Shadow of Freedom

“Stop fishing for compliments!” she scolded. “I think he did, too.” She smiled warmly at him. “But your decision to…diversify with the boys—and go ahead and bring them all in at the highest level early—was a good one. All of them know exactly what’s going on, and they’re not afraid to argue with you. But despite that, you’re still all alone in a lot of ways.” Her smile faded into a look of sadness. “I wish you’d had someone else to help carry the full responsibility when you were the boys’ age. In fact, I wish you had someone else to carry it with you now. Because I think you’re right about the need to push Houdini harder, and I think the decision is going to haunt you.”

Albrecht reached across from his chair to touch her hand gently.

“It is,” he agreed with a crooked smile. “Of course, that’s true of a lot of decisions I’ve had to make, and it’s going to be true of a lot more before this is over. But you’re wrong in one respect. I may not have anyone else to carry the ultimate responsibility, but as you say, at least I’ve got you—and the boys—to help me deal with the hard jobs…and the ghosts. And that helps, Evie. It helps a lot.”

* * *

Michelle Henke scowled at her display, then flipped her chair to a semi-reclining position and transferred her scowl to the inoffensive, indirectly lit deckhead of her sleeping cabin.

She wore her favorite set of academy sweats and her fuzzy purple treecat slippers, and Billingsley had left her an entire extra doughnut. She appreciated his solicitude, his effort to pamper her while she dealt with this particular can of snakes, but she made a mental memo to remind him she didn’t have Honor Alexander-Harrington’s metabolism and ask him to find something with a few less calories. Carrot sticks perhaps, or maybe celery, even if she wasn’t a treecat. Dietitians had been producing calorie-neutral “foods” for centuries now, but Michelle was old-fashioned. If she was going to eat food, she wanted it to be food, not just a space filler. At least she wasn’t one of those people who used nanotech to scavenge calories, sugars, and fats out of her digestive system so she could gorge on whatever she wanted, although there were times…

No, she told herself firmly. Carrot sticks. It was definitely going to be carrot sticks. She felt quite virtuous and ever so decisive, and she made a firm resolution to start her new régimen the very next day. In the meantime, however, being a person of deplorably weak will, she was already halfway through doughnut number two.

Thought being mother to the deed, she reached for the doughnut again, only to pause as a pair of soup spoon-sized paws reached up to knead her thigh gently. She looked down into the desperately appealing eyes of an obviously starving waif of a Maine Coon cat who looked like he could take out a Pekingese with one whack of a paw…and then eat it in fifteen seconds flat, hair and all.

“No,” she told Dicey firmly. “If you want a doughnut, go catch your own, you rotten feline! Or at least go pester Chris for one. This one’s mine, calories and all!”

Dicey only kneaded her thigh harder, purring insistently. It sounded like a shuttle turbine that needed alignment, she thought, wondering how even a cat his size could produce such a volume.

“No!” she said even more firmly, shaking the doughnut at him for emphasis. “Mine, not yours!”

Dicey’s eyes followed the doughnut as millions of years of his ancestors’ eyes had followed small prey animals and birds, and the tip of his tail lashed. Then his purr stopped. That was all the warning Michelle had, and it wasn’t enough. With an agility that ought to have been impossible for a creature of his bulk, Dicey launched himself vertically. The paws which had been patting her thigh pleadingly struck with unerring accuracy, and he thumped back to the deck with a third of her remaining doughnut firmly in his possession.

“Come back here!” she said, starting to jump out of her chair. “I swear, I’m going to turn you into a vest, no matter what Chris says!”

Dicey paid her command no attention. He was too busy emulating a streak of light as he shot triumphantly out of her sleeping cabin and disappeared under one of her day cabin armchairs with his prize.

Michelle stopped halfway out of the chair and regarded the shard of doughnut she still retained. Then she shook her head, settled back, replaced the surviving fragment on its plate, and reached for her coffee instead.

Somehow it doesn’t strike me as a good omen when a damned cat’s tactics are better than the fleet CO’s, she thought. Probably something I should keep to myself. Wouldn’t want the troops to come to the same conclusion. Or for Beth to decide Dicey’d make a better admiral than I do!