Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) by Glynn Stewart (best e book reader TXT) 📕

Morgan blinked. She’d expected ASAP orders—at least for the Squadron Lord.

“Captain Casimir’s instructions are a formal transfer order,” Nitik clarified after a moment. “You’re being moved to Va!Tola under the First Fleet Lord’s command, sir.”

“Ah,” Morgan said. That made more sense. “I think I will need to pack and speak to Commander Rogers in that case.” She turned to Tan!Stalla.

“With your permission, Squadron Lord?”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Morgan told Rogers after she’d updated her subordinate.

“I’m not,” Rogers said. “Your family’s history with Tan!Shallegh goes back as far as humanity’s history with the Imperium. He trusts your mother beyond anyone else—and you’ve proven yourself worthy of similar trust in his eyes, I suspect.

“And now you’ve been at the center of the greatest potential crisis the Imperium has ever seen and been the one pulling together all of the data.” The redhead shrugged. “No one knows more than this team, but Tan!Shallegh needs his own Infinite analysis group. He might poach some of us later, but right now, he’s claiming you.”

“He’s the First Fleet Lord,” Morgan conceded. “If he thinks I’ll be more use there, that’s where I’ll be.”

“It also is where Dr. Dunst should be, isn’t it?”

Morgan snorted.

“The thought had occurred to me, but I was considering where I would be of more value to the Imperium, not where my boyfriend is,” she told Rogers. “My personal desires are secondary to the Imperium’s needs, Commander.”

“You’re still allowed to consider that a bonus, sir,” her former executive officer said. “Look, sir, you’re not disobeying the First Fleet Lord. The only real question in this case is whether you really should be bringing the rest of the analysis team with you—and that’s a discussion for you to have with Tan!Shallegh.

“Right now, I’ll take over the team here and we’ll continue our work while you sort out what the Grand Fleet needs,” Rogers told her. “The sky won’t fall in the next few cycles.”

“The Infinite might fall on somebody in that time,” Morgan said grimly. “But we’re too far away to do anything about it, anyway.

“I’ll check in with the rest of the team, but I also need to pack.” She chuckled. “What little I bothered to unpack. I had more space on Defiance.”

She’d had the Captain’s cabin on Defiance. Visiting officers’ quarters aboard a superbattleship were nicer than most of the officers’ quarters on a cruiser, but they still fell short of a Captain’s cabin anywhere. Rank hath its privileges, and all that.

“Go pack,” Rogers suggested. “I’ll wake the team up for a quick and dirty goodbye and get the wheels rolling. We’ve only got, what, a tenth-cycle?”

“Trust an XO to find the efficient path,” Morgan said with a chuckle. “I swear, Captains get rusty at that far too quickly—because our XOs are too damn good at it!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

There were no Marines or fancy escorts waiting when Morgan and Tan!Stalla disembarked from their shuttle. They’d apparently been ushered into the quietest shuttle bay anyone could find, and Morgan had a moment of panic wondering why.

Then she saw the two people waiting for them there. The first was the person she’d expected, the tentacled form of the highest-ranking officer of her own military service. The second, however, was a pudgily overweight and perpetually befuddled-looking academic with a stupid grin on his face.

Morgan managed to control her urge to do something ridiculously childlike and approached Tan!Shallegh and gave him a crisp salute.

“Sir, Captain Casimir reporting,” she said. “I have transfer orders.”

“I know what they say, Casimir,” Tan!Shallegh told her with a flash of red amusement on his skin. “I did write them.”

He turned to Tan!Stalla.

“Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla, Captain Casimir, welcome aboard Va!Tola,” he told them. “I keep meaning to transfer back aboard Sentinel, but there hasn’t been time. This is how the current flows, it seems. A split command is likely a wise choice as we proceed, in any case.”

Storm Sentinel was still listed as the flagship of the Grand Fleet, a somewhat older Majesty-class superbattleship. Va!Tola had been a later addition, as Morgan understood it, and the decision had been to send one of the Imperium’s biggest and most advanced ships to the peace conference.

“I have scheduled a staff briefing for you, Lord Tan!Stalla,” he continued. “Captain Casimir has likely seen most of the information anyway and can use the time to get herself settled in her new quarters.”

A!Tol deceived poorly, even when they were doing it for their own amusement. The flickering layers of red and yellow across Tan!Shallegh’s skin were a combination Morgan hadn’t seen before—she’d very rarely seen the tones that meant an A!Tol was lying.

“Dr. Dunst here has kindly offered to show Captain Casimir to her quarters while you and I attend the briefing,” Tan!Shallegh told Tan!Stalla. “Will that be acceptable, Captain Casimir?”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed, managing to not glare at her informal alien “uncle.” “When should I expect to report for duty, sir?”

“We have a meeting that I will need you to attend in one tenth-cycle,” Tan!Shallegh told her levelly. “I can’t give you more time than that, but I can give you that.”

Which, despite his skin tone betraying him, was clearly as close as he was going to get to admitting that he was setting up time for her to spend with her lover.

The quarters were significantly nicer than she’d been expecting. They weren’t generic visiting officers’ quarters, Morgan realized as she dropped herself on the bed.

“Whose room am I stealing?” she asked. “It’s not yours,” she noted as she patted the bed for Rin to join her. “It’s too clean.”

“I am not messy,” he countered—mostly truthfully.

“No, but this is basically brand-new levels of clean, not the room has been cleaned levels of clean,” Morgan said, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“I believe this is one of the quarters set aside for the Fleet Lord’s senior staff officers,” Rin admitted. “I know Tan!Shallegh’s staff is still split between here and Storm Sentinel, where they’ve been