TRAITOR
Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope
PROLOGUE
Cutler Gustavus von Tischendorf was eight T-years old when he had his first space battle.
Though in retrospect, he realized it probably wasn’t actually the first such battle he’d been in. He had vague memories of his mother disappearing for hours at a time while he floated in zero-gee in their cabin, listening to rumblings and thuds and occasional shouts from the passageways beyond. Afterward, when all was quiet again, his mom would come back into their cabin, and the deck would slowly become a deck again instead of just another bulkhead. Sometimes his mom would then go out again and not be back for another few hours, but sometimes they went off to the wardroom to eat. There was laughter and loud talk at those times, and he always got an ice cream sundae before his mom took him back and tucked him in for the night.
But it wasn’t until the Battle of Jorgan’s Star that Cutler finally learned the whole truth.
His mom was a kapitän now. That meant their cabin on Schreien was bigger than the ones on their previous ships. But it also meant that the cabin had a small set of repeater bridge displays that let Cutler see what was going on.
And it was glorious.
The rumbling was autocannon fire as the ship defended itself from incoming missiles. The thuds marked the launch of Schreien’s own missiles in response. The shouting was men and women swimming rapidly through the passageways on their way to fix equipment that had failed or to reroute power or sensor lines.
Finally, it was over. Cutler had kept track as he watched, and by his reckoning his mom and Schreien had destroyed three whole enemy ships.
And sure enough, an hour later, he got his ice cream sundae.
“Did you watch the battle from the cabin?” his mom asked as he dug into the bowl.
“Uh-huh,” Cutler said. “It was really cool. We got three of their ships, right?”
“Three ships were destroyed, yes,” she confirmed with a smile. “But we didn’t do it all by ourselves. The other ships helped, too.”
“Oh. Right.” Vaguely, Cutler remembered other ships being in the battle. He hadn’t paid much attention to them. “Was Uncle Gustav’s ship one of them?”
“Oh, yes,” his mom said. “His ship is always one of them. And always the best one.”
“I don’t think so,” Cutler said firmly. “Schreien’s the best. Because you’re the captain.”
“Well, thank you,” she said with another smile. “I’m glad you think so.” Her eyes shifted across the room—“Pablo?” she called.
“Yes, Kapitän Jen?” a swarthy man Cutler remembered seeing around the ship said, coming over to their table. He shot a smile at Cutler. “How you doing, Kapitän Jen’s son?”
Cutler bristled. He hated when people on his mother’s ship called him that. Almost as much as he hated it when they called her Kapitän Jen.
But she didn’t notice, or else didn’t care. She launched into some stuff with Pablo that was way too technical for Cutler to understand. “Yes, Ma’am,” Pablo said when she’d finished. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Thank you,” she said. She almost always said thank-you to people.
Cutler wasn’t sure he liked that. He’d heard Uncle Gustav order people around, and he was a lot more firm and a lot less friendly sounding.
And they called him Admiral Anderman, not Admiral Gustav.
“Trouble?”
Cutler blinked. His mom was looking at him, her forehead wrinkled a little. “How come they call you Kapitän Jen?” he asked. “I don’t think that’s very polite.”
“Oh, they’re polite enough,” Jennifer assured him. “The thing is, when politeness and protocol are fighting practicality, the practicality—”
“What’s practicality?”
“Practicality is doing things the practical way,” his mother explained. “Being efficient. Making sure you get to the result you want in the simplest way that works. In this case, Kapitän von Tischendorf takes”—she paused, her lips moving—“seven syllables to say. But Kapitän Jen takes—?”
Cutler did a quick count. “Four.”
“Four,” Jennifer agreed. “A little over half as many. Besides that, von Tischendorf is a bit hard for some of the crew to pronounce. So I just told everyone to call me Kapitän Jen. You see?”
“Uh-huh,” Cutler said. But he still didn’t like it. A kapitän should be respected, not called by her first name. “But when I’m a kapitän I’m going to make them call me Kapitän von Tischendorf.”
“When you’re a kapitän?” Jennifer asked, raising her eyebrows. “You want to command a ship like this?”
Cutler looked around the wardroom. Of all the ships he’d been on, this was the one he liked the best. He liked it even better than Uncle Gustav’s battlecruiser Seydlitz. “Not a ship like this,” he corrected her. “I want this ship.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well, you know, there’s a lot of work to captaining a ship. And a lot of study and learning first. Are you ready to spend your whole life that way?”
Cutler looked around the wardroom again. “Yes,” he said firmly.
“Good,” his mom said. “Then finish your ice cream and let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Cutler asked. He stuffed in the last two mouthfuls, wincing at the momentary brain freeze.
“Forward Weapons,” she said, getting up and picking up his bowl and spoon. “Commander Pablo is going to tear apart one of the autocannon.”
She leveled a finger at him. “And you, Kapitän Jen’s Son, are going to watch.”