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damn difference between rebel and local because Targon won’t
let us expel off-worlders. My ground troops are being chewed up by
weapons even you haven’t seen, Specialist,” he added with a wave at
her records, “and you want me to spend my time making sure everyone
is playing nice here at the base?”
    It’s your damn job, she thought to herself
and bit her tongue.
    He let her wait while he continued to study
her files. “Your psych assess looks all right,” he said.
    What did that mean? Because the base shrinks
declared her fit this couldn’t have been all that traumatic? She
hadn’t told them about the nightmares or about the gun she kept
beside her bed now. They seemed happy with their tests and she got
her plane back. After all, soldiers like Nova were trained for
this, weren’t they? Weeks of relentless, soul-numbing,
body-breaking conditioning. Survival when captured, resistance
under any condition, let nothing touch you, never give up. And,
ladies, be prepared to be targeted for special treatment. Nothing
said about being targeted by your own people.
    Trakkas winced when something on the screen
caught his attention. “Whiteside. I thought that sounded familiar
when I first saw your name on the roster. Tegan Whiteside is your
old man? Colonel Tegan Whiteside running the Pelion
base?”
    “ Yessir.”
    He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the
console, his lips pursed. Finally, his eyes travelled back to her.
“A colonel’s daughter is what we have here. Now doesn’t that make
my day complete. No doubt a bit of noise from you is going to bring
a whole lot of hurt down on our heads.”
    “ Major, I—”
    He held up a hand. “But you’re not that sort,
Whiteside. You’re tough and you think you need to prove something.
You’d rather put up with Beryl’s entire squad than run crying to
Daddy, isn’t that so?” He leaned to the screen. “You did some
ground combat against the Shri-Lan rebels on Phi, got your wings on
Magra and then flew over Tannaday. Bucking for Hunter Class, I’m
guessing. Weapons Specialist, just to show you have a big brain.
There’s no way your father would have dumped you onto this rock if
he had any hand in your duty transfers. Because you won’t let him,
isn’t that right? No special favors for Whiteside Junior. And you
won’t whine to him to get your ass out of here.”
    She said nothing. He was right.
    He folded his hands behind his
closely-cropped head and sat back in his chair, swiveling slowly
side to side as he contemplated. “But unless he’s a heartless
bastard he probably has a pretty good idea what’s going onto your
record. Including your little misunderstanding with Captain
Beryl.”
    She frowned. Up until this moment she hadn’t
even thought about her complaint against a superior officer showing
up on her records. And although her father was hardly the warmest
of Humans, he did not fall into the ‘heartless bastard’ category.
He never interfered with her career choices but seeing this
incident in her files would not go uninvestigated. ‘Ironballs’
Whiteside’s reputation as a tough, uncompromising commander was
widespread and no one would ever accuse him of ignoring policy. Her
transfer into what he’d consider a safer tour of duty was
guaranteed.
    And she would agree. His wife, her mother,
had been killed in a rebel attack on Magra only a few years ago and
all that remained of his family in Trans-Targon was Nova. It was
that reason, not any hope of favoritism, that kept her silent about
some of her more hazardous assignments.
    “ Tell you what,” Trakkas said. He
looked like someone about to bestow a great favor upon lesser
beings. “We’ll downgrade this to a simple assault, I’ll keep Beryl
out of your way until your tour here is done, give him a slap to
remind him of his manners, and we’ll let this settle down
naturally.”
    She glared at him. How did things get so
turned around all of a sudden? “What sort of slap?”
    He shrugged.