The interview was conducted in the wardroom, with several of his peers popping in and out and making various observations or throwing challenging questions her way. At the end of it the executive officer came in and asked a couple of tactics questions.

  Claire wasn’t even sure why they mattered. She turned to her boss.

  Lieutenant Loyd immediately told the exec that he would work with her to brush up on her tactical proficiency and run some sims for her now that she was on a fully functional Joseph-class ship. The exec snorted, pointing out that sims could be run just as easily in a yard as on a ship in space. He glared at Claire and told her that there would be no excuses for shirking her continued tactical education on this ship.

  The exec slapped a comp on the table. It was scrolled all the way to the end of a formal midshipman’s board for promotion to ensign and already signed by all the officers who had been dropping in and asking questions. The exec patted his pockets and then looked around with a pained expression. Claire produced a stylus from her pocket. The exec snatched it out of her hand scribbled the final signature and slapped his thumbprint down.

  Loyd and the exec stood. Claire stumbled to her feet, copying the others from Saganami-trained instinct.

  Commander Greentree’s clear tenor came from just to her left, calling for the exec to hand him the ship’s patch. Claire counted herself lucky that she wasn’t an easy blusher. The man was too gorgeous.

  According to Rustin, he had two wives. But on a commander’s salary, he could certainly afford a third—if, that was, he actually wanted one and if his first two wives could tolerate her. The Burdette Ladies were sure to comment on that. Greentree, for his part, seemed not even to notice her jerking her face away from him to cut off her lingering inspection of his body. Letting a boss know you like him is a horrible idea, Claire reminded herself. Why couldn’t he have been just a bit smelly like Captain Ayres or have dirty fingernails or something?

  The wardroom filled quickly with the Manasseh’s full officer complement while Claire concentrated on keeping her eyes off her CO. Rustin gave a little wave from the corner, giving two thumbs up paired with a giant grin. Not hopping up and down was probably surreptitious for the woman. Claire credited Rustin’s Saganami Island training for that.

  The Office of Personnel did not have a record of Claire’s oath for assuming the rank of ensign back on GNS Ephraim, Commander Greentree informed Claire in a voice meant to carry to the whole wardroom. His wry smile gave away that he was fully aware of all that he wasn’t saying. Blackbird Yard Public Affairs had not been able to locate a quality recording to send to Burdette Steading for the local news release. So, if she didn’t object to the irregularity, he’d just as soon hold the ceremony again here on Manasseh. He had Rustin provide him with some of her midshipwoman insignia and motioned for Rustin to switch out Claire’s collar and shoulder devices for the single silver collar pip of a midshipwoman.

  Commander Greentree shooed Rustin back to her corner vantage point and cued up the spacer drafted to capture the proceedings to begin recording. The exec called the assembled officers to attention and read off the official orders from the Grayson Space Navy Office authorizing Midshipwoman Claire Bedlam Lecroix to wear the rank of Ensign and assume all the duties and responsibilities of a commissioned officer of the Grayson Space Navy at the recommendation of Commander Phineas Greentree, Commanding Officer GNS Manasseh.

  The Ayres name was notably absent from the orders. Somehow Claire doubted that if Personnel had resent a copy of an old approval, they would have gone back and changed the requesting commanding officer’s name to the current reporting senior.

  Claire pulled her attention back as Commander Greentree administered her oath of office. She swore loyalty once again to Grayson, Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX, and the Office of the Protector. She would do her duty to God and her star nation and ever rise to meet the Tests set before her in the faithful performance of her duty. The words were so familiar that she had to focus to avoid embarrassing herself by switching up phrases with the common prayer for the Protectorate of Grayson or the Burdette Steading pledge of allegiance.

  Commander Greentree smiled rather broadly at her. It wasn’t fair. A man that lovely should know what he did to women and control himself better. Claire curled her toes inside her ship boots to distract herself from the whiff of aftershave as he leaned over to pin the two silver pips of an ensign to her collar and shoulder boards.

  She looked around the room, trying not to think about how it would feel if a man were clasping a necklace instead of pinning on rank insignia. She should think herself lucky to be here. Really, she should.

  So what if the Burdette Lady Steadholders worried that she was not going to find a man interested in even a third wife who was constantly away in the GSN? This was all a means to an end. She had a degree, after all, and a really quite amazing education at Saganami Island in the engineering of ship power systems and auxiliaries. Merchants used different systems. But, physics was physics. Claire resolved to continue studying for the technical-school certifications in those other merchant systems.

  A Grayson in-system shipper might not want to hire her, but there were others who did business in Yeltsin’s Star who wouldn’t mind hiring a young woman. A life could be built on Blackbird Yard that way. And who knew, she might meet someone who’d want a wife who could travel with him and knock out some of the qualifications required by Grayson Transit Control, thus saving him the cost of hiring extra hands.

  It was a cold plan, but Claire thought it might work. The GSN kept providing more and more training. The ship-combat simulations were completely useless for any long-term plans, but they’d been easy to avoid on the Ephraim. The Manasseh would not be much different. And even when Claire did have to waste time on them, ship-combat sims still beat washing dishes by hand when the restaurant had to wait to clear enough profit to buy the parts for fixing the dishwasher.

  The ceremony drew to a close with a burst of applause prompted by the exec, and at his chivvying, the officers made their way around the room to congratulate Claire one by one and welcome her to the ship. The lieutenants and higher ranked officers asked after her pastimes at Saganami, course of study, and so on. They seemed to listen to each other’s questions since they repeated questions only every fifth person or so.

  The midshipmen and ensigns offered a simple “congrats” or sometimes “welcome aboard and congratulations.”

  Rustin gave her a hug. Claire held her awkwardly and scanned the room for disapproval. That’s when she first saw the Royal Manticoran Navy exchange officer, a leering man with the broad frame that came of extreme athleticism in school followed by a few years of carb loading without the sport to burn the energy. As a Grayson, his rounded face might be just old enough to belong to a midshipman, but on the Mantie lieutenant commander it just meant he’d received the prolong life-extension treatment. She reexamined the Mantie and decided his expression couldn’t have actually been ill intended since the rest of the wardroom hadn’t reacted.

  Commander Greentree poked the exec in the ribs with his elbow. Too many side conversations muffled the words, but it was clear that the CO was celebrating having a second female officer onboard and chiding his exec for doubting that she and Rustin would get along like sisters.

  Claire didn’t have sisters or brothers. That was relatively rare among Grayson steaders, but it was well-nigh unheard of among the wealthy steadholder families. Unless of course, there was something very shameful going on, like infidelity leading to divorce and disownment or maybe a tragic death, or several.

  The next well wisher in line must have caught part of the CO’s comments. He paired his congratulations with a question on how her siblings would react to the news.

  “I’m an only child, Sir.” Claire felt her smile freeze as she surrendered information about herself that she had managed to keep hidden on Ephraim.

  The lieutenant gawked.

  An uncomfortable silence spread around the room, until Rustin, who was still only a few steps away, spun around and injected a cheery, “Well, she’s got me now, and I’m delighted.”

  The edge of battlesteel in Rustin’s voice was entirely surprising. Did Rustin really think she could protect anyone else when it seemed as if Rustin herself had spread her own whole life out for these people to dissect and judge?

  Claire pushed the confusion aside for now, focusing on the next potential attacker in line. There would be time in private later to try to figure out Rustin’s motivations and decide whether or not her apparent friend was actually capable of sealing her own shoes.

  Lieutenant Loyd was up next. The crease between his eyebrows seemed to imply that he hadn’t missed the wardroom undercurrent of speculation on sordidness in Claire’s family past. His slight smile could either be anticipation of skewering her with his question or an attempt to put her at ease.

  Claire tensed. If it was the second, he needn’t have bothered. Claire no longer believed that it was possible to be at ease in a public setting.

  Lieutenant Loyd made a joke about killing the Ephraim’s tactics officer twice in the next fleet exercise in retaliation for failing in Claire’s tactics training, which got their corner of the room chuckling again. It seemed that the Manasseh wardroom was proud of Lieutenant Loyd’s prowess in the tactical simulations, and they didn’t seem to think he was boasting beyond his ability to deliver.

  The last questioner turned back and suggested that the group horse up Claire so that she could be the one to represent the Manasseh and take down the Ephraim.

  That suggestion was greeted with howls of approval.

  Claire flinched at little at the implication that her old ship was so far behind Manasseh that they thought they could send a just-passed ensign up against lieutenants and lieutenant commanders in the sims and fully expect to win. What did they do, live in the tactics simulators on this ship? Commander Greentree was a Protector’s Own officer, sure, and those were known to be hard over on training time, but could it really make that much difference? Claire was pretty sure that Captain Ayres had made certain the lieutenants and lieutenant commanders did the fleet requirement of four hours in the simulators each week.

  Lieutenant Loyd finished up his impromptu monologue on how Claire was going to shine as a tactician with a claim that she’d be the best ensign to come out of Owens Steading since Abigail Hearns.

  Commander Greentree lost his recruiter vid star grin to a careful blankness. The master chief had reported back apparently.

  Claire realized that she’d have to share another bombshell. “Actually, I come from Burdette Steading, Sir.”

  Several of the listening officers repeated the steading name for the ones in the back, and this time the entire wardroom stared at her, shocked.

  The exec broke the silence from all the way across the room this time. “Wait a minute here, Ensign Lecroix. That was entirely left out of the officer’s biography sent over from the Ephraim. You gotta tell us how you got a Saganami Island nomination out of Steadholder Burdette.”

  Claire swallowed, carefully marshalling her thoughts to try to explain without saying anything that would be horribly misinterpreted, either here in this company or back on Burdette Steading. The less said the better, but this group didn’t seem interested in letting this one go without a full explanation. First, brush over the dueling death of Lord William Fitzclarence. No, be honest at least in your thoughts, she reminded herself. It must have been at least an attempted murder of Admiral Alexander-Harrington. She could see in the group’s eyes that they were all thinking about how the last Steadholder Burdette had done his best to kill Admiral Harrington, the first and most impressive woman to wear a uniform in defense of Grayson.

  “Um.” Great, Claire, she told herself, brilliant start. “Lord Burdette was good enough to nominate me for a position, Sir.”

  She paused as some of the officers murmured to each other that this was Nathan Fitzclarence, the cousin who had inherited the steadholder position after William’s duel.

  Lieutenant Loyd watched Claire with his lips parted as if he were trying to find a way to ask more without taking her into another orbital minefield. She wished he’d just stop and let the subject change.

  “What was he thinking?” The lieutenant finally asked, and Claire tried to shrink into the wall.

  “Steadholder Owens sent Abigail Hearns the year before,” she said. “The Protector seemed to approve . . .” Claire did blush now, and fiercely. “I really don’t understand all the politics, Sir, but Lord Burdette was only interested in nominating girls that year. Our elder said, ah, not very nice things, but Lord Burdette said that we were to try, and when it got too much for our, um, sensibilities he’d see what he could do to help us marry properly. But that he had to show Cr—”

  The CO coughed, loudly, and Claire realized she had almost said Crazy Benjie, the barroom nickname for the protector common under the old Steadholder Burdette.

  “Ah, he said he had to show Protector Benjamin that Grayson women weren’t meant to be like Steadholder Harrington.”

  A baffled silence followed, and even Rustin seemed completely speechless.

  Lieutenant Loyd spoke first with: “I’m totally lost. You were sent to Saganami Island with directions to quit. So what happened?”

  Claire just glared at him, entirely forgetting the last five years of carefully developed military courtesies. “It’s a good job.”

  Loyd’s jaw dropped again, but in a wide, open-mouthed smile. He turned to Commander Greentree and the exec. He called across the room, as if everyone hadn’t already heard Claire’s response, “It’s a good job, Captain.”

  Claire contained her glare, barely, by keeping it focused on her amused lieutenant instead of her CO.

  “A steader can’t just quit a good job.” Her intended soft reply rasped with anger, carrying clearly back across the room, and she strangled the volume back to a whisper in an attempt to control the thoughts spilling out. “I got people to keep fed, you—” She managed to not use the disparaging term for scions of steadholder families that came to mind.

  Claire pleaded with her lieutenant, “Sir, I can’t go dropping a good job just ’cause someone thinks it should be too hard.”

  Her bottled rage simmered as she thought: Hard? What did a steadholder’s family know about hard jobs anyway?

  Lieutenant Loyd just stood in front of her shaking, with laughter, interpreting her fury as just slightly off-color humor.

  The next man had to take several minutes to finish guffawing before asking his question. Now all the questions were about Burdette. None of them noticed that she didn’t find her situation funny. It didn’t seem to matter what she said. They all thought it was a phenomenal joke.

  Most of them now said things on the theme of “Can’t keep a good steader down.” Slowly Claire realized that most of the other officers thought that they were steaders themselves and identified with her for all that they had family influence that far exceeded anything a Bedlam might expect to gather. That family influence, from Claire’s perspective, came from connections to steadholders, but if they all wanted to spontaneously adopt her, who was she to argue? Claire filed this all away to try to figure out later if they were all somehow mocking her in a way she just didn’t understand yet.

  Lieutenant Loyd planted himself next to her in the receiving line as the rest of the officers came around with their congratulations and questions. When she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, he only smiled again and announced that he needed to be the first to hear whatever other stories his new ensign had to tell, since he absolutely refused to hear them secondhand from another department head.

  The lieutenant also shot down questions with quick regularity if they prompted Claire to wedge herself too far back against the wardroom bulkhead. She watched for warning signs in his unasked-for protection, but he didn’t touch or crowd or emit any of the subtle markers of a man intending to control her. If anything, he was policing the rest of the wardroom, and Claire tried to force herself to calm down and regain a measure of composure.

  The last of the officers wound through the line, with the Mantie bringing up the rear. He approached with a slightly odd gait, like he was trying to imitate a vid actor. He had a nice smile and hadn’t seemed to follow the laughter that had infected the rest of the wardroom. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Commander Kevin Lockhart, but “Call me Kevin,” and told Claire to meet him later if she wanted some watch signatures.

  Rustin watched him leave with pursed lips.

  * * *

  Claire pinned another invitation from the Ephraim’s Wives’ Club on her blotter, half listening and half ignoring Rustin as she chattered on about the latest thing to happen with her division. Her roommate had been even happier than usual, nearly bouncing off the walls for the last couple days since her division had gotten near-perfect marks on the laser-shooting qualification. Commander Greentree was pleased and in a good mood about it, which naturally transferred down to the entire wardroom and crew complement. The CO was pretty good about keeping his bad days from overly affecting his ship, but a commander’s actions and inactions decided so much about daily life of a ship that there was no way for his personality not to affect them. Claire had considered using this time to try to float a leave-request chit to take two weeks off to attend a merchant life-support systems advanced technician’s qualification cram session and certification exam. Actually, she had more than considered it; she had tried. The exec hadn’t routed the chit, as far as she could tell, so she’d actually printed the thing and taken the papers herself to the CO during his office hours. He’d refused it. Request denied.

  Claire stared at her screen trying not to cry . . . and failing. This was like the Ephraim all over again, except that there she actually expected it, so she hadn’t relaxed and gotten gut-punched like this. Rustin was composing a letter to her little sister again, so it wasn’t like she would actually notice that Claire wasn’t paying attention or really responding. Claire kept her face averted and let the tears spill down her face.