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her promotion, William knew, and it would take time to break her of the habits of being an XO, including reviewing status reports in order to save the captain from having to do it herself. But at least she was well aware of her responsibilities to the crew.
    “Thank you,” the captain said finally. “And now I believe I should see the bridge.”

    Kat couldn’t help feeling a little out of her depth as they rode the intership car towards the bridge. Lightning was smaller than Thunderous, the battle cruiser she’d served on as XO, but Thunderous had been in service for several years before she’d assumed her post. The responsibilities of serving as a starship’s first commanding officer were different, she knew, from merely taking over command from a previous captain. If nothing else, there was no prior history for her to study.
    Her XO was definitely older than she was, she knew. According to a very brief skim of his files through her implant—it was rude to access implants in polite company, let alone use them in conversation—he was old enough to be her father, maybe even her grandfather if he started early. That wasn’t a surprise—her real father was older still—but there was something about him that suggested age. He’d clearly not had the rejuvenation treatments from a very early age, she noted, instead deliberately trying to look old and distinguished. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with his general fitness, she was sure, but he was mentally old.
    And he didn’t seem to like her.
    Kat had grown up in a sheltered estate, but she wasn’t naive. She had learned, from a very early age, that there were people who would suck up to her purely because of her family connections while hiding their contempt behind bland smiles. One of the very few practical lessons Kat had had from her mother was how to determine what someone really felt about her, a harder task than it seemed. Anyone who was anyone on Tyre had implants to help disguise their emotions if they feared revealing more than they wanted in front of prying eyes. It took careful perception to tell when someone was trying to hide their feelings—and that, she had learned, suggested that they had something to hide.
    The XO seemed . . . distrusting, almost disdainful. His attempt to hide it was good, but not good enough. Kat wondered, bitterly, just what he felt about her. Had he thought he would win command for himself . . . or had he thought Kat was far too inexperienced to take command of a heavy cruiser? He would be right, she had to admit, if he thought the latter. She knew she wasn’t ready to take command of anything larger than a destroyer, not yet . . .
    There was a ding as the hatch opened, revealing the bridge. Kat stopped and stared, allowing her gaze to move from station to station. The captain’s chair sat in the center of the compartment, surrounded by a semitranslucent orbital display that showed the shipyard surrounding Lightning. Only half of the consoles were staffed, she noted, which didn’t surprise her. No one expected to be attacked here, in the heart of the Commonwealth’s defenses. Tyre was surrounded by enough firepower to make even fanatics think twice about risking an attack.
    But we can’t take that for granted, she reminded herself. The Theocracy is a whole multi–star system of fanatics.
    Kat kept her face impassive as she took a closer look. Several of the unmanned consoles were clearly not installed yet, a handful of technicians working frantically to link them into the starship’s datanet. The private console beside the captain’s chair was blank. It looked as though the bridge was far from ready for action. She made a mental note to review all the reports closely, despite knowing they should be left for the XO. She needed to know what was going on. Surprises, in the military, were rarely nice.
    “Captain on the bridge,” the XO said.
    There was a rustle as the crew stood and saluted. For a long moment,