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an office,” the XO admitted. “There was no time to clean up.”
    Kat felt an odd flash of irritation, which she forced down sharply. The XO was entirely correct. He needed to stay near the bridge and he needed an office, a place to work without disturbing the bridge crew. Using the Ready Room—her Ready Room—was the logical solution. But it still gnawed at her.
    “Don’t worry about it,” she said. She hesitated, then said what she knew she had to say. “Keep using it until we are ready for deployment.”
    “I believe a steward has been assigned to you,” the XO said. “She will clean the room once she arrives.”
    Kat nodded, reluctantly. A steward was something she’d managed to avoid, even though she was entitled to one as an aristocrat. But there was no point in declining one now.
    She picked a pile of datapads off a chair, wondering why anyone needed so many, then placed them on the desk and sat down.
    “So,” she said, once her XO had found a place to sit, “tell me about my starship.”

Chapter Four
    “Come,” Kat ordered as the door bleeped.
    She barely looked up from her datapad until she heard someone clearing his throat in front of her. The sound made her look up to see a short, bald man standing there, wearing the gray shipboard uniform of the Royal Marine Corps. Kat found herself smiling openly as she rose to her feet and walked around the desk to envelop him in a hug. It had been far too long since she’d seen her old friend and former lover.
    “It’s good to see you again,” she said, remembering when they’d first met. “Time and the Marine Corps have been good to you.”
    Captain Patrick James Davidson—he would be given a courtesy promotion to colonel while onboard ship—hugged her back, then let her go. Kat understood, even though it hurt a little; they were no longer lovers, while he was—technically—her subordinate. Marines had a great deal of independence, but not from their starship’s commander.
    “I was promoted, eventually,” Davidson said. He grinned toothily. One of his front teeth had been knocked out on deployment and he’d never bothered to have it replaced. “They must have grown sick of scraping the barrel for officers to promote ahead of me.”
    “Something always rises to the top,” Kat agreed. She walked back the table and sat down, then smiled at him. “Thank you for accepting this posting.”
    “Ah, it was a choice between this ship or another hellworld,” Davidson said. He suddenly stood to attention. “Colonel Patrick James Davidson and crew reporting for duty, Captain!”
    “Welcome onboard,” Kat said dryly. She waved at the seat behind him. “Take a seat, Pat, and put off the formality.”
    Davidson sat, but still remained ramrod straight. Kat smiled to herself. Even when they’d been on shore leave, free of all other demands on their time, he had been unmistakably a marine. She had half expected him to loosen up with the promotion and added responsibility, but he still seemed as tough and determined as ever. But then marines were only ever promoted from the ranks. None of them graduated from OCS without experience as an infantryman first.
    “It’s been years,” she said. “What have you been doing?”
    “Spent a great deal of time on MacKinnon’s World,” Davidson said. “The locals voted for annexation and they’re generally happy, but there’s a small bunch of resistors who have been making everyone else miserable. They could have had an island of their own, if that was what they wanted, but instead they started to attack settlements and so-called collaborators.”
    Kat nodded, unsurprised. “And you managed to hunt them down?”
    “Gave them a damn good thrashing, the one time they fought a pitched battle,” Davidson said. “We ensured the local security forces got enough breathing space to make certain they had time to rebuild, train, and take the offensive. But it will be years before all support for the insurgents