. “That man may look like a kindly grandfather, but he has a nose for lies and a mind like a steel trap. Don’t underestimate him.”

Leo, after watching several of Lord Gareth Mountbatten’s previous interviews, was inclined to agree. Gareth Mountbatten—the lord was a hereditary title from his homeworld that had no legal weight on Daybreak—really did look harmless, which suggested he was very intelligent and capable indeed. He was tall and thin, with long white hair tied back in a ponytail—another odd affectation, for a Daybreaker—and penetrating blue eyes set within a too-pale face. His voice was firmer then one would expect from such a body, yet … it was hard to take him wholly seriously. What could one say about a man whose list of middle names included Donkey Bollocks? It was so absurd it went all the way into surreality.

He wants people to underestimate him, Leo mused. Being laughed at wasn’t fun, in his experience, but … someone who regarded you with contempt was someone who wouldn’t see the knife in your hand. And if he’s prepared to lean into that, he has something up his sleeve.

He felt edgy the moment he walked into the office and went through a brief pre-interview session, ranging from an outline of the whole process to a simple medical check-up. He hadn’t attended many briefings since leaving the Academy—his non-standard career path had seen to that—and he couldn’t help feeling they were overdoing it. Did guests often have heart attacks on stage? The questions grew more and more probing as the briefing went on, touching on subjects that were none of their business. Leo was torn between wanting to walk away and forcing himself to keep going, mentally preparing himself for the stage. It had to be done.

“The show is live,” a producer said. She had a name and a title, but Leo had missed both in the endless introductions and tests. Her voice was low, somehow both commanding and anxious. “There’s no delay in broadcasting. Whatever you say cannot be cut off before it reaches the public. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Leo had to fight to keep the irritation off his face. He was no child. He hadn’t been a legal child for six years. “I do understand.”

“Very good,” the producer said. “If you’ll come with me …”

Leo followed, gritting his teeth as they stepped into the studio. The hell of it was that it didn’t look like a studio, more like someone’s living room. Two comfortable armchairs, a table with a jug of water and two glasses … walls painted in a manner that was both childish and relaxing, the window probably a holographic projector displaying the outside world in a manner that both added to and subtracted from the illusion. There were no visible cameras, as far as Leo could tell, but they were there, concealed within the chamber. The live feed was sent out from several different angles at once, allowing the viewers to pick and choose the one that suited them. Ice prickled down his spine as he took one of the armchairs, facing Gareth Mountbatten. He felt as though he’d stepped right onto a battlefield.

“Last chance to back out.” There was a hint of challenge in Mountbatten’s tone. “You’re committed from the moment the lights blink.”

“I know.” Leo had been briefed, extensively, on the precautions the crew took to prevent someone inserting deepfakes into their programs. The lack of any time-delay on the broadcast was merely the simplest of them, trying to keep the program as trustworthy as possible. “I’m ready.”

“Good.” Mountbatten glanced to one side. “Here we go …”

The lights blinked. Mountbatten spoke with sudden seriousness.

“Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Dive Into Daybreak,” he said. “I’m Lord Gareth Mountbatten, your host for this and every other evening, and joining me is Commander Leo Morningstar, a naval hero who has risen from obscurity to become one of the most talked-about naval officers on active service. Welcome, Leo.”

Leo nodded. It was oddly disconcerting to have no visible audience. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of unseen eyes were watching him in realtime, yet he couldn’t see them … there was no such thing as privacy on a naval vessel, but there—at least—he could see the people watching him. He felt naked, despite being fully clothed. Again.

“Thank you,” he managed. “It’s good to be here.”

Mountbatten smiled. “Leo is here to discuss a matter of great sensitivity,” he continued. “The treatment of colonial officers and crew in the wake of Sun Li’s treachery last year. As you are no doubt aware”—spoken in a tone that suggested otherwise—“it was decided, after such an act of treachery, that such officers could no longer be trusted. They were often reassigned to harmless posts or dismissed from the navy, an act that was endorsed by all but one Senator.”

He paused. “And yet, Commander Morningstar believes the policy to have been a mistake. He has even pushed for one such officer to be formally recognised as a naval heroine. Why?”

Leo had the nasty feeling he’d just been ambushed, but he pushed on regardless.

“The policy was a form of collective punishment,” he said, coolly. “It held every last colonial officer to account for a single person’s crimes.”

“A single traitor’s crimes,” Mountbatten pointed out.

“I was there.” Leo allowed a hint of irritation to slip into his voice. “I was the one whose ship and crew were treacherously betrayed. I was the one who realised what had happened and turned the tables on our captors. I was the one who brought the ship home to report what happened and why. You do not have to tell me that she was a traitor. I know it.”

“And yet, why should we not be wary of other colonials?” Mountbatten’s tone was bland. It was impossible to tell what he was really thinking. “They might all betray us.”

“They may all be colonials, but they don’t come from the same worlds and they don’t have the same life experiences,” Leo pointed out. “One might as well take a serving naval officer and a gardener from the botanical gardens and declare they do the same job and therefore they’re the same person. They are not. Punishing them all in such a manner was not a thoughtful policy, but an act of fear.”

Mountbatten raised his eyebrows. “You think the Senate acted out of fear?”

Leo hesitated. “I think it acted without considering the consequences.”

“Really.” Mountbatten seemed unimpressed. “And what are those consequences?”

“The deal we strike with each and every colonial officer is simple: citizenship for service,” Leo said. “We take the best and brightest from the colonies and let them serve in the military, or one of a handful of other professions, and in exchange—when they retire—we grant them citizenship and residency rights. That has worked well for us, over the last few decades, because they expected us to keep our side of the bargain and we did.

“But now, they’re wondering if they can trust us. The officers and crew who accepted dismissal were denied citizenship, even though they left the navy through no fault of their own. The officers who were reassigned saw their careers condemned to a living death … is it any surprise that they might resent us? That they might betray us? Or that they might write home and tell their peers that we simply can’t be trusted to keep our word? The consequences are already taking shape. Recruitment is falling, and I think that owes much to how we mistreated our previous recruits.”

There was a long pause. “You recommended Commander Madeleine Chevallier for several medals,” Mountbatten said. “You insisted that she should be recognised as a naval heroine. Why?”

Leo braced himself. “Commander Chevallier was on the short list for her own command,” he said. “The simple fact she was on that list should tell you everything you need to know about her competence, and how much faith her superiors had in her. It isn’t easy to break into command rank if you’re a colonial, which is why her steady progress towards her own command is so remarkable. And yet, that was stolen from her in the aftermath of Sun Li’s treachery. Instead of a command of her own, she was reassigned to a makeshift fleet base built on the remains of a pirate hideout and put under my command.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing,” Mountbatten teased.

“She outranked me,” Leo said, bluntly. “My rank … is a little fluid, for various reasons, but she did outrank me through time in grade if nothing else. It was an insult to put her under my command, a slap across the face … some thanks for a lifetime of loyal service! She devoted her life to the navy, and this was how we repaid her?

“She could have left. I gave every colonial officer the chance to leave. I didn’t want them at my back with such grudges, not when they had no other way out. I let them decide if they wanted to leave and arranged for those who did to be shipped out. Commander Chevallier chose to stay. She served as my XO, worked hard to get the makeshift fleet as close to readiness as humanly possible, and in the end gave her life to save the fleet before the rebels could blow it apart. There are hundreds of evacuees who owe their lives to her. We owe her.”

Mountbatten leaned forward. “And the suggestion she might have been an enemy agent under very deep cover?”

Leo felt his temper flare. “Insultingly stupid, unworthy of anything other than a bah,” he said, waving his hand. “It’s a nonsensical suggestion.”

“In what way?”

“Commander Chevallier had dozens of opportunities to betray us, if she’d wanted to,” Leo said. “She could have betrayed the location of our secondary base, giving the rebels a chance to bring us to battle on unfavourable terms. She could have inserted subversion software into the datacores—they weren’t modern pieces of machinery—and programmed the ships to shut down at the worst possible time, or one of a hundred other options. She engaged rebel starships and destroyed them”—his lips twisted into a sardonic smile—“and I doubt the rebels would be pleased to see her again, after that.”

He shook his head. “She was no traitor. I think that is proven beyond reasonable doubt.”

“Some people can be quite unreasonable,” Mountbatten murmured. His voice suddenly sharpened. “There is a suggestion you were sleeping with her. Did that influence your thinking?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Leo said. He had feared that question, for all sorts of reasons. “She did nothing to raise suspicions of treachery, and that is a simple, well-documented fact. I will not smear her further in such a manner.”

Mountbatten leaned back in his chair. “And so you feel she needs to be recognised,” he said. “Why? She’s dead.”

Leo felt a hot flash of anger. If Mountbatten had ever faced anything more dangerous than an outraged headmaster, Leo would eat his hat. There was no suggestion in his potted biography that he’d ever been offworld, no suggestion he’d served in the military or made any more consequential choices than ordering dinner. He had built up a media empire, Leo supposed, but that was hardly dangerous. The worst that could happen was being sacked and told to get a proper job. 

“She deserved to live, to get the command she was in line for before she was reassigned,” Leo said, flatly. “But she died, saving lives. We should recognise her for that and that alone, because it was heroic. If she’d been born on Daybreak, there wouldn’t be any doubt about it at all. She’d have her own statue by now, and no one would question her right to be there. And yes, we should give her a statue now. She died a Daybreaker, and I will duel anyone who says it wasn’t so.

“But the recognition isn’t just about her. It’s a sign that we understand that we made a mistake, that we acted poorly; it’s a sign we can still recognise good service, from a colonial as much as a Daybreaker. It will be heard by colonials still in our service, colonials wondering if there will be any reward for their service, and they will understand that there is a reward. It will go far towards repairing the damage we did to their morale, and that’s worth almost any price.”

“Perhaps,” Mountbatten agreed. “What would you say to those who disagree with you?”

“I’d say they’re wrong,” Leo said, bluntly. “It’s a disagreement fuelled by blind prejudice and unthinking folly, not cold logic. I would say that their disagreement makes treachery more likely, not less; I would say that we made a commitment and we should honour it, even when it becomes inconvenient to do so. And I think most people would agree with me.”

“We could also be letting our enemies get into position to hit us,” Mountbatten said. “Do you think we should accept the risk?”

Leo took a calming breath. “Risk is our business,” he said. “I didn’t sign up for the navy because I thought it would be a nice cushy billet, somewhere far from the front lines. I signed up because I wanted action and adventure and a chance to make a name for myself. There is always risk, everywhere. There is no way to eliminate it completely, and perversely, even trying can make things more risky. We can vet our recruits and we do, but there are limits to how far we can reduce risk without crippling our ability to carry out our duties.”

He paused. “There’s no such thing as a perfect solution,” he added. “There are always trade-offs. We recruit foreigners to serve in our society, skimming off their best and brightest to ensure we always remain ahead, and one of the trade-offs is that we cannot always rely on those foreigners to be loyal. And we do not have to react to that by doing things that make them less loyal.”

“An interesting take,” Mountbatten said. “What do you think we should do now?”

“I think we should relax the restrictions as much as possible,” Leo said. “If we dented someone’s career, we should apologise and do what we can to make it right. If we dismissed someone, we should offer them the chance to come back. It will be costly, and embarrassing, but there is no point in playing out a losing hand. Let us admit the mistake, work to correct it and learn from it.”

“Thank you,” Mountbatten said. He looked up, towards the invisible cameras. “Please make your way onto the discussion boards and thank Commander Morningstar for joining us and sharing his opinions today. If you have questions, you know where to send them. If you wish to take part in the debate, please remember the boards are moderated, and obscene comments will be removed. And thank you, all of you, for watching and listening. Good night.”

The lights blinked, again. “And that’s it,” Mountbatten said. “Thank you for coming.”

Leo hadn’t realised just how tense he’d become until he relaxed. He was used to being on a starship taking heavy fire, but an interview … it felt as if he’d been hammered into a bloody pulp. Mountbatten didn’t look much better, he noted, as the stagehands shattered the illusion of a comfortable living room. He looked as though he’d been put through the wringer.

“You’re welcome,” Leo managed. His last exam hadn’t felt so rough—and his career had depended on his test scores. “What now?”

“Now?” Mountbatten shrugged. “Now we wait. Read the feedback. Decide if we want you again … you decide if you want us.”

Leo nodded, then turned and hurried down to the lobby. There was no point in hanging around, not now the interview was done. Ruth was waiting for him, her face unreadable. Leo felt cold, despite the warm air. He had the feeling he might have made a mistake.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Ruth said. “For the moment, we’re going clubbing.”

Leo blinked. “We are?”

“Yeah,” Ruth said. She leaned forward and gave him a quick hug. “You need to unwind.”

There was no point in arguing. Leo let her lead him down the street and into a small nightclub. The bouncer let her in at once, showing the way into a darkened room illuminated only by flickering strobe lights. Leo had to admit it was a good choice, as she pulled him onto the dance floor. The environment was so dark, and so loud, that it was hard to make out any faces. There might be someone who knew him, from the newscasts if not personally, but they wouldn’t recognise him. Ruth danced in a manner that suggested she knew she wasn’t a good dancer and didn’t much care. Leo couldn’t help admiring it as he danced beside her. The movements were seemingly random, but it hardly mattered. The goal was to relax and have fun.

“You’ve changed,” Ruth said, when he declined her unspoken invitation. “How … strange.”

Leo flushed. “I had to grow up,” he said. “And … you know.”

“Yeah,” Ruth said. “She really did a number on you.”

Leo couldn’t deny it, as they shared a late-night snack before going their separate ways. He had changed. And he wasn’t sure if it was for the better.

But it was no surprise to him, when he got back to the barracks, that he found a message ordering him to report to Admiral Bainbridge the following morning. 

He was fairly sure it wasn’t good news.

Chapter Six

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Leo stood at parade rest and tried to keep his face as innocent as possible. It didn’t work.

“You go on a live show, a live show, and criticise government policy in front of umpteen million viewers,” Admiral Bainbridge snapped. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Leo took a breath. “As a Daybreak citizen, it is my right to plainly speak my own mind in a forthright and …”

“Oh, don’t give me that guff!” The admiral made a visible effort to calm himself. “A citizen has that right, true. And if you weren’t a serving naval officer, you would have the same right to say whatever the hell you wanted to say and deal with the consequences, from everyone mocking you for a fool to lawsuits for slander that would force you to prove the truth of your words. But you are a serving naval officer, Morningstar, and it would be a severe breach of military etiquette to openly criticise government policy!”

He paused. “It was a severe breach!”

Leo gritted his teeth. “Sir, with all due respect … government policy is wrong.”

“You are entirely within your rights to think government policy is wrong,” Admiral Bainbridge snapped. “That does not relieve you of the obligation of carrying the policy out to the best of your ability, nor of the obligation of honouring military etiquette as much as possible. And taking sides in a political dispute, no matter how important to the future of the Republic itself, is a precedent the navy cannot allow to stand.”

“Sir.” Leo took a breath. “Permission to speak freely?”

The admiral gave him a sardonic look. “Now you ask?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes. Speak freely.” Admiral Bainbridge held his eyes. “But be aware your future hangs in the balance.”

Leo leaned forward. “What happened to the colonial personnel was a massive injustice,” he said. “It took loyalists and turned them into enemies. What happened to Commander Chevallier was worse and …”

“So you have said, repeatedly,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “Is it really worth nuking your own career to address this injustice?”

“If I don’t stand up for someone who was under my command, someone who was victimised by her superiors, who could trust me to stand up for them?” Leo forced himself to look back at the admiral. “It had to be done.”

“Yes, and you handled it by launching a tactical nuke into a fragile political consensus,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “You may not be aware of it, but you upset a great many political applecarts. The decision to isolate the colonial crewmen was not taken lightly, Morningstar, and it was the best of a bad set of options. You should also be aware that your questioning of colonial policy brought you into conflict with many powerful political and corporate factions, all benefiting from the current colonial policy. They don’t take it lightly. My staff were bombarded with angry messages, right from the moment you started to talk about things you didn’t understand …”

“I saw how the worlds along the Rim are treated,” Leo said, curtly. “I don’t blame the locals for hating us.”

“And you may be right, from a practical point of view,” Admiral Bainbridge told him. “But from a political point of view, you have taken a running jump into a pile of bullshit.”

Leo gritted his teeth. He’d done the right thing. He knew he had. But it was small comfort if his career was going to be destroyed, along with far too much else. He was a war hero. Could they court martial him? Or would they find some other excuse for sidelining him? It had happened before … and he’d come up smelling of roses. Perhaps this time they’d be smarter. Or perhaps …

“You are young, so I will make one allowance for you,” the admiral continued. “You see the system as it was taught to you in the Academy, an idealised version of the world where our naval heroes and politicians are always honest, forthright and true, and whatever punishment is handed out is handed out for your own good, rather than political expediency or sadism. The real world is different, Morningstar; people have their own interests, their own desires, and working against their wishes can cause them to unite against you. You may think we should alter the system for the greater good, and perhaps you are right, but doing so will alienate everyone who benefits from the current situation.”

“Sir …”

The admiral held up a hand. “Think about it. What percentage of starship commanders, in the navy, are female?”

Leo hesitated. He didn’t know. “Half, sir?”

“Around ten percent, give or take a percentage point or two,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “Women have always had a harder time in the navy, and you know it—or perhaps you don’t, as you have never been a proper midshipman. Now, if we were to correct that supposed injustice by mandating that half the captains had to be female, which would limit the prospects of their male counterparts, would you be happy?”

Leo was honest enough to admit the truth. “No, sir.”

“Why?”

“I …” Leo tried to put his feelings into words. “You would be replacing merit with gender by limiting the applicant pool for any particular command chair.”

“A clever argument, but not wholly truthful,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “Your real reason is that it would limit your promotion prospects. If half the command chairs have to be filled by female officers, your chances of winning a seat for yourself go down sharply, all the more so because there would be much more competition for the seats you could win. And so a policy intended to rectify an injustice becomes a millstone around the neck of anyone opposed to injustice, while everyone else bands together against it because it is in their self-interest to do so. 

“And everyone who your little speech disturbed has the same problem. They’re not bad people. It’s just that they stand to lose if the status quo is disturbed, and that gives them every incentive to keep it unchanged.”

“They’re benefiting from policies that put naval personnel at risk,” Leo pointed out.

“Yes,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “And all our careful plans to undo the damage they caused by restricting colonial personnel have been wrecked, because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut long enough for us to make it happen. You may well have made matters worse, Morningstar. They won’t want to back down now, because that would suggest you forced them to do so.

“You are a naval hero, Leo Morningstar. That gives you a platform. That gives you respect. But it doesn’t make you invincible, and it doesn’t give you the power to demand change and watch it happen, right in front of your eyes. You made enemies today, and they will cast a long shadow over your career.”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said.

“Good. Sit.”

Admiral Bainbridge leaned back in his chair as Leo sat. “Have you ever heard of Project Shadow?”

“No, sir,” Leo said.

“Good.” Admiral Bainbridge tapped his terminal. A holographic image materialised above his desk. “Project Shadow was started two decades ago, an attempt to design a flotilla of light-attack craft—gunboats—that would give our ships additional striking power at very little cost. The program was not a great success at first, but it did produce a number of technological breakthroughs that have been integrated into the modern navy, and so my predecessors allowed it to continue to exist. A combination of recent breakthroughs and, perversely, the enemy gravity field generator have removed most of the remaining technological headaches. Project Shadow has finally produced a degree of workable hardware.”

Leo leaned forward, studying the ship with interest. She looked like an oddly-shaped bulk freighter, her hull coated with ablative armour, weapons blisters and airlocks. Admiral Bainbridge tapped another command into the terminal and the gunboats materialised, tiny craft—no larger than a shuttle—locked onto the hull. They looked like modified assault shuttles at first, he noted, but shuttles rarely carried such extensive weapons loads. The internal compartments that normally carried marines appeared to have been replaced with additional drive and weapons components.

“She’s built on a modified freighter hull, as you’ve probably noticed, but internally she’s a wholly-military vessel,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “You’ll get a full briefing on her tech specs later, but suffice it to say she can keep up with the majority of front-line military units; her shuttles, of course, are faster than any capital ship. The downside is that even a handful of direct hits will be enough to cripple her, as there is no internal space for the gunboats, and so they have to parasite on the hull. The next generation will be neater, I am sure, but for the moment … we need some actual hard data on how the craft perform in combat.”

Leo nodded, slowly. “I take it you intend to turn the enemy gravity generators against them?”

“Yes.” Admiral Bainbridge smiled, coldly. “If they trap our ships and theirs in realspace, the gunboats will tear them to pieces. If they flee … we’ll win the day.”

“They already used shuttles in combat once, sir,” Leo reminded him. “Over Yangtze.”

“Good thinking on their part,” the admiral said. “That’s one of the reasons we brought this project forward. We suspect it’s just a matter of time before they start churning out a neater version of their own. And then we’ll be in trouble.”

Leo nodded. The problem with using shuttles as weapons platforms was two-fold: they made easy targets, which limited their value when compared to missile or energy batteries, and their target—if threatened with being overwhelmed—could easily jump out and escape. The first problem could be solved, to some extent, with ECM, but keeping the target from escaping had been thought impossible … until now. He had to admire the admiral’s willingness to think outside the box. No matter what the rebels did, they were going to be in some trouble.

“Yes, sir,” he said, finally.

“You will assume command of RSS Shadow and take her to the front lines,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “I would prefer a longer working-up period for her, Commander, but we need new tricks at the front as quickly as possible. The rebels must not be allowed to make further headway into our territory. The last thing we need is more autonomous worlds thinking about switching sides.”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. “Have any switched sides? I mean … openly.”

“Not yet,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “They know better. We’d smack them down hard if they tried, and they know it. But if they start to doubt our ability and willingness to smack them down, it won’t be long before they start thinking about trying something stupid.”

“And we still don’t know who’s backing the rebels,” Leo said. “It could be anyone.”

“No,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “There’s only a short list of suspects.”

He paused. “Once you reach the naval base at Portahaven, you will commence operations as dictated by Admiral Edward Cox,” he continued. “I suggest, very strongly, that you follow orders and don’t step out of line again. Your career is on very thin ice.”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. He’d never met Admiral Cox. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. He made a mental note to download the admiral’s file as quickly as possible. He was hardly cleared for everything, but he could access more than the average citizen. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” Admiral Bainbridge looked him in the eye. “There are two reasons I have given you this command, Commander—and yes, that rank has been confirmed. Do you know what they are?”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said.

“Let me spell them out for you, just to be clear,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “First, Shadow is an entirely new vessel. We have never used gunboats in combat before, and the entire playbook has to be worked out from scratch. You have command experience, true, but you’re not as limited by your previous commands as an officer who has followed a more standard career path. You should have much less to unlearn before it’s too late. If my judgement is correct, you should be able to master gunboat operations and then write the book faster than anyone else.”

And I’m expendable too, Leo guessed. If I don’t come back, it’ll solve a great many problems for you.

“Second, I need to get you offworld as quickly as possible,” the admiral continued. “Ideally, you would remain long enough to give testimony at Admiral Blackthrone’s court martial before you were assigned to another ship. It would be tricky to find a post for you that actually made use of your talents, without offending older officers who think they should be promoted ahead of an upstart like yourself, but I would find a way to do it. However, you have managed to disturb a number of powerful people, and getting you well away from Daybreak is the best way to protect you.”

“I did what I had to,” Leo said.

“Normally, when people want to take up pest control, they don’t start by kicking hornet nests,” Admiral Bainbridge said. “I take your point, Commander. I really do. But your intervention has made matters worse, and the only way I can fix it is by sending you offworld as quickly as possible.”

“They’re not hornets,” Leo protested.

“No,” the admiral agreed. “You’re allowed to drop poison on hornet nests. Or gas them. Or remove them to somewhere a little more congenial to them. You’re not allowed to poison politicians, particularly politicians who are also serving military officers and therefore have good reason to be offended by your stunt even if they agree with it.”

He looked up, meeting Leo’s eyes. “You will report to Shadow as quickly as possible. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging for your barracks room to be cleared and everything forwarded to your new command. You yourself will be escorted to a shuttle for immediate departure; my staff will ensure you’ll have all the briefing notes you need to read during passage. Do not get lost along the way. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said. He knew what the admiral really meant. Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Not Ruth and certainly not Senator Tiberius Quinton. “I … thank you.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Admiral Bainbridge said. His eyes never left Leo’s face. “Let me be very clear on this, Commander. If you weren’t a war hero, you would be well on your way to an asteroid mining station by now. You would not have a hope of resuming a more normal career, nor would you have much of a chance of … well, anything. You would be held up as an example of what not to do, a cautionary tale for every other young officer who wants to shoot his mouth off about everything under the sun. You’d be expected to drink yourself to death on asteroid moonshine because there would be no hope of a better future. As it is, you are getting a second chance you do not deserve. I suggest you bear that in mind.”

His eyes narrowed. “There will not be a third. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Leo said.

“You will be angry. You will feel abused and mistreated.” Admiral Bainbridge leaned forward. “Don’t. You brought this on yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your escort is waiting outside,” the admiral said. “Dismissed.”

Leo saluted, then turned and marched out the door. Two military policemen were standing on the far side, looking grim. Leo wondered if they were going to search him, or break out the cuffs, before the first motioned for Leo to follow him. The second brought up the rear as they walked through the corridors, stoically ignoring the dark glances, rude gestures and occasional non-too-quiet insult. MPs were considered the most unpopular unit in the military, for all sorts of reasons, and it was quite common for everyone to assume they were more interested in beating up the defenceless than tackling genuinely violent criminals. It wasn’t particularly fair, Leo knew, but their reputation was probably beyond salvation.

The shuttle was already waiting on the pad when he was marched into the open air. Leo nodded politely to the escort, then stepped onto the craft and took a seat. There were no other passengers, a quiet reminder he was in disgrace. The hatch slid closed behind him as a silent crewman offered him a datapad, then retreated to the pilot’s cabin. Leo sighed and pressed his thumb against the scanner, unlocking the sealed files. The shuttle’s gravity field shivered as it took off. Leo barely noticed. He was too busy reading the files.

I did the right thing, he told himself. He had! The colonials had been ill-treated. They deserved better … they all deserved better. And yet, what will it do to my career?

He shook his head, staring down at the datapad without seeing the files. He might have done the right thing, but he was going to pay for it … this time, at least, he wasn’t being booted offworld for something tawdry. It was an oddly reassuring thought. Perhaps he could use it, when he entered politics formally … perhaps he could use it to make it clear he would always speak his mind, no matter the cost. That always went down well with the voters.

Or perhaps you should be relieved you’re being given a ship, he told himself, sharply. There had been no guarantees, despite his record as both a commanding officer and a squadron commander. Admiral Bainbridge wasn’t wrong to point out that older and more experienced officers thought they should take precedence. This whole affair could have worked out far worse for you.

He sighed, inwardly. It was true, and he knew it. But he’d done the right thing …

So why was he being punished?

Chapter Seven

RSS Shadow looked crude, unfinished. Leo had seen the hologram before, when he’d been assigned to the ship, but the reality was very different. Dozens of worker bees buzzed around the starship, loading supplies and carrying out the final maintenance checks before the ship set out on her first mission. Leo loved her at first sight. She might look unwieldy, but Waterhen hadn’t been very elegant either, and she’d been a great ship. You never forgot your first command, Leo had been told, and Waterhen had been his in a way the ragtag makeshift squadron couldn't match. And she’d died saving their lives from the enemy …

He kept the thought to himself as the shuttle swooped in to dock at the primary airlock. He hadn’t called ahead to say he was coming, or arrange for a welcoming committee; he hadn’t seen the point. It would be interesting to see who’d been assigned as his XO, given that he wasn’t a captain by rank; they’d certainly have problems working out a proper relationship if he was technically outranked by his own XO. The prospect couldn’t be wholly dismissed. He might be the commanding officer, but by rank he was only a commander. God alone knew how it would work out.

A dull thump ran through the shuttle as she docked, followed by a low hiss as the airlocks matched and started to open. Leo took a breath, bracing himself. Some officers liked to arrange a greeting party, pulling his juniors off their duties to formally welcome the new commander; others preferred to do it personally, leaving the juniors to their roles and taking the brunt of the new commander’s displeasure upon themselves. If, of course, he was displeased. Leo would sooner his officers did their jobs then fawn on him. There’d be time to get to know each other later, once the ship was ready for combat.

He stepped through the airlock and blinked when he saw the two people waiting on the far side. “Flower?”

Flower smiled, dropping a curtsey that somehow looked elegant even though she was wearing a shipboard tunic rather than a pimped-out dress. “That’s Lieutenant Flower, Supply Officer, to you,” she said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“And you.” Leo shook his head in amusement. Flower’s tunic should have been as shapeless and unattractive as a basic training uniform, but somehow she made it look good. “How did you wind up here?”

“Oh, this and that,” Flower said. “I just thought you could still make use of me.”

“I don’t want to know,” Leo said, after a moment. Flower was an executive assistant, a title that covered everything from a secretarial role to outright sexual services, and everything in between, and he didn’t own her contract. Captain Reginald Archibald, Waterhen’s legal commanding officer, had bought her and then made little use of her … Leo wasn’t sure why she was still with him now. Perhaps he gave her a chance to make proper use of her training and talents. “I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Statistically speaking, that’s the moment you really should be looking one in the mouth,” Commander Francis Blackthrone said. “It’s good to see you again, Leo. And thank you for speaking up for my uncle.”

Leo hesitated, torn between a dozen possible responses. Francis Blackthrone had been a bully at the Academy, until Leo had beaten it out of him, and then he’d taken command of Waterhen only to lose the ship to the rebels … a disaster that had only been mitigated by Leo managing to retake control. And then they’d been forced to work together … Leo wondered, suddenly, just why Francis had been assigned to Shadow. Was it a reward? A punishment? Or some combination of the two?

“It’s good to see you again too,” he lied. He would have been glad never to see Francis again. The young man had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a sense of entitlement larger than a battleship, something that hardly made him pleasant company even when he was trying to be good. “How long have you been assigned here?”

“Four weeks,” Francis said. “I didn’t know who’d be the CO until now.”

Leo felt a twinge of dark amusement. Francis had made Leo his XO and lorded it over him as much as possible. Now Leo could take revenge … he shook his head. Francis had grown up a lot, and there was a war on, and his family had lost none of its influence … no. Better to set a good example than remind Francis that the ass he kicked on the way up might be the ass he’d have to kiss on the way down. If nothing else, it would be precisely what Francis didn’t expect.

“I’ll expect a full briefing shortly,” Leo said. “Can you give me a tour right now?”

“Of course,” Francis said. “If you’ll come with me …”

He spoke with slightly more enthusiasm as they started to walk through the ship. “She’s somewhat more modular than regular warships, Leo, which makes her slightly more vulnerable to enemy fire,” he said. “We’ve done what we can to tighten things up over the last month, and carried out endless damage control drills, but the blunt truth is that a direct hit that punches through the armour is likely to kill us. There are limits to what we can do about it too.”

Leo nodded. That had been included in the files.

“We have four squadrons of gunboats, twelve craft to a squadron,” Francis continued. “The pilots are mostly shuttle pilots who volunteered, although there are a handful of exceptions. Mainly academy cadets who showed very real attitude for shuttles and wanted to get in on the ground floor of a whole new combat arm. The craft themselves are amazing”—Leo had to smile at the sudden delight in his tone—“and combat drills suggest they’ll be formidable, as long as their target is pinned down. Given the right armament, they can be used in everything from an antishipping role to groundpounder support. Their ECM is next-gen, so … they’re not easy targets.”

He grinned. “I’d venture a bet Second Yangtze would have been a total victory if we’d had these craft on our side,” he added. “Wars are not won by evacuations.”

“Yeah.” Leo couldn’t disagree. “How do we stand for weapons?”

“We have point defence—very good point defence—and basic energy weapons, but not much else,” Francis said. “Shadow was never designed to stand in the line of battle, which is something we’re going to have to bear in mind. No missile tubes, no heavy proton beams … no nothing. Our gunboats are effectively the only striking power we have.”

He paused. “And you’ll never guess what the boffins came up with!”

Leo shared a look with Flower. “What?”

“FTL drives,” Francis said. “Tiny FTL drives.”

“I …” Leo took a breath and started again. “The gunboats can jump in and out of a combat zone?”

“More or less,” Francis confirmed. “The wear and tear will mount up, of course, but yeah … they can travel interstellar distances without a mothership. For a while.”

Leo sucked in his breath. The smallest starship with FTL capability was a corvette—and they were rarely considered worth the expense. They tended to serve as system patrol vessels without interstellar capability; the autonomous worlds had a habit of producing them in large numbers because they weren’t included in any arms limitation dictates. If the navy could send something the size of a shuttlecraft jumping from system to system, it would change everything. And that meant …

His eyes narrowed. “What’s the trade-off?”

“Two things,” Francis said. “The modified FTL engines are prone to overheating, which means they cannot be used to jump in and out repeatedly without a proper cool-down and recycling process. Second, because power requirements are so high, it’s difficult to recharge the jump engines quickly even if we risk skipping the standard recycling process.”

“They’re also fairly bulky, relatively speaking,” Flower put in. “They consume volume that could easily be used for weapons and crew space.”

Leo shook his head. A standard jump engine was easily five or six times the size of the average shuttle. Or gunboat. Something small enough to take a shuttle through FTL would revolutionise warfare, perhaps even interstellar trade. The shuttle flight he’d taken to Shadow had lasted four hours. How would things change, he asked himself, if the shuttle had been able to get him there in the blink of an eye? Or…

His eyes narrowed. If that secret got out, it would change everything.

Francis kept walking, showing him the engineering compartment and the tiny section that had been designated Marine Country. There was only room for a lone platoon—ten men—and barely half the facilities they needed to carry out effective training cycles … that was going to be awkward, when the marines finally arrived. It didn’t look as if any had been assigned already. Marines were in permanently short supply and it was unlikely any would arrive until they reached Portahaven. Leo had been told that recruitment had been expanded rapidly, now the Republic was facing a real war, but it would still take time to get the newcomers through the training program and onto starships.

“And this is the bridge,” Francis finished, as they stepped through the hatch. “As you can see, we’re ready for anything.”

“Anything we expect,” Flower pointed out.

Leo ignored the byplay as he looked around. The bridge managed to look old and new at the same time, the consoles somewhat outdated even though it was clear they’d been barely used and their operators an odd mix of old and young officers … he hoped, despite himself, that they didn’t include any drunkards or trouble-causers. He’d had to sort some crewmen out on Waterhen, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat. It was unlikely, but the prospect could not be wholly dismissed. And the risk of spies was dangerously high.

Everyone involved in the program was vetted, he told himself, firmly.

Sure, his own thoughts replied. Sun Li was vetted too.

The crew was pretending not to notice him, but he could tell they were alert, glancing at him whenever they thought he wasn’t looking. He felt a sudden stab of envy—Francis had had the last month to ingrate himself with the crew—which he pushed aside. There was no point in bemoaning that which could not be changed. He’d have to find a way to cope with it. And Francis had grown up a lot over the last few months.

Leo took the command chair and keyed the console. “This is Commander Leo Morningstar,” he said, knowing his words would be heard throughout the entire ship. “By order of the Admiralty, in the name of the Daybreak Republic, I am formally assuming command of RSS Shadow. Our orders are to prepare for departure as quickly as possible, then take ourselves to the war front and place ourselves under Admiral Cox’s command as part of Task Force Portahaven.”

He looked at Francis. “I relieve you.”

“I stand relieved,” Francis replied.

Leo felt a pang of something he didn’t care to look at too closely. Satisfaction? Guilt? It didn’t matter. He had work to do. “I look forward to meeting all of you, over the next few days, during preparations for departure,” he continued. “And together we will make the Republic proud!”

He closed the channel, feeling relieved and yet nervous. Waterhen had been his through a legal fiction, one that had suited everyone so well they’d been careful not to take a good hard look at it. Gypsy Squadron had been a ragtag fleet of misfit starships. Shadow, by contrast, was his. There would be no hiding behind an absent captain, if the shit hit the fan. The buck would stop with him, and him alone. And if he fucked up …

“Flower and I need to speak privately,” he said, to Francis. “You have the bridge.”

Francis nodded. “Of course, sir.”

Leo nodded back, then led the way into the ready room. It had the striking air of a compartment that had barely been used, although someone—almost certainly Francis—had left behind a small pile of datapads and a handful of printed notes, the latter probably classified. The desk and chairs looked completely untouched; the sofa, at least, looked as if someone had been using it as a workplace. Leo hoped Francis hadn’t been using it for anything else. Madeleine and Leo—and Sun and Leo—had used similar places to make love …

“We can talk privately here,” Flower said, as she sat on one of the chairs. “You do realise you fucked up?”

“Yes.” Leo sat facing her. “Admiral Bainbridge pointed it out.”

“I bet he did,” Flower said. “You really liked Madeleine, didn’t you?”

“You know that,” Leo said. “Why did she affect me so much?”

“Probably because she reminded you of yourself,” Flower said. “She was smarter and prettier and nicer and”—she grinned, taking the sting out of her words—“but otherwise she was just like you. And you cared about her in a way you never cared about anyone else.”

Leo couldn’t disagree. He’d had many sexual conquests in his life, but he couldn’t say they’d ever meant much to him. He’d been sowing his wild oats, partying hard because he’d always known life was short and he could die tomorrow; he’d often thought the girls felt the same way too. Fleur O’Hara had wanted relief from the boredom of being an officer’s wife, Ruth had wanted something to make her feel human again … Gayle Bridgerton and Sun Li had both been traitors, lining him up for the kill. But Madeleine had been different. She’d been very much like him. He could have fallen in love with her. Perhaps he had.

“Yeah,” he said. “She deserved better.”

“You should have talked to me first,” Flower said. “It was a serious mistake. How many enemies did you just make for yourself?”

“I did what I thought I had to do,” Leo said.

“Which is something of the point,” Flower countered. “Yeah. Maybe you honoured Madeleine’s memory, maybe you made sure she gets the credit she deserves. But the price will be very high. That you are here … it’s not a reward. It’s a punishment.”

“Admiral Bainbridge said that too,” Leo said. “Sort of.”

“He should have made it clear,” Flower said. “You know, for every naval hero who threads the needle and becomes a politician as well as a serving naval officer, there are at least a hundred who come up short when they try to be both. The navy doesn’t teach you how to be a politician, because the skills you need to be one stand in stark contrast to the skills you need to be a naval officer. You tried that yesterday, Leo, and you flew right into a minefield.”

“I know,” Leo said. “But I did the right thing.”

“I know,” Flower said. “But sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the right thing to do.”

Leo leaned back in his chair. “How is the ship? I mean, really?”

Flower batted her long eyelashes at him, raising her voice into a parody of an innocent ingénue. “How can such a one as I know the answer?”

“That looks unnatural,” Leo said. “I know you’re a hell of a lot smarter than me.”

“You’d be surprised how many people can’t look past the eyelashes and the accent,” Flower teased. “They want to believe, even when they should know better.”

“Yeah,” Leo said. Flower was a brilliant actress, among other things. Her act might have worked better if he hadn’t been tired and depressed. “How is the ship?”

Flower’s voice became clipped, precise. “Francis has done a fairly good job, given his limitations,” she said. “Crew morale has been improving now there is a prospect of taking the ship into battle. Training drills have been carried out to the best of the flight crew’s abilities. The gunboats are effective strike craft, as far as I can determine, although limited in ways that don’t trouble a regular starship. The supply situation is good, though”—she paused—“there’s no way to replenish any lost gunboats in a hurry. That’s something you need to bear in mind.”

“Got it,” Leo said.

“And you should be asking Francis to give you this report,” Flower added. “He is the one who’s been doing all the work.”

Leo looked down at the deck. “Is it wrong to feel conflicted about having him on my ship? Again?”

“No,” Flower said. “The question is … can you treat him as just another officer under your command? Or can you not resist the urge to dump on him now he’s under you in every sense of the word?”

She met his eyes. “I’m not asking you to forgive him his conduct as a young cadet, or as an officer in the navy,” she said. “I’m asking you to give him a fair chance, the sort of chance you’d ask for yourself if you messed up the way he did. Can you do that?”

“I can try,” Leo said. “But …”

He shook his head. “I can try.”

“Good,” Flower said. She stood, every movement drawing attention to curves that should have been invisible. Leo acknowledged the effect even if he wasn’t interested in her. “I’ll see you later, Leo. But now, you need to talk to Francis. Alone.”

“Got it,” Leo said. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, but he had little choice. “And thanks.”

“And while you’re busy, I’ll see if I can find a way to mitigate the political shitstorm you caused,” Flower added. She gave him a wink, her tone becoming sardonic. “I do like a challenge.”

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