Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) by B. V. Larson

never become an “unperson” to me. That was worth a great deal of personal risk.
    Eventually, the implant began functioning normally. I didn’t want to overuse it just yet, but I tried to access the ship’s central data core. The first thing I did was turn off the auto-forwarding option on the vid file I’d captured that showed Halsey’s execution. I didn’t want CENTCOM to know I was aware of his fate. Not yet.
    New information from the data core began to flash up visually. To prevent impairment, it was designed to only display text and vid data on one retina. When you got used to the effect, you learned to shut out input from one eye or the other, shifting your focus entirely onto the one that you wished to deal with at that moment.
    The ship was on course, curving and accelerating as she swung around Luna. We were preparing to move toward Victory and intercept her.
    This plan evidently was obvious to those at CENTCOM, and it didn’t meet with approval at the highest levels.
    A channel request blinked. It was from Admiral Perez. I accepted it as I had no choice.
    “At least you have your implant online again,” he said, glaring at me from under his sparse white curls. “I see you’re walking. Come to my office when you stop. You have five minutes to do so.”
    By “come to my office” he meant I should use my implant to visit his location.
    He closed the channel before I could ask what this was about. I didn’t have to guess. He knew I was moving to engage Victory . The question was: why did he want our meeting to be conducted in private? Did he already know what had happened to Halsey?
    Deciding I’d best comply and step carefully, I moved to my office and sat down. A quick look at the data from the ship indicated we wouldn’t leave Luna’s orbit for another ten minutes. I had time.
    Using the implant, I reached out to connect to Perez. At this distance, there was a significant propagation delay of a few seconds, but it wasn’t too bad.
    The net hummed on hold, but at last Perez appeared. He was in his office as well. No one else was present.
    The connection placed me on a low couch in front of his desk. From my perspective, he seemed to tower over me. I didn’t know if that was purposeful, accidental, or some kind of glitch in the visual-placement layer of the software.
    “Sparhawk? Can you hear me?”
    “Loud and clear, Admiral.”
    “I want to know what you’re up to out there. You were ordered to move to Luna and take up a patrol position. Reports have you preparing to leave orbit.”
    “I’m exercising my prerogative under Admiral Halsey’s orders, sir.”
    He stared at me in alarm for a moment. “You’ve been in contact with Admiral Halsey?”
    “I didn’t say that, sir,” I pointed out. “I’m talking about my orders as per May 28 th —”
    “I don’t care about that!” he shouted suddenly. “You’re disobeying my orders. I may just have to relieve you of duty, replacing you with…” Here, he consulted a document. “First Officer Durris. He’ll soon have full command of Defiant .”
    Slowly, I shook my head. “I’m sorry sir,” I said, “but you’re mistaken. Admiral Halsey is now in-system. He out ranks you—I’m sure I don’t have to point that out. I’m following my standing orders from him. If you want to get them changed, I suggest you either get the Joint Chiefs to override Halsey, or talk to Halsey yourself and get him to inform me.”
    He stared at me venomously. At that point I suspected he knew what had happened to Halsey—but I couldn’t be sure.
    If he did know the truth, he knew he couldn’t get Halsey to countermand anything he’d written previously because he was stone dead.
    With an effort of will, I kept my face and tone neutral. I didn’t want him to think this was anything more than an argument about the chain of command.
    “You always were a cocky one, Sparhawk,” he said at last. “Very well, I’ll get the Joint Chiefs to alter your