Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

“Captain Hetnys is on Athoek Station.” She must have realized how that sounded, because she added, after a very brief pause, “Consulting with the system governor.”
    “And when I find her there,” I asked, making my tone just slightly sarcastic, “will she be able to better explain to me just what it is you think you’re doing out here?”
    “Sir. Yes, sir.”
    “Good.”
    Ship cut the connection, and I turned to Lieutenant Ekalu. “You’re acquainted with this officer?”
    Still that expressionless face. “Water will wear away stone, sir.”
    It was a proverb. Or half of one.
Water will wear away stone, but it won’t cook supper
. Everything has its own strengths. Said with enough irony, it could also imply that since the gods surely had a purpose for everyone the person in question must be good for something, but the speaker couldn’t fathom what it might be. “Her family is good,” added Ekalu at my silence, still impassive. “Genealogy as long as your arm. Her mother is second cousin to the granddaughter of a client of a client of Mianaai itself, sir.”
    And made sure everyone knew it, apparently. “And the captain?” Anaander Mianaai had told me that what Captain Hetnys lacked in the way of vision she made up for with a conscientious attention to duty. “Is she likely to have left orders to attack anything that came into the system?”
    “I wouldn’t think so, sir. But the lieutenant isn’t exactly… imaginative, sir. Knees stronger than her head.” Ekalu’s accent slipped at that last, just a bit. “Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence.”
    So, likely to be acting under orders that suggested incoming ships might be a threat. I would have to ask Captain Hetnys about that, when I met her.
    The hookup to Athoek Station’s dock was largely automated. When the pressure equalized and Five opened the shuttle hatch, Lieutenant Tisarwat and I pushed ourselves over the awkward boundary between the shuttle’s weightlessness and the station’s artificial gravity. The bay was dingy gray, scuffed, like any other bay on any other station.
    A ship’s captain stood waiting there, an ancillary straight and still behind her. Seeing it I felt a stab of envy. I had once been what that ancillary was. I never could be that again.
    “Captain Hetnys,” I said, as Tisarwat came up behind me.
    Captain Hetnys was tall—taller than I was by a good ten centimeters—broad, and solidly built. Her hair, clipped military-short, was a silvery gray, a stark contrast to the darkness of her skin. A matter of vanity, perhaps—she’d certainly chosen that hair color, wanted people to notice it, or notice the close cut. Not all of the pins she wore in careful, uncustomary rows on the front of her uniform jacket had names on them, and those that did I couldn’t read from this distance. She bowed. “Fleet Captain, sir.”
    I did not bow. “I’ll see the system governor now,” I said, cold and matter-of-fact. Leaning just a bit on that antique accent any Mianaai would have. “And afterward you’ll explain to me why your ship threatened to attack me when I arrived.”
    “Sir.” She paused a moment, trying, I thought, to look untroubled. When I’d first messaged Athoek Station I’d been told that System Governor Giarod was unavoidably occupied by religious obligations, and would be for some time. As was, apparently, every station official of any standing. This was a holiday that came around on an Athoeki calendar, and possibly because of that, because it was merely a local festival, no one had seen fit to warn me that actually it was important enough to nearly shut down the entire station. Captain Hetnys knew I’d been told the governor was unavailable for some hours. “The initiates should be coming out of the temple in an hour or two.” She started to frown, and then stopped herself. “Are you planning to stay on the station, sir?”
    Behind me and Lieutenant Tisarwat, Kalr Five, Ten, and Eight, and Bo