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through
Redwood
even though his left leg had been painful all day. Walk! He smiled in spite of himself. The best he could manage was the awkward, stiff-legged limp he so hated, worried that people might think he was making more of the injury than it deserved.
    He did not have to do the walk-around. Mother—the ship’s primary AI, the AI that kept
Redwood
’s legion of AIs in line—kept him abreast of everything, but if he had learned anything during his time in the fleet, it was that a briefing from an AI was no substitute for seeing at first hand what was going on. He needed to; he had let his crew down badly. He—and they—had been lucky the Balawal-34 operation had not gone wrong.
    Stepping into a drop tube, Michael made his way down to
Redwood
’s main hangar, a huge compartment once home to the cruiser’s air group. The cavernous space held the ship’s two landers: the massive bulk of
Alley Kat
and its much smallercousin, a light ground-attack lander nicknamed
Widowmaker
. Michael approved of the name; he hoped that one day the lander would send its fair share of Hammers to meet their precious god, Kraa. Beyond them sat the temporary accommodation modules housing
Redwood
’s marine detachment. Michael smiled when he saw what Kallewi and his marines were up to.
    Crash mats had been spread across the hangar deck. On them
Redwood
’s entire complement of marines, an overstrength platoon totaling fifty, was involved in what looked like a minor riot, bodies diving and tumbling every which way while Kallewi and his platoon NCO, Sergeant Tchiang, barked orders and insults in equal mea sure. Spotting Michael, Kallewi called a halt, marines collapsing exhausted to the deck. Michael made his way over.
    “Abusing the troops again, Janos?”
    “You know me, sir. Busy marines are happy marines, even if they are kicking the crap out of each other. Free play self-defense drills. Fighting in a crowd is an art.” Kallewi paused to look at Michael. “You okay, sir?”
    “Better, thanks. Your guys went well on Balawal-34. A good, tight operation. Well done.”
    Kallewi waved an arm as if to dismiss the compliment. “Routine stuff, sir. Thankfully, the Hammers didn’t think to reinforce their internal security force even though they seemed to have warning of the attack. Things would have been a lot harder if they had.”
    Michael nodded, conscious how cavalier he had been with the lives of the men and women under his command. “They still haven’t worked out dreadnoughts yet. Would have been a different story if we’d been conventional heavy cruisers. Anyway, how’s Lance Corporal Baader?”
    “Not a happy marine, sir, but he’ll be fine. Flesh wound to the upper arm. Nothing serious. He should be a hundred percent inside a week.”
    “Good. Anything else I need to know?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Okay. I’ll be in the CIC when I’ve done my walk-around.”
    “Sir.”
    Michael set off aft, making his way through the massive armoreddoors cut through the secondary armor protecting
Redwood
’s machinery spaces and into the ship’s starboard main engine and primary power compartment. There, according to Mother, he would find
Redwood
’s complement of engineers stripping out a shock-damaged pump, and find them he did, the four spacers struggling to move the mass, which was awkward and uncooperative even with the help of liftbots. Michael hung back; when they broke for a breather, he walked over.
    “Winning?” he asked Chief Fodor,
Redwood
’s senior engineer and the man responsible for the ship’s fusion reactors.
    “Think so, sir, though I’m too old for this shit,” Fodor said, giving the recalcitrant pump a kick. “I love dreadnoughts, but there are times when I miss having hundreds of junior spacers around to do the hard stuff. Like moving”—he gave the pump another kick—“this pigging piece of crap.”
    “Amen to that,” Chief Chua,
Redwood
’s propulsion tech, said with some feeling, mopping his