Free Shifter Planet by D.B. Reynolds Page B

rumor was true, because the last thing she needed or wanted on Harp was a frustrated former fleet officer looking for someone to boss around.
    “Lieutenant.”
    And speaking of bossy fleet officers… She spun around and snapped a sharp salute. “Admiral Leveque, sir.”
    “At ease, Lieutenant.” He studied her face, squinting as if he thought he could discern who she really was if he stared hard enough. Or maybe he just thought if he squinted he could pretend she was someone else. Whichever it was, when he finally spoke, it was with obvious reluctance.
    “I’ve made the Leveque corporate communications network available to Elise,” he told her, radiating stiff disapproval. “It should be more reliable and faster than the military net, especially this far out. We maintain a considerable shipping presence along this galactic arm, and the ships bounce communications rather efficiently. It will make it easier for the two of you to stay in touch.”
    She concealed her surprise. “That was very kind of you, sir. Thank you.”
    He was silent a few more minutes, staring over her shoulder and pretending concern over some detail of the unloading process. Finally, he looked at her directly and said, “She deserved better.”
    She blinked. “Sir?”
    “Elise. She deserved better than what your father gave her.”
    The main thing her father had given Elise was Amanda herself. She granted Leveque the benefit of the doubt, however, and assumed he was referring to her father’s decision to let Elise go back into space without him, and to raise their child alone.
    “Yes, she did.” She wondered again at just how old the friendship between Leveque and her mother was.
    It was his turn to be surprised. “You look so much like him, I assumed—”
    She dared to interrupt. After all, in less than an hour, she’d be the last fleet officer left on the planet. “I am not my father, Admiral. I know I look like him, but I’ve never known him as anything except a blurry face on an old digital image from before I was born. My mother raised me, and it’s always been just the two of us. Everything I am, everything I have achieved, I owe to her and her alone.”
    Knowing what she now did about her father, she realized that might not be true, but it didn’t change how she felt about her mother. “She’s the strongest, most determined woman I have ever met,” she continued. “And I will miss her desperately.”
    Leveque frowned and stared down at his perfectly polished boots. He coughed nervously, then glanced up at her before looking away again. “You forgot beautiful.”
    “Sir?”
    “You forgot beautiful. Your mother is beautiful.”
    “No, sir,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “I don’t think anyone ever forgets beautiful when speaking of Elise Sumner.”
    He smiled at last, a quick curve of his lips that was there and gone. “Well.” He nodded over her shoulder. “The shuttle seems to be ready at last. I’d better get on board.” He gave her a brisk nod and started off.
    “Admiral?”
    He turned with an inquiring look.
    “Take care of her.”
    He nodded again. “I will do that, Lieutenant. Never fear. Good luck.”
    She came to attention, snapping a salute as he did the same. She relaxed when he turned away, watching until he disappeared inside the passenger compartment, until the loading bay doors whooshed shut with the sucking sound of vacuum seals, and the engines powered up so that she had to step to the edge of the field to avoid the backwash. She continued watching until the shuttle was nothing more than a speck in the cloudless sky.
    And then she walked away to begin the biggest adventure of her life.

Chapter Eight
    Harp, two weeks later
    A manda drew her long knife with a hiss of metal on leather, legs bent, weight distributed evenly as she slowly backed away, her eyes locked on the snarling mass of fur and teeth in front of her. The trees had been warning her for the last several minutes, so she