There were advantages for Orshan to have a galactic link so close to their habitable planets. It meant they were tied closely to the interplanetary trade networks, active members of the galaxy-spanning Resolution treaty. But the downside of having an active link so close was the disturbance it caused in the fabric of space. Regularly—on a deep-space scale, over decades—clouds broke off the maelstrom around the link and drifted out into the rest of the sector, where they caused trouble for ships.

Surit’s mother had died in the outskirts of chaotic space in a vicious civil war. Now Surit patrolled the edges to stop inexperienced pilots from wrecking their ships. Things were better now.

The district captain tapped several highlighted dots on the map. “Most of the posts I managed to scrape up are retrieval units, but, you know, at least you’d keep your current rank. Think of it as a temporary setback.”

As Surit looked at the dead-end postings with some dismay, one of the dots caught his eye. The rest of the assignments were near major traffic routes, like his current post, but this one was different. It sat near the link itself, on the outskirts of the whirlpool of chaotic space. “Can I ask what that one is, sir?”

She hesitated. “That request was for you, specifically. It came in this morning.”

After the accident, then. The district captain tapped the map. New text spilled onto it: very short, only a set of coordinates, a chain of command, and a ship name. Surit didn’t recognize the division, and then he realized it wasn’t a division at all.

“Regulators,” the district captain said.

Surit blinked. As it sank in, he felt a spike of wariness. The regulators dealt with military discipline and investigations, and oversaw the army’s architects and its handful of readers. Surit had never encountered them.

“No details, of course,” the district captain said. “I don’t know why they want you. That looks like a Cavalry ship, but the request definitely came through the regulators. You’re an architect, aren’t you? But you’re not strong enough for them to recruit you in the normal course of things. They’ve said it’s promotion-track.” She killed the screen and turned her face up to him again. “I intended to turn it down,” she said, “because it smells bad. Why do they need a random junior officer? I don’t like the regulators, and I don’t like setting my soldiers up to fail.”

“I’ll take it,” Surit said.

The district captain put her hand over her face. Surit waited patiently. Eventually she dragged her hand down and said, “Consider why the request was for you.”