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Don’t tell me. The Office of Special Investigations?”
       Krif nodded slowly. “Give that man a cigar. You’re catching on quick,
ace.”
       “What about Brunel?”
       Krif rolled his eyes and finally gave Shawn his undivided attention.
“Jesus, Kestrel. What about her?”
       “She’s more qualified, more experienced—”
       “All true.”
       “Then why?”
       Krif sighed heavily, turned off his computer and pivoted in his chair
to face Shawn. “You remember Franklin Brody?”
       The image of Shawn’s former wing mate instantly popped into his mind.
During the war, Brody and Shawn had become almost inseparable. They practically
flew every mission together, and when the duo was joined with William Graves,
they formed a trio that had the best kill ratio on the Fahrenwald . Shawn
hadn’t heard much of Brody since the war had officially ended, knowing only
that he had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander shortly after the ceasefire
had been called with the Kafarans.
       “Yeah, of course I do.”
       “Well, Commander Brody was the CO of the Rippers up until a month ago.
Brunel was his executive officer.”
       “Brody’s here on the Rhea ?” Finally , Shawn thought
excitedly, someone I can talk to and get a straight answer from. I can’t
wait to hear what he’s been up to.
       “He was.”
       “Was? Where did he transfer to?”
       Krif leveled his eyes at Kestrel. “Tagus Sector.”
       “Tagus sector?” Shawn replied in confusion. “There’s nothing out
there.”
       “Wrong. Somewhere out there is Commander Franklin Brody.”
       “Lost?” Shawn’s jubilation instantly turned sour.
       Krif shook his head. “No. Dead.”
       “What happened?”
       “His patrol wing radioed in that they’d seen something…something they
were unable to identify. It was big, it was fast, and it was definitely not natural. He and his wingman separated from a group of six fighters, leaving
Lieutenant Commander Brunel to take the rest of the squadron to a defensive
position in case of trouble. Brunel’s sensor reports showed that, as soon as
Brody and his wingman were within a thousand kilometers of the unidentified
target, they were instantly vaporized.”
       “What did Brunel do?”
       Krif shrugged. “What she was trained to do. She brought her squadron,
as well as all the sensor data on the intruder, back to the Rhea . We
immediately changed course to intercept the target, but by the time we got
there, it was gone.”
       “And you didn’t recover the ship’s recorder box from either Brody or
his wingman?”
       “As I said, they were both instantly vaporized. We found some debris,
but nothing larger than a mouse turd.”
       “And no trace of the unidentified target?”
       “Not even an ion trail. And, insofar as we know, no species—Kafaran or
otherwise—has anything that can completely hide an ion trail.”
       “What happened next?”
       Krif withdrew a cup from his desk and poured tea for himself before
continuing. “The incident was logged, a funeral for Brody and his wingman was
performed on the hangar deck the following day, and Brunel was given the job as
acting Commanding Officer of the Rippers. Life went on.”
       “So I still don’t get why I’m being asked to—”
       “It’s not a request, Kestrel. You’re being ordered to assume
command of the squadron, not asked if you fancy the idea.” Krif took a sip of
the tea, made a sour expression and then set the cup down. “It probably has
something to do with the fact that you taught Brody virtually everything he
knew about being a pilot; what he became was a direct result of your friendship
and mentoring…with a few exceptions.”
       “Meaning?”
       Krif exhaled slowly. “You see, there’s a fundamental difference
between you and Brody: I liked him. He was a good pilot, a good officer, and a good commander. You might be able to fill his