He scowled and faced her directly. “What are you not telling me?”
“Many things,” she laughed. “To start with, I will no longer need you as my First Officer.”
“Why not?” he growled.
“Because it is time for you to be the master of a ship. I’m going to promote you to be the captain of the Escolta. How does that suit you?”
His expression didn’t change. “If you were a normal human, I’d be ecstatically overjoyed, and elated. I would give you a hug that would crush bones. Since you are who you are, tell me what you have in mind.”
“I want you to captain the ship, consign the cargo, make the trades, and all that. You’re more than qualified.”
“I’ll do all the work while you sit in your cabin and watch me do all of it and send me critique messages?”
She laughed again. “You’ve earned the promotion. More than earned it. And no, I will not be in my cabin because it is yours, right next to the bridge where you should be. If I travel on this ship, I’ll either use a spare cabin or build one to my needs in the empty space.”
“You won’t be on the ship?” For the first time, his tone was shocked.
“Here’s the short story. I’m going to buy another, smaller ship. I have information on where I might find advanced technology to bring back and sell. I’m thinking of taking only three people with me.”
“You’re not going to strip my crew, are you?”
“No. All are new to us. There is a Digger who is incredible with computers and research, a Frog who is as tough and deceptive as they come, and a girl of about sixteen.”
“Kat? I’ve already heard a few hints of her. You should take one of our crew, a proven resource instead of her. She is hardly more than a child.”
“She’s from Prager Four, like me. We’re related. She is all the family I have.” The lies felt like spitting up cabbages. She hadn’t ever told her First Officer any, and now she was telling a big one.
He said, “With my advancement, there are promotions to be made. Will it be my duty to make them?”
“You are the captain, Captain.”
“I see,” he responded thoughtfully. “And understand. Tell me more about what you hope to achieve.”
“There are rumors. I want to follow up on them. And explore. We have a new friend in the form of the admiral of the Bradley Concord. She has provided me with information that I cannot share, not even with you. I will leave the ship in your name in case I fail to return. It will be yours.”
“You cannot do that.”
“I’ve already filed the paperwork here on Heshmat. Your promotion will leave a vacancy in the crew for your old position, and that person will leave another vacancy for you to fill. You will also have a new engineer to train, a boy who wants to learn. There will be an ex-steward that you will find that you can create a position for. Not as a steward. She needs to learn a trade, and probably more than one. Your hands will be full.”
Before he could ask more questions, especially some she couldn’t answer, she stood and unlocked the door, signaling the meeting was over. At the exit, she turned and said, “My things have been removed from the captain’s cabin. The coordinates where we need to travel are in the computer—Captain.”
She slipped out and firmly closed the door with a chuckle.
She’d done the hard part.
The Escolta was ready to depart Heshmat as soon as the crew was aboard. She used her wrist-comp to send a message to the entire crew telling them to return to the ship on time, which was well before departure. She also publicly congratulated the First Officer on his promotion to captain in another message. That would shake things up.
Her wrist-comp showed Kat was already aboard. She needed to hold a conversation about being related to the girl. She went directly to the cabin assigned to Kat.
She was trying on clothing. Kat had her dress uniform spread on her bed beside a stack of work-clothing. She had hung up or folded other clothing. Captain Stone realized the smile the girl wore was because Kat had probably never owned new clothing in her life.
Kat threw her arms wide. “Will you look at all this?”
Captain Stone was pleased but this was not the time for girl-talk. Again, she pulled a door closed behind her and sat, uninvited. “Kat, we need to have a quick but important talk.”
Kat sat in the other chair; the girlish expression exchanged for one of concern.
Captain Stone said, “Relax, you haven’t done anything wrong. But there are things you’re not aware of.”
Kat sighed with relief.
“Okay, my plan . . . our plan, is to return to the Bradley Concord as quickly as possible and share what we know about the invasion of the aquatic race. You and I are then going shopping for a ship. Bert and Fang are going with us.”
“To the rim?”
“Beyond. We are going to explore the area where we believe the aquatic race may have come from.”
“Is all this a secret? Is that why the door is closed?”
“No. There is another reason. My crew is perceptive. I’ve never taken on a crewman like you. You’re going to learn to act as an officer. You will stand watches on the bridge, begin making command decisions, and you’ll enter a period of intense training. My crew will want to know why you were chosen instead of one of them.”
Kat pursed her lips and hesitated before answering. “I’d like to know, too.”
“You are an empath. I’m sensitive. Chance, the steward who died was an empath.”
“I know that.”
“What you may not
