Vorlip frowned. “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know any of the details about how these things are done. Why, are you looking at a specific family?”

“Yes,” Al’iastov said. “The Mitth.”

“Really.” Vorlip glanced over her shoulder. “Like Cadet Thrawn?”

“Yes.”

Vorlip huffed out a thoughtful breath. “As I say, I don’t know how it works. But there’s certainly no reason you can’t ask. Actually, now that I think about it, a former sky-walker with your record should be able to ask for whatever you want.”

And there it was. Vorlip had said it. Former sky-walker.

Al’iastov’s navigational career was officially over.

But strangely, it suddenly didn’t seem to matter so much now. “That’s what he said,” she told Vorlip. “He said I’d be able to choose my path.”

“Well, cadets say all sorts of things,” Vorlip said, dismissing both Thrawn and the conversation with a wave of her hand. “Come—I need you and your caregiver in my office. There are forms we need to fill out.”

Mitth’raw’nuru, he’d named himself, Al’iastov reminded herself as she and the captain walked. Mitth’raw’nuru. She would remember that.

And when the time came, the Mitth family would definitely be getting a request.

Chapter Two

The personnel officer shook his head. “Request denied,” he said briskly. “Good day.”

Mitth’ali’astov blinked. Had she just heard him right? “What do you mean, denied?” she asked. “I have all the datawork right there.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “Unfortunately, it needed to be filed four days ago.”

Thalias clenched her teeth. She’d had to fight the Mitth family bureaucracy the whole way, tooth and tongue, to get them to agree to this. Now, too late, she understood why they’d suddenly backed off the fight and given in to her request. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said, forcing back her anger at the family. The man sitting in front of her was the key to getting her aboard the Springhawk, and she needed him on her side. “I’m a member of the Mitth family, the Springhawk is being commanded by a member of the Mitth family, and I was told the fleet offers the right of observation.”

“Yes, it does,” the officer confirmed. “But there are limits to that right.” He tapped his questis. “Proper timing is one of them.”

“I understand that now,” Thalias said. “Unfortunately, the family didn’t make that clear to me. Typical. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said, a little less truculently. Putting the mess onto the Mitth family instead of him had edged him at least a little closer to sympathy for her current situation. “There’s processing time to consider, especially since the other senior officers’ families have a right to challenge.”

“I see,” Thalias said. “Always comes down to the families, doesn’t it?”