Change of Command

The shuttle approached, and Rebecca looked through the port toward her new command. She didn't have the sleek lines of a typical warship with the hammerhead shape to hold chase armament. Instead she was merely a cylinder with the narrowed ends chopped off of a merchantman. She dwarfed anything smaller than a Superdreadnought, but unlike that warship she was a slug. Even after the addition of the new inertial compensator, she could barely pull 208gs, a merely 2 kilometers per second squared compared to the newer Invictus class SDs that could pull four and a half.

But she wasn't supposed to be a warship when an enemy saw her. They had been built to sucker in Silesian pirates and destroy them, and the record of operation Trojan Horse proved their worth. The 24 units of that operation had killed two battle cruisers, 11 heavy cruisers, 17 light cruisers 25 destroyers and fifty smaller craft, for the loss of only three. Of those lost only one, HMS Wayfarer, had been destroyed by enemy action. The other two had won their last battles, but had been considered too badly damaged to be worth repair. Those had been scrapped.

The ship did not have a boat bay; instead it had an enclosed portion of hold #2 where cargo shuttles could land inside. Even with the two pinnaces and four cargo shuttles already there, the was more than enough room for the new arrival. Once it had settled to the deck, the massive cargo bay door closed, and the huge compartment was pressurized. The chief of the boat checked the pressure, then cracked the hatch. Rebecca picked up her briefcase, put on her white beret, and stood as he did. The air had that odd tang all ships had. Nothing like the living breath of a planet, but since the Caravans were large enough to have a hydroponics bay, there was some planet smells. Four sideboys stood at the entrance, and they snapped to attention as she appeared.

"Witch Maiden arriving." She walked down the ramp and the instant her foot touched the deck the ranked Marines snapped to attention at the call, 'Witch Maiden aboard."

She looked at the earnest young face of an Ensign, then snapped a salute. "Request permission to come aboard?"

"Permission granted, ma'am." The young man answered. He was a third generation prelong recipient, and looked as if he were fourteen T years old. His voice even squeaked a little.

A tall man her own age stepped around the boy, and Rebecca blinked. She had known who her Executive officer would be, but she had not expected the cream and brown shape on his shoulder.

"Captain Duvalier." He reached out, and she shook the offered hand. Gaelin Watson was a Sphinxian, and he, like Dame Honor Harrington was tall and well muscled. His blond hair was tied back into a pony tail. She nodded gravely to him, then motioned toward the treecat on his shoulder. "I see you have something new to report, number one."

He laughed, eyes bright with delight. "Happened on my last leave. Captain, may I introduce Holmes." He motioned to the treecat. She reached up, and Holmes took her finger to shake hands with her. If anything, his eyes were more delighted than his human.

"Why not merely Sherlock?" She asked.

"Well you know how people answer when you state something so obvious the only answer is sarcasm?" She nodded. "I didn't want people to add that when they met him."

"Ah."

"If you will follow me, Ma'am?" They walked across the cavernous bay to one of the personal lifts. It closed, and shot upward. As it did, Gaelin hugged her, lifting her off her feet.

"Put me down Gaelin, or I'm going to knee you in the groin." He did laughing. It had been almost four years since they had last met. She had been a year ahead of him at Saganami Island, and had spent most of that assigned first to 6th fleet, then Home fleet. They had always met in passing, one going to another assignment as the other was going the opposite direction. Now she was two ranks senior, and she still enjoyed seeing him.

"Status?"

"The last of the cargo pallets came aboard last shift. All of our passengers are aboard. All we were waiting on was you and our resident spook."

"How did you know, Gaelin?" She asked suddenly tense.

"Remember, one year behind? I read your thesis when I became a senior. She's been all over the ship settling in her team, and I do have eyes."

"Let's hope the enemy isn't as insightful."

The lift opened on the bridge deck, and they walked down the companionway to the bridge itself. There were little changes from the last time she had stood here, the tactical section had been upgraded with enough data links to handle a salvo worthy of a Medusa, and communications held a new grav pulse transmitter/receiver station. She ran her hand across the back of the tactical officer's chair. That had been hers last time she stood there. But then she walked past it to the captain's chair. She hit the all hands chime, then, as everyone aboard looked up- from their work she reached into her tunic, and pulled out the crisp vellum sheet of her orders.

"From Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez, Fifth Space Lord, Royal Manticoran Navy," she

read, "to Captain Rebecca Duvalier, Royal Manticoran Navy, Twenty-third Day, eighth Month, Year Two Hundred and Ninety-seven After Landing.

"Madam: You are hereby directed and required to proceed aboard Her Majesty's Starship Witch Maiden, Fleet Collier 171 there to take upon yourself the duties and responsibilities of commanding officer in the service of the Crown. Fail not in this charge at your peril.

"By order of Admiral Hamish Alexander, Earl of White Haven, First Lord of the Admiralty, Royal Manticoran Navy, for Her Majesty the Queen."

She fell silent and refolded her orders."People we depart on our cruise within the next four hours. Contact your superiors if there is anything that has to be amended in that time. But we will depart on schedule if I have to get you all out to push." She paused, sending a mock glare at the pick up. "That is if someone doesn't hot wire the ship themselves in the interim."

She shut off the pick up, looking at Gaelin who was stifling laughter. "You were always so... abrupt in your humor, Captain."

She gave him a gamin grin. Her exec motioned to a small group standing nearby. "May I introduce your officers?" She nodded regally. "Commander Collins, our chief engineer. Speaking of hot-wiring something, he will have to tell you what he did as a teenager, The judge gave him a choice, fifteen years or the Navy. Lucky for us, he chose the Navy." The man blushed, looking down before shaking her hand.

"I've heard about you, Mister Collins. You made Mustang after your first deployment on the old battlecruiser Achilles."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Lieutenant Hughes, our tac officer," The woman looked like she had been hammered our of duralloy, and her grip was firm.

"Surgeon Lieutenant Jeffereys, our doctor," Jeffereys was a thin spare balding man with old fashioned spectacles.

"I see you don't regen, lieutenant."

"Yes, ma'am. That's part of the reason I became a doctor, to see if there were ways around that for others."

"Major Reardon, commanding our Marine detachment," The man looked like he had stepped off a recruiting poster. While his rank was Captain, it was standard procedure to give a Marine or naval captain a courtesy rank of Major (or commodore for the navy) to avoid confusion. There could only be one captain aboard a ship.

"Lieutenant Heinreid, our com officer," The woman had a distracted look, but having dealt with other officers that hid rapier sharp minds, Rebecca did not assume inattentiveness.

"Lieutenant O'Malley, our astrogator." The woman had the look almost of a perky bird, spying everything about her. Her handshake was almost perfunctory.

"Any relation to Admiral O'Malley?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I believe he is a second cousin on my father's side."

"Lieutenant Danials, our logistics officer." The man had the look of a typical bean counter worried about the last grain of rice, but his smile was wide.

"And last but not least, Lieutenant Suggins, Flight Ops officer." The young woman was wearing a Grayson Navy uniform rather than the Manticoran of everyone else.

"I thought flight ops had been removed during the refits."

"Our ship was one of the last, and somehow she slipped through the cracks. Part of what they were doing when she returned from Andermani service was updating the layout of our LAC bays. We still carry twelve LACs, only now they are seven Shrike Bs, three Katanas, and two Ferret Cs." The woman explained

Rebecca nodded gravely. "But that doesn't explain how we have a Grayson squadron aboard. I thought they were kept in the Grayson navy." From a lot of Manticoran officers, it would have been a challenge, but the sterling work that small navy had done during two wars had put paid to such an insult. Her voice held no sarcasm, merely curiosity.

"Our CLAC was pretty badly shot up during the Battle of Manticore, Ma'am" The young woman replied. "We had been seconded to Admiral Truman's squadron."

'Badly shot up' was an understatement. None of Truman's ships had been capable of recovering their birds afterward, not that a lot had remained.

"Which ship were you originally assigned to?"

"GSN Mordechai. We lost sixty percent of our LACs in that fight, ten out of twelve birds in my own squadron." The accent wasn't really Grayson, it had the same basic tones, but it was... different; like the difference between people from East Prussia and Bavaria in Germany.

The name niggled at her, then it clicked. "You were one of the Masadan Refugees that relocated to Grayson."

The girl's head came up. "Yes ma'am. My father was Chief Elder Suggins. I was eight when we came to Harrington Steading, and our Steadholder was the one that appointed me to Saganami Island."

Rebecca reached out barely touching a sapphire blue ribbon with a small shield on it. "If I remember my foreign decorations, I see you've repaid her, lieutenant. Isn't that the Grayson Shield?" The award was equivalent to the Manticoran Order of Gallantry.

The girl seemed to swell with pride. "Yes Ma'am. My squadron killed a battlecruiser and two heavy cruisers. I was the senior survivor."

Like any major military disaster where you won, medals had fallen like rain on the survivors. Beside that medal was the Monarch's thanks, next to the Grayson Protector's Gratitude.

"That explains the medals. But why is your squadron assigned to this ship?"

"When they asked for a volunteer squadron, I asked for the assignment, as did all of my people whether Grayson or Manticoran. The Katanas are all Grayson, but the others came from squadrons that had been decimated in that same battle."

"Well let's hope there isn't too much for your team to do in this deployment. But if it hits the fan, I expect your best."

"You'll get it, Ma'am."

"I would like to invite you all to dinner after we leave Beowulf space. If I am correct, and I always am," there was a polite chuckle at that, "we should be in hyper from there around 0900 tomorrow, so I expect to see you all at 1900."

While a polite invitation, no one in his right mind would refuse to dine with their commanding officer. She nodded to them. "While the Exec and I discuss our passengers, the rest of you have things to do. Let's be about it."

Light Dinner Conversation

Chief Steward Oselli had outdone himself, Rebecca thought. The food had been superb, the service both expert and ubiquitous. She looked down the long table. All of her officers were there, including Midshpman Michael Tregant on his first deployment, and ensign Kian Von Stueben from Kiel's staff. Along with her officers were the four senior passengers, three captains (all list and senior to her), and Commodore Joaquin Hernandez all headed out to assume command of different stations.

They had all laughed at Martin's story of how he'd been caught hot wiring the Solarian League Ambassador's limousine when that worthy had been at the opera. It might have worked if he hadn't been caught by an alert security guard as he tried to drive it out. It had almost come down to farce when the young man had tried to claim diplomatic immunity at his trial; after all, the security guard should have ignored his age, but not ignored the Solarian League flag on it's bumper. Rebecca looked down the table, and when she had caught the eyes of Tregant, touched her wine glass. The boy blushed, grabbed his own glass and stood.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Queen!" He said.

"The Queen!" Everyone drank. But before anyone could react beyond that, Suggins stood.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," she said, "I give you Grayson, the Keys, the Sword, and the Tester!"

The Manticoran officers replied, the Andermani a bit slower; after all, they had been allies only a few years, and had probably never heard the Grayson Loyalty oath. Not to be outdone, ensign Von Stueben stood. His voice was almost a shout. "Damen und Herren, gebe ich Ihnen das Kaiser, das Kaiserin, den Kronprinz und die Kronprinzessin!"

The reply in English, toasted the Emperor, his wife, his son and heir, and that man's wife.

Commodore Hernandez stood, surprising everyone. "Compadres, Viva la Raza!"

"Amen!" Shouted a voice from the far end of the table. Everyone looked at Tregant, who blushed even deeper than before.

Then the commodore grinning widely sat.

"I haven't heard that last toast before." Rebecca said. "Though it appears that our young protege down there has."

"It is the old loyalty toast of the San Martin Navy before the old People's Republic conquered us." Hernandez replied. Like all people from that world, he was stocky, built almost like a piece of machinery. "It was still used by every refugee from that conflict up to the present, a way to remember that we had been pushed out of our home, but would one day return. When our planet became the fifth member of the Manticoran home worlds, we were allowed to revive it.

"Unlike your other toasts, it must be called by the senior San Martin officer, and answered by the junior. If your young man had not given it, I would have given the reply."

"My roommate at Saganami Island was one of them, so I got to hear it every day, even though he made it almost a religious experience." Tregant replied defensively, causing another ripple of laughter. "Well the way he did it every night before going to bed made it almost a religious experience, like he was saying his nightly prayers."

"A prayer finally answered, young man." Hernandez replied.

"Aren't you a bit senior to be assuming what amounts to be only half a squadron, sir?" Millicent Heinreid asked.

"You are correct, Lieutenant." The man nodded. "However between here and Adelaide, I have another duty. You see, a number of the officers we will be delivering to have been out on the limb for as much as two years."

"But they should maintain station for only a T year to eighteen months." Marcus Danials said. "The machinery would take two years if necessary, but the crews? They must be riding the ragged edge of fatigue. Were they allowed shore leave?"

"On a Sollie world?" Hernandez snorted. "On Beowulf and maybe Earth we could have a fine old time. On most of them however they pay more attention to the newsies controlled by the Department of Education and Information. According to them, we're not far from the Golden Horde or the old Mexican Banditios of my own prehistory. Steal what you can and rape every woman between six and ninety-six before burning it all down.

"Then right after Byng went to his reward, the rules changed. Battle Fleet demanded that no ships could leave station to be replaced unless all of them are. That was fine on this side of the League, but then they refused to allow us to relieve the last five on our route via the Quadrant, so the new ships had to travel from Beowulf, over five months one way. Termagant is one of those."

"Well at least Beowulf went like clockwork." Siobhan O'Malley replied. Of course, the Beowulf station was more of a tripwire than anything else. There was no delivery beyond the war warning and some replacements; after all as much as the Sollies hated Manticore, Beowulf loved them. In fact their navy not only acted as a primary shield for the local Wormhole terminus, but also allowed the crews of those ships shore leave on the planet; sort of like visiting Bangkok, Subic Bay, the Ginza, Shinjuku or Stockholm back in the 1st Century Pre-Diaspora. Places known for the...variety of onshore entertainment, at least by reputation.

Fifteen crewmen had been delivered, but instead of picking up those being replaced up to go along, it was merely a quick jaunt for a passenger ship back to Manticore, so they didn't have to wait the eight months before Witch Maiden returned via the Lynx Terminus.

"May all of our deliveries go as well." Patrick Reardon said.

"Amen, Major." Gaelin lifted his glass as if toasting.

"Amen." the other officers repeated.

Stowaway

Rebecca sighed, pulling off her dress uniform tunic, and shrugging into her undress one. "Going out again, Ma'am?" She looked up as her steward came in with the cup of cocoa she always had before bed.

"You know my routine by now, Os." She chided. "First night, walk the ship to get a feel for her."

"But you did that last night." His reply was just as chiding.

"Os, this ship dwarfs every command I have had."

"But you have served on her before. Did you not 'get a feel for her' then?"

"But then I was merely the tactical officer. So I got a feel for my department. That is less than ten percent of what I hold now. Put the cocoa on the warmer, Os, I'll be back within the hour."

"And who gets the honor of your surprise appearance this evening?"

"Flight ops. But don't tell them before I show up."

"I would never do such a thing."

"Never? What about Impeller one aboard Loki?"

"That is a base canard, ma'am. It was one of the techs who rigged the scanner that caught you there. After all, he had served aboard Charger when you were in command."

"Yeah, right. A tech who happened to have a pie recipe you wanted perhaps?" She finished buttoning the tunic. "Back in a few."

"Captain?" She paused at the hatch, looking back. Oselli smiled gently. "Admit it, sir, you did like that pie." She merely shook her head, and opened the hatch. The marine outside her door snapped to, and she waved him back to rest. There were three lifts that led to officer's country; one each fore and aft, the third across from her cabin which went directly to the bridge. She would never use the bridge access one for these midnight forays; too obvious. She decided on the aft lift, turning to head that way.

As she approached the doors, the lift snapped open, There was no human in it, rather Holmes was there, hunkered down. He looked up, then picked up something in his mouth and charged toward, then past her. She caught a glimpse of something furry in his mouth as he passed, and she spun, watching him charge down to the first passageway to the left. An instant later she was running after him.

She reached the door she had anticipated, slamming her finger on the annunciator. There was no reply and she punched it again and again. The door opened, Gaelin looked surprised, dressed in a robe, rubbing his head with a towel as he looked out. "Yes, capt-" she went past him, scanning the cabin.

"Where is he?"

"Ma'am?"

"Your furry minion! Where is he?"

There was a bleek, and Holmes stalked out of the sleeping compartment. He sat, tail curled around his paws, and gave her a look. She had heard the term 'butter would not melt in his mouth' but until she saw his oh so innocent look she had never really understood it.

"Where is it?" she demanded of the cat. The cat signaled with his hands.

"Answer her question, Holmes." Gaelin demanded as she looked at him confused.

"I went bush at home because I had heard about the study done by Professor Arif and Admiral Harrington's mother. The treecats are admitting how intelligent they are, and the professor has been teaching them sign language. When you asked where is it, he replied, 'where is what'."

"And when did he have time to attend this professor's school?"

"That's the thing; Arif has proven that the cats are not only empathic with us, they are telepathic with their own. Show one treecat how to sign, and within a week every tribe for 50 klicks knows how. I picked it up when I heard, just for the chance to say hi before he picked me."

There was a querulous 'meow' and Rebecca spun. Holmes looked like a cuckolding lover trying to explain why the woman he was with wasn't there just as she comes out of the bath with her hair wrapped in a towel.

"Damn it, Holmes, you have to know the rules! Regulations say no pets on board ships! Not even for you!"

The cat signaled, and Gaelin translated. "I found her in the hydroponics bay. She was lonely and distraught. Someone must have brought her aboard and left her here."

"Wait!" Rebecca waved her hands. "You mean one of those people we dropped of in Beowulf brought a cat aboard my ship. Then when they realized the regs said they couldn't have it, they abandoned it here?"

"She." Holmes challenged. "She is young but not an it."

"Great, what is she, Holmes, your new girlfriend?"

"Irene Adler." Rebecca look at Gaelin confused. "Sherlock Holmes' love interest in the stories."

Holmes pointed his first two finger to the left, then curled his right true hand into an upright fist with all fingers facing toward them, then repeated them, then brought both true hands into a shape like a ball he then pulled apart, brought his right true hand up facing to his left with the index finger pointed upward, moving the finger sharply several times as if nudging something to his left before stalking off in disgust.

"What was that supposed to mean?"

"He said, 'Ha, ha. Very funny'."

She heard the meow again. As she and the treecat (with Gealin's help) had been talking, the kitten had walked over, to stand with her paws set on the captain's left foot, looking up. It was a white Persian cat with the bright blue eyes of at least one Siamese ancestor.

She was not going to fall prey to a pair of baby blues. "Contact the Bosun and the Master at Arms. I want-" She hissed. Unwilling to be ignored, the kitten had leaped straight up, climbing her leg with twenty piton like claws.

Great, she thought. Twenty years learning my profession, getting shot at, losing my last ship, and suddenly I'm Mount Duvalier for some stupid cat! She caught it by the scruff of the neck, and the instant she lifted it, the claws slid into hiding, the legs curled up, and she gave a sonorous purr.

Rebecca set the purring bundle in the crook of her arm. "as I was saying, a full forensic sweep of the compartments those people were in. I want to know who had cat fur on his uniform when he left, because there is going to be hell to pay when I find out."

Gaelin stepped over to her, then bent. He stood, a small tuft of white fur in his fingertips. "We will find everyone else with cat fur, Captain."

"As your furry minion said, ha, ha." She handed him the cat. "Find someone to take care of this fur ball."