The Serrano Succession Read Free Page A

already knew—had no doubts about her toughness. They were well aware that Lepescu had been her mentor, that she had supported his agenda. Carefully disguised in her duffle were slivers of the ears she had taken; when it had become imprudent to keep these proofs of her status, she had sliced them thin herself and found hiding places for them.
     
    She had Hunted, in the oldest Hunt of all; she had killed. She had survived the Hunt on Sirialis, having left to take command of a ship before the game ended with Lepescu dead and Heris Serrano once more in favor with Fleet brass. But no one knew it. They were all dead, and the prisoners she'd hunted had never seen her face. Her luck was strong, and her skills—she would match her skills against Serrano directly some day; she knew she would win.
     
    She looked past the guards, past the force screen, to the prisoners in their drab ranks. In there she also had potential allies. In time.
     
    Tolin left at last, in the whining aircar. She wished him a nasty storm on the way to the mainland, but it didn't really matter. Let him live—and let him realize someday just what he'd seen, in their brief exchange.
     
    The ceremony over, Pilar summoned her staff. They were unwise enough to look surprised; she allowed herself a tight smile on the way to her office, thinking how soon they would learn what she was like.
     
     
     
    On the mainland, at Main Base, autumn had not yet moderated a brutally hot summer. It had been a dry year, and now fine reddish dust turned the sky dirty brown as the wind lifted it high into the atmosphere.
     
    In this kind of weather, everyone who could get offbase privileges spent hours in Q-town's bars, drinking whatever was coldest. Even combat veterans accepted the crowd in their favorite watering hole. It was too hot, and too miserable, to complain.
     
    Margiu Pardalt, newly graduated from the Academy, and the only Xavierine in her class, had a habit of coming tops in her classes. She had to; she had to do something to make up for her sister Masiu, killed by raiders years ago. Masiu had been the family genius: brilliant, brave, everything a family could hope for. Margiu was second-best, and knew it—a poor replacement for the fallen hero—so it was up to her to make her mark, to be Masiu's memorial. Her place in the Academy had been a gift from the Familias in memory of Masiu. Her place in the universe was to be her gift in return.
     
    She had earned an evening's liberty by coming first in her class yet again at Copper Mountain, and she thought it fitting that her free hours came at a time when no rational person could enjoy them. She'd have stayed in her quarters, but her training CO had told her to get off the base—and orders were orders.
     
    Another gust of wind howled down Q-town's main street and filled her nose with hot stinging dust. She sneezed, and her eyes watered. It reminded her too much of the Benignity's scorch of Xavier, when she and her family had wrapped torn sheets around their heads for weeks to filter the dust and ash.
     
    Ahead, on the right, she spotted a doorway just opening as someone came out, and a gush of cooler air brushed her side. She turned into it.
     
    It was only moderately crowded—less crowded than the two bars she'd glanced into and left—and smelled of food as much as drink. Margiu made her way to one of the open booths, and slid in, then looked around. The tables and seats looked a little strange, until she realized they were meant to look like ship parts. No, they were ship parts. Her quick glance took in the long dark bar—obviously hull material. The models—obviously military vessels. The battle honors hung on the walls, the photographs.
     
    It was a shrine, then. Margiu felt obscurely comforted, and lowered her head to pray for the dead and the survivors alike. Her family were Synorhines; she had learned the right forms for valediction and commemoration from early childhood.
     
    "Do you need help?"