Of Starlit Balls and Starship Captains
By K.L. Noone
“You never call your mother,” Lady Elise’s virtual image grumbled across time and space. Imperial Starship Captain Catherine Everington contemplated thumping her head against her own desk, under the sympathetic artificial gleam of the wall lights. She didn’t. Her mother would see.
She said instead, “I’m calling you now,” which was true and therefore inarguable.
“Only because I called you first. Ten times.”
All right, maybe it was arguable. “Mother, I’m busy.”
“You are not too busy for this. It’s important, Catherine.”
“To you,” Kit said, and tipped her chair back on two legs, mostly to watch her mother cringe. Her chair was used to this, and bent obligingly. The captain’s personal briefing room folded curved sleek walls around her
