“We don’t have enough people to take on the peacekeeping cases,” Surit said. “They’re all going to the District Five courts, and I think civilians are getting harsher sentences than they should. I need people we can trust.” He hesitated. “Our unit.”

Tennal hadn’t been keeping track of Surit’s caseload, but he had an answer ready for where’s our unit, Tennalhin? “What do you think I’ve been doing, Lieutenant?” He’d nearly said boss—that would have confused everyone. He fanned out a dozen pending applications across his desk. The faces of Retrieval Two stared up at him. “I’m trying to get them transferred to us.”

Surit touched the files with a fingertip. “I didn’t know—that’s good. Thank you.” There was something about the way he said it, as if Tennal had found a way to quietly startle Surit. Tennal wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It didn’t feel fair to surprise someone by meeting the lowest bar possible.

“Anyway,” Tennal said, to cover up his reaction, “half of them will refuse once they see it’s me in charge and not you. It’s obvious that the ‘Captain Halkana’ setup is fake. Well, all this rank hierarchy is fake, but more so than usual.”

“That’s not true,” Surit said. “You were appointed captain by Governor Oma, who is the highest authority on this station. You are a captain. Otherwise all of it is—” He stopped.

Tennal felt like a hunter whose prey had run into a trap right in front of him. Surit made it so easy to skewer him. Of course it was all fake.

But, Tennal thought, Surit’s alt-parent wasn’t fake, and nor was the pension Surit was trying to restore. And the trouble Surit was going to be in when he got back to Cavalry wasn’t fake either.

Tennal leaned back in his chair, watched the dismay on Surit’s face, and for once chose not to drive the knife in. “All right,” he said. “But the whole unit will take a cue from the first-class rankers, and I bet you Istara’s going to take one look at my shiny new captain tabs and decide they’d rather shovel algae.”

“Istara’s an Orshan soldier,” Surit said. “They took the oath to the state.”

“That doesn’t mean the same to everyone else as it means to you,” Tennal said. Surit gave him a baffled look. Tennal raised his eyes to the heavens for guidance. “Let me prove it.”

“They made you a captain?” Istara said.

They were knee-deep in coppery, rust-smelling water when Tennal found them at a water-treatment plant. “It’s political,” Tennal said, trying to keep his shoes out of it.