Nemesis Rising by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty Nine

I waited in my quarters for an hour, back in my merc outfit.

But the Knight Marshal didn’t show up. Instead, Zac eventually popped up.

“Our cargo bays were all just suddenly filled. And as far as I can tell with a quick look, it’s only what we can sell here in the cluster in them. A substantial number of bank cards just appeared in the bank room as well. And I had a message from Admiral Waters. She says Bud will be by in the morning to brief you, but for now, he took everything saleable in the League to his station, and left everything saleable here in this system in the storage area the Keerah had set aside for you.”

“Did we get any actual orders?”

“Just a place to park, and a request we park like a military unit would.”

“Whatever that means. Anything else?”

“She said the rank is for show. If the tigers knew you were not a flag rank, and not even a captain rank, they’d discount you severely. Just you being female is bad enough, but without flag rank, you’d be a no-one female with ships they’d feel they could just dictate to.

“Instead, you’re someone they can work with. That’s why Growly let them think he was an admiral. Gets more respect from everyone. And the definition of marshal they were given also explains why you’re giving orders to an admiral. An admiral commands ships. You’re commanding ships, fighters, and troops, and they now think marshal is like one and a half stars, or some sort of senior commodore position. So for now, the order is, grin and bear it.”

“Shit.”

Commodore was normally a brevet rank to give someone a temporary grade boost to be able to give orders to others of their own rank. Normally it was used with captains in a fleet without an admiral, with one being made a commodore to be able to lead them. A senior commodore might be a one star needing to command other one stars for a while. It was an outdated concept, but still covered during midshipman training.

“Has Growly been informed of how we’re supposed to park?”

“He was. He gave some orders, and then went back to his tree.”

“Is there anything else we need to do other than show up? For that matter, why are we showing up at all now? We were going there to collect cargo. The cargo has been sorted, so we should be heading out again.”

“No to the first, and no idea to the second. I assume that’s what the briefing is for in the morning. Have you looked at that planet yet?”

“No, why?”

“Duh!”

I sighed, pulled up the navmap, and zoomed it in on the planet about an hour ahead of us now. And just gawked. I’d never seen a planet with so much around it. I should have expected it. I knew how many ships we’d sold them, but to see the shipyard and the massive rows of ships adjacent to it was frankly, amazing.

When

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