Free Ascendant Sun: A New Novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro

They controlled their progress using cables that stretched across the hemisphere. Kelric exhilarated in the freedom of escaping gravity's tethers.

Members of the bridge crew were at their stations running preflight checks, each person secure within the exoskeleton of a console chair. Maccar introduced Kelric to them all: Nadick Steil, the executive officer, second in command, a stocky woman with brown hair cut short around her head; Larra Anatakala, the navigation and tracking officer, a gaunt woman with long legs and arms; and Ty Rillwater, the communications officer, whose small size and soft yellow hair made her look like a child compared to the others.

The weapons station was located between Communications and Navigation. However, Maccar took Kelric to a different console. Unique on the bridge, this one had psiphon capability. If the psiberweb had still existed, it could have boosted Kelric's mind into psiberspace. Even without the web, he could still use it to jack his brain into the Corona 's EI brain.

The station curved around its command chair, bringing its mobile control panels within easy reach of whoever sat there. Maccar took an auxiliary seat across the console while Kelric slid into the control chair. The exoskeleton folded around Kelric and its sensors studied him as if he were a new processing unit. It shifted position at his neck, back, wrists, and ankles. Then psiphon prongs clicked into the sockets in his neck and lower spine, the strong, silvery pins inserting through holes in his spacer's jumpsuit designed for that purpose. But when the prongs tried to insert into his wrists and ankles, they hit his guards.

Kelric pushed the exoskeleton up his arm, uncovering his wrist guard. He worked the psiphon prong under his guard and tried bending it into the socket. Apparently it wasn't flexible enough. Or maybe the meds that tended the socket no longer worked. In any case, the prong wouldn't click into place.

Maccar reached over to a comm panel on the console. "I'll have a bosun remove the guards."

Startled, Kelric glanced at him. "No."

The captain raised his eyebrows. "No?"

"I can't remove the guards."

Maccar considered him. "What was your Jagernaut rank?"

The non sequitur puzzled Kelric. "Tertiary."

"That's about equal to a Fleet rank of commander, isn't it?"

"About." He wondered what the captain was getting at.

Maccar leaned forward. "Understand me, mister. I don't give a kiss in hell how much of a loner you were as a Jag pilot. If I hire you, I expect the same adherence to the chain of command from you as from my other officers. If you have a problem with that, I don't want you on this ship."

Kelric stiffened. Of course he knew his position in a chain of command. Still, he wondered at his response. Had he become so used to his aristocratic civilian life on Coba that he had forgotten military discipline? He wouldn't have thought so, yet his automatic response to Maccar's implicit order had been a refusal.

He felt Maccar's mental debate. The captain was weighing his doubts about his prospective weapons officer against his need for Kelric's expertise. Before Kelric had a chance to respond, Maccar said, "I can't gamble, Commander Garlin. Where we're going, I can't take any risks."

"You won't be taking a risk," Kelric said. Maccar's use of the title Commander disoriented him. But it made sense; even if he had wanted his military rank known, which he didn't, using Tertiary on a civilian ship was inappropriate.

"And if you decide you can't follow another command?" Maccar started to unfasten the clasps that held his safety web in place. "The shuttle can take you back to Porthaven."

"Wait." Kelric didn't want his job interview to end before it even began. "You won't have any problem with my following orders, Captain. Call the bosun." Then he thought, Ixpar, I'm sorry.

Maccar glanced at the wrist guards. "Why don't you want to take them off?"

"They're from my wife."

The captain stiffened. "Hell's