Eleanora took a slightly deeper gulp of wine than was strictly polite, and looked over at Captain Pahner.

"I am the rest of the staff," she said coldly. Which meant that there had not been anyone to send ahead as an advance party. Which meant that once they got there, she would be running her ass off trying to set up all the minor details the staff should be handling. The staff that she was apparently chief of. That mysterious, magically invisible staff.

The captain was now well aware that he was wandering through a field of landmines. He smiled again, took a sip of wine, and turned to the engineering officer at his left to engage in casual chitchat that wasn't going to tick off a member of the Imperial Household.

Pahner moistened his lips with his wine again and looked over at Sergeant Major Kosutic. She was chatting quietly with the ship's bosun, and caught the look and simply raised her eyebrows as if to say, "Well, what you want me to do about it?" Pahner shrugged millimetrically in reply, and turned to the ensign at his left. What could any of them do about it?

CHAPTER THREE

Pahner tossed the electronic memo pad onto the desk in the tiny office of the Assault Complement Commander.

"I think that's about all the planning we can do without actually seeing the dirtside conditions," he told Kosutic, and the sergeant major shrugged philosophically.

"Well, frontier planets full of rugged individualists rarely spawn assassins, anyway, Boss."

"True enough," Pahner admitted. "But it's close enough to both Raiden-Winterhowe and the Saints to have me twitchy."

Kosutic nodded, but she knew better than to ask most of the questions that came to mind. Instead, she fingered her earlobe, where the sun-painted skull and crossbones glittered faintly, and then glanced at the antiquated watch on her wrist.