Martinez.

 Granted that Martinez had accepted the appointment with alacrity. Granted as well that there was some modest justification for this act of despotism: Martinez was the only one of the captains present with actual combat experience. But that experience consisted of stealingCorona and fleeing at top speed from the overwhelming enemy force at Magaria; it hadn’t consisted of commanding and maneuvering a squadron, the skill sets that Martinez needed at present, and which he was desperately trying to acquire.

 It was fortunate that the chance of encountering enemies on this mission was small. Faqforce had been ordered from Zanshaa to Hone-bar before the disaster at Magaria, and when word of the defeat came they had gone too far to turn around. When Martinez’s squadron reached its destination, it would swing around Hone-bar’s sun and head straight back to the capital to aid in its defense.

 It wasthen, most likely, thatCorona would need its combat skills.

 None of which altered the sad fact that Kamarullah was now on the comm, wanting to exult over his own ship’s flawless performance in the drill.

 “Tell him to stand by,” Martinez said. Instead of speaking to Kamarulla he paged his senior lieutenant, Dalkeith, who had spent the maneuver in Auxiliary Command. While he and his crew in Command had been maneuvering a virtual squadron through an exercise, Dalkeith had commanded the actual frigateCorona, keeping it on its steady 2.3 gravity acceleration for the wormhole that led to Hone-bar.

 The second-in-command’s voice lisped in Martinez’s ear. “This is Dalkeith.” He had been startled on first acquaintance with his premiere to discover that she possessed a child’s high-pitched voice in the body of a middle-aged, gray-haired woman.