Saffel Space Station Three

Saffel System

Prefecture II

March 3134

For a while, Anastasia’s return to consciousness was not so much waking as recalling a time spent floating in a gray and hazy place. She had vague memories of things going on while she was there—people crowding around her, pain in her belly, bright lights in her face, and disconnected bits of conversation that didn’t make sense: “Tried to gut and fillet her like a mountain finny… Why are you asking me, I think you’re all crazy… Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

She came back to full lucidity with a jolt.

Her eyes snapped open, and she was aware—with a bright, hard-edged clarity—that she was Galaxy Commander Anastasia Kerensky, that she was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar sick bay, that the heavy soreness across her abdomen was a knife wound courtesy of the late Star Colonel Marks, that she was taking the Steel Wolves home to Terra. And that she had lost a dangerous amount of time.

“Damn.” She struggled up to a sitting position in the bed. “Ahhrrgh. Damn.”

Someone was catching her, helping her to sit upright. She saw the hand first, and the Bondsman’s cord around the wrist. It was the medic, Ian Murchison.

She glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Keeping you from killing yourself, it looks like.” At second glance, Murchison did not appear to have slept in some time. His eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed underneath, and he had forgotten to shave. “Since the gentleman with the knife did his best to spill your guts out onto the deck.”

“Oh.” She sounded bad, even to her own ears. She could not afford the weakness, once she was in public. But there was nobody in here except herself and her Bondsman, who did not count. Relentlessly, she quashed a half-formed wish that she could rest for a little longer. “How long has it been since—”

“Twelve days, while you were ill and the ships were recharging and refueling.”

“Twelve days!” The exclamation hurt; she sat breathing hard for a minute, then went on, “Are we still at Saffel Station?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have to get up now.”

“I don’t suppose I can stop you.” He paused, as if weighing his next words. “Just for the record, Galaxy Commander, you’re currently held together with staples and surgical glue. Now is not the time to pick fights.”

“I do not pick fights.”

This time Murchison said nothing, but his expression was eloquent enough without words.

“All right,” she said. “You’ve got me.” It felt good to lapse for a moment into the casual speech patterns of the alternate persona she’d adopted when she was traveling across The Republic of the Sphere as a soldier of fortune. Tassa Kay had met a number of people like Ian Murchison—steady, reliable types who did their duty and didn’t worry too much about the greater scheme of things—and she’d liked most of them. She’d probably have liked Ian Murchison as well. “I do pick fights. But I’ve usually got a reason for it when I do.”

“I’m just saying—”

“‘Not now.’ Right.”

Moving carefully, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand. Murchison reached out and supported her with a hand under one arm. Success.

She stayed that way for a moment, taking stock. Legs holding her up—good. Head clearing more moment by moment—good. She tried a few careful steps, then said, “As long as I don’t make any sudden moves, it’ll do. Time to go out and put the fear of me back into people.”

“No need to worry just yet.” She wasn’t certain about the note in Murchison’s voice, but she thought it might be amusement. “They’ve all been too busy promoting themselves to bother causing trouble.”

For a moment she failed to understand him. Then she remembered that he was not Clan, or at least not yet, and would not know.

“Trials of Position,” she said. She laughed under her breath, but cut it short when the knife wound protested. “I suppose I did create a couple of openings at the top.”

She contemplated, for a moment, the beautiful chaos of it all. The Star Colonels who had been junior to Marks and Dorn would have begun it by challenging one another for seniority. Then the more ambitious Star Captains would have started their own round of challenges for the empty Star Colonel slots, and the ripple effect would have extended all the way down into the ranks. She shook her head regretfully, and pushed Tassa Kay and her taste for brawls and bad company well back into the dark recesses of Anastasia Kerensky’s mind.

“I need to get out there,” she said. “Before somebody else gets the idea that they can do this job better than I can.”

“Sit back down. I’ll find you some clothes.”

“Who do you think you are, giving me orders?” She sat down on the edge of the bed anyway, and watched him searching efficiently through her duffel.

“Your Bondsman.” He emerged from the duffel with a pair of hip-riding trousers and a loose shirt. “You should be able to wear these and not mess your bandages up too much.”

Murchison helped her dress. His touch was asexual and oddly impersonal, and in a way she was glad of it. The last time a man’s hands had touched her in those places, it had been Nicholas Darwin, Jacob Bannson’s mole.

“I cut his throat,” she said suddenly. “And hung his body up for the carrion birds.”

“I know,” said Murchison. He was helping her on with her boots—tall boots—to make her into Anastasia Kerensky whether she felt like being Anastasia or not. “I was there.”

“What did they do with Marks and Dorn?”

“Out the air lock to space.”

“Good.” She was fully dressed now, armored in the identity of her rank and Bloodname, ready to go and walk alone among her Wolves. “Then our business here is finished, and it is time to make the jump to Terra.”

Highlander Encampment

Belgorod

Prefecture X

April 3134; local spring

In the regimental encampment near Belgorod, Tara Campbell lay awake. The night air was cold, but the weather in general had grown perceptibly warmer since she and her Highlanders had first arrived, and there was the smell of a thaw on the wind. She’d had a long day, followed by a long evening spent in discussing possible strategies and tactics—and the vexing question of just where, exactly, was Anastasia Kerensky—with her senior commanders. She’d collapsed at the end of it on the cot in her command tent and tried to sleep.

She could, she supposed, have taken a hotel room for herself in downtown Belgorod, or stayed in Geneva on The Republic’s hospitality. She could even have looked up one or another of her parents’ old Terran friends, either diplomatic or military, and begged for a place to stay from them.

She could have, but she didn’t. She’d been taught from childhood—by her parents and others—that she could not expect to lead men and women whose hardships, and even small inconveniences, she could not be bothered to share. If the Northwind Highlanders were going to be relegated by the Exarch and the Senate to freezing in tents on the Russian plain, the least the Countess of Northwind could do was freeze right along with them.

The sense of her own righteousness didn’t make her any warmer, unfortunately, or the cot any more comfortable. She was still awake well after midnight when her aide, Captain Bishop, appeared at the entrance to the tent and cleared her throat.

“There’s a message coming in for you, ma’am. At the communications tent.”

“Now?” Tara sat up, grabbed her fatigue trousers and blouse from the folding chair by the head of her cot, and started pulling them on in the dark. “Is it the Steel Wolves?”