“We were expecting . . .” What? Michaela remained at a loss for words. Everything about the Supervisor’s arrival had her off balance.

“Forget your expectations.” Aguila tossed her glossy black hair over her shoulder, dropped her brush into the bag, and snapped it closed over the black suit. “I’ve tried to beat this into you from the beginning: All you need to know about your expectations is that they are wrong.”

“But, we’ve read all the—”

“Forget it all,” Kalico slung her pistol belt around her hips, picked up her bag. “Everything you think you know from the reports is in error. You’re about to run headlong into Donovan.”

Michaela kept herself from bristling. “I have the best team The Corporation could assemble, with some of the finest minds and young scholars in Solar System. After what I and my people have been through, I think we’re even better prepared to tackle our mission as a cohesive and flexible unit. All that time in Ashanti knit us together in a way I’ve never seen before. I can’t think of a more adaptive and self-reliant team than what we have here.”

Aguila’s slight smile bent the scar along the line of her jaw. “Director, if all it took was a bunch of scars to have you creep-freaked, what are you going to do when you face a real disaster?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that I was—”

“Come on,” Aguila headed for the door. “After that spectacle of an arrival, it’s time to go see if the damage to my image is as easy to repair as the holes in my good black suit.”

As Michaela followed, she wondered: So, is Kalico Aguila the monster her scars suggest, or just simply mad?

12

With her hair in order and most of the damage repaired, Kalico sauntered her way down the hallway. Director Hailwood followed a half step behind. The woman remained unsettled. The fact that she’d been so affected by the sight of the scars set Kalico’s nerves on end. Hailwood had been repulsed. Almost to the point of being ill. If a mazework of healed scars was enough to make Michaela Hailwood want to spew her breakfast, how would she handle a real emergency?

Time to find out just what the Maritime Unit is made of.

Again, Kalico cursed herself for the spectacle of her arrival. Not only had she scared the sucking snot out of herself, but who knew what that humiliating scramble across the landing pad had cost her in credibility. Not to mention putting holes in her good black suit, painful abrasions on her knee and elbow, and the loss of dignity.

She’d faced worse. Like the time Shig, Yvette, and Talina had humiliated her during their trial. In comparison to that calamity, this was a piece of fluff. She strode into the cafeteria as if she owned the place. Which, in a sense, was indeed the case.