The Lone Dome; meetings on the final frontier.

[Jane Hartman]

"Thank you Commander, but I think I'll stand."

Hartman stood, palms resting neatly behind her, listened, and did her utmost not to betray the growing sense of disorientation nestling in her gut as the two spoke. Valhalla-1? Gamma 7? It was just noise to her. Code-names and cryptics, and she didn't have the cipher. This was Lewis' territory, through and through. She was a Logistics Officer. A glorified supply clerk, when you got down under the ribbons. Oh, she'd been a marine once, been a warship commander. But Lewis had been right. The years and the desk job had made her soft. An assignment with the First Fleet didn't change that, no matter how she twisted it in her mind. She was horribly, crushingly, out of her depth.

Still, she knew enough not to show her ignorance. That was one of the first thing she'd learned at West Point, and perhaps the most valuable of the lot. Confidence. Bluster. No-one ever knew what they were doing, but it was an exceptionally poor officer indeed who let on to the fact. A faint smile. A nod, as though she knew exactly what Ellington was referring to. As though she'd been briefed on the flight in instead of frantically hovering over transport records, trying to patch trivial security holes. No lapses. Not here. Don't show weakness. Not in front of the Order. Not in front of a subordinate.

I hope you know what you're doing, Commander. Hartman raked her eye over the dome looming beyond the bar, the silhouette of Pine Ridge jutting across the horizon like a mad architect's mountain. And I sure as hell hope you plan to tell the rest of us.

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