The two stood for a moment, silent. Then Barron looked right at his first officer. “Okay, Atara…you can go and tell them you got me off the ship. The coast is clear.”

Travis nodded. “Okay, Captain, consider it done.” She snapped off a crisp salute.

Barron smiled again and returned the salute. “Carry on, Commander…” He stood where he was, watching Travis turn and walk through the door. Then he reached over to a shelf against the wall, grabbing a small duffel bag and sighing.

Time to go see what the Starfire Suite has in store for me…

*   *   *

“You look like you’re feeling better.” Lise Varov walked through the door, her uniform showing the hasty tailoring that accommodated her advanced pregnancy.

Sam Carson smiled as his wife entered the room. He’d slept late…Lise had been hours gone by the time he’d stirred, halfway through her duty shift. He’d felt like death warmed over when he’d first dragged himself from bed, but a long—very long and very hot—shower, and a handful of analgesics had gone a long way to convincing him he would survive. A fresh uniform and a few pieces of dry toast had gone even farther, and he now felt almost downright human.

“I was in bad shape last night, wasn’t I?” Carson still couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he’d taken a glass to toast his comrades. The next thing he knew, they’d dropped him off at his quarters…and he was pretty sure someone had carried him down the last stretch of hallway.

Lise laughed as she dropped a small bag on the table. “We’ve had our share of sendoffs in the chem lab too, but I think your mates from Dauntless put us to shame. I know combat units party harder than career lab rats, but you must’ve made a big impression in such a short posting.”

Sam nodded, a somber look slipping onto his face. “She’s a good ship…with a good crew. And Captain Barron is…”

“You really liked him, didn’t you? I asked around after you got posted there, and I heard some good things.”

“He’s a first class officer, Lise. He didn’t have to approve my transfer here, especially not with war looming. But he actually insisted.”

“I’ll have to thank him one day. It will be nice to have you here when it’s time.”

Customs surrounding reproduction and childbirth varied around the Confederation. Cloning was illegal on all but a few of the Iron Belt worlds, but controlled artificial insemination with genetic scans and scheduled induced births was common in the inner worlds. On most provincial planets—and the true frontier outposts like Archellia—things tended to be done the old-fashioned way. Sam and Lise knew their child was a son and, based on the prenatal scans, healthy, but that was all.