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Kat enjoyed the sensation, knowing that she would never step onto her bridge for the first time again. And then she reached for the piece of paper in her uniform jacket, slowly pulling it out and unfurling it. That too, she knew, was part of the ceremony. She couldn’t take another step onto the bridge without asserting her authority.
    “Captain Katherine Falcone,” she read. She had memorized the words already, but she had to appear to read from the parchment. “You are ordered to assume command of HMS Lightning and serve as her Captain, Mistress under God. Fail in this charge at your peril. By order of Grand Admiral Tobias Vaughn, First Space Lord.”
    There was a long pause. She allowed the moment to stretch out, then turned to her XO.
    “Mr. XO,” she said, “I assume command.”
    The XO’s face remained impassive. “I stand relieved,” he said.
    Kat let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. There was only ever one source of authority onboard a starship, one person who held command. As long as he’d been the senior officer, William McElney had been the acknowledged commander of the starship, even once Kat had come onboard. But now . . . she was the commanding officer. The final responsibility was hers. She felt the full weight of command settling around her shoulders and fought to keep her face impassive. Independent command was the ambition of every commissioned officer in the Navy, but it could also break her. The buck would stop with her.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Please make a note in the log of the date and time I assumed command.”
    He nodded and then saluted. That too was tradition.
    Kat felt her cheeks heat up as a smattering of applause ran through the bridge.
    She took a breath. Some officers wrote speeches for when they assumed command. Kat hadn’t bothered, as she had honestly never expected to be granted her own command for at least another five years, if she were lucky. Besides, the speeches had always struck her as pretentious. The crew would have more than enough opportunity to formulate an opinion of their commander without being forced to sit through a tedious address.
    “Return to your duties,” she ordered.
    She watched them sit down, their backs a little straighter now they knew their captain was watching them. The memory of her first days as a commissioned officer warmed her as she walked over to the command chair, passing through the insubstantial hologram, and sat down. It felt good, soft enough for her to relax, hard enough to ensure she wouldn’t fall asleep. That wasn’t a shooting offense, but any junior officer unlucky enough to fall asleep while on watch would rapidly start wishing it was.
    Her XO stood behind Kat as she touched her console with a finger, activating the system and linking directly into the starship’s datanet. The automated command systems buzzed around her, displaying the Lightning’s current location and plotting courses automatically to prospective destinations. Not, she knew, that she would trust the systems completely. One rule of AI was that true AIs always went insane shortly after being brought to life, and nothing lesser could hope to replace the human element from starship command. But without the automated systems, the ship’s efficiency would be cut in half.
    She resisted the temptation to play with the system any further. Instead, she rose to her feet and passed command to the tactical officer, Lieutenant Commander Christopher John Roach. He was a young man, younger than she was, but a nasty scar ran down the left side of his face, and he’d chosen to shave his head completely as well. Kat made a mental note to review his file too, and then motioned for her XO to follow her into her Ready Room. Inside, she stopped dead. The compartment was dirty as hell, the deck covered in pieces of paper, datapads, and several coffee mugs. It didn’t look remotely ready for any commanding officer.
    “I’ve been using it as