"Think we better run to windward." Turner chuckled. "More's heading this way and he wants a fight in front of the cameras."
Skip stole a sidelong glance and saw the red-faced senator pushing his way through the crowd, loaded for a head-on brawl, in spite of his aides trying to block his approach. Every fighter instinct told Skip to take the bastard on, but Turner was right. The senator would tear him to shreds in front of the vids. And besides, damn it all, this was suppose to be a day for the ensigns, and here this damned politico wanted to turn it into a brawl over appropriations, and most likely about service discipline as well.
Banbridge turned and followed Turner's lead out of the room and down a side corridor to his office. As they ducked around the corner he saw that they had thrown the stern chase off. Closing the door behind them, Turner opened a desk drawer, pulled out a half-empty bottle and slid it over to the admiral.
Skip looked around the room. Even though everything was arranged according to regulation-one desk, one holo display and comm unit, one office chair, arms padded, two chairs, no arms-there was a feel to the room that was decidedly not military and more like that of a professor's at some small, private college. Turner actually had bookcases, with old-fashioned traditional books, and one wall was covered with two-dimensional prints, one of them a wet water navy sea battle, next to it a photograph of a group of Confed assault marines in camouflage and full battle gear.
Skip walked up to the faded picture and smiled.
"We had some good ones in that team back then."
Winston nodded and then lowered his eyes. "No one remembers them now except you and me."
Skip said nothing, watching Winston as he poured himself a refill. Of the thirty men and women in Marine Commando Six, only half a dozen had returned from the mission Winston had once led against a terrorist stronghold. The wound which had almost killed Skip still ached at times, but as he studied the faded image he knew he would never trade the moment for anything, in spite of what had happened.
The mission was classified, the deaths listed as training accidents, and after it was all over Winston asked for reassignment. Both he and Winston had secretly been awarded the Fleet Cross. The reports had been glowing, but the loss of the team still haunted Winston. He had not led a combat unit since, asking instead for transfer out and an assignment to teach at the Academy.
Skip studied the photo.
"Hell, were we ever that young?"
Turner chuckled. "Don't think so."
"Just talked with Sergeant Ulandi few months back, when I was out at McAuliffe," Skip said, pointing at a rock-solid marine who towered over Winston in the photograph. "He asked me to pass along his regards."
"Old gunney. I'd have been dead if he hadn't pulled me out."
"We both would've been dead. Ulandi the Madman, remember?" And Skip laughed softly, raising his glass in a toast to the sergeant.
"How is he?"
"Retires in six months. Riding herd on Admiral Nagomo till then, making sure the admiral doesn't screw things up."
"Damn it all." Winston sighed. "How the hell do we have people like Nagomo running the most important base in the Confed?"
"Peacetime fleet, you know what it's like."
"Well, at least you're in the front seat."
Skip sighed. "I might be in the front seat, but the damn machine is programmed by others. Always thought when I got in the chair I could finally do something about the things you and I used to complain about back then," and he nodded towards the photo.
Skip's gaze shifted to the other print, of a naval battle, back when fleets still sailed on water.
"You had an ancestor in that one, didn't you?"
"Squadron Leader, Torpedo Eight," Turner said proudly, even though he was speaking of someone dead nearly three quarters of a millennium.
"And they all got shot down, but not one of them wavered from the attack on the Japanese carriers. Their heroic sacrifice pulled the fighters down to sea level, allowing the dive-bombers to slip through. Damn, what guts they had then," Skip said, looking back at Turner who arched an eyebrow in surprise that his friend remembered the story from the Battle of Midway.
"Remember when this used to be Schneid's office?" Skip said with a smile. "Lord knows how many times he had me in here, dressing me up and down, letting me know in no uncertain terms that if I didn't pass Naval History 101, my ass would be back on some lower deck of some damn orbital base out beyond the Landreich until the day I died."
Skip chuckled at the memory, looking across the desk at his old friend, who'd most likely made the same threats to the latest generation of officers and gentlemen in training.
"Schneid always liked you though," he continued.
"But you got the A in his class, remember? I got an A minus."
"'Cause you were too busy tutoring me and not studying enough for yourself. I never would have gotten through this joint without you, Turner."
Winston smiled at the comment.
"Yeah, right. You the admiral, and me the commander, which we both know is what I'll retire as."
"Look, Winston, we both know that if there's one system that's unfair, its Confed Fleet. How a bullhead like me got to be admiral is beyond me. You were always the brains and that's what I need now."
Turner chuckled and shook his head.
"For what?"
"Let's just say, a little exploratory work."
Again the arched eyebrow.
"I just got a little report from Speedwell I'd like you take a look at."
Turner sat up in his chair. "That's Intel stuff, Skip. I don't even know if I've got clearance for that kind of thing anymore."
"You did as of 0001 standard this morning. Grade three A."
For once he felt as if he had caught his friend off guard. Turner's remarkable ability to appear outwardly calm, even when surrounded by a dozen doped-out terrorists screaming that they were going to kill him, wavered for a second, his features paling.
"What the hell is going on here?" Turner finally asked. "Hell, you're talking inner circle stuff here. That's the type of space you might travel in, but I'm just an academic type, sitting out his last years at the Academy writing papers nobody reads."
"You were once the rising star in Special Ops," Skip said quietly, "and you will recall, my friend, you were damn good at it."
He nodded back towards the picture. Winston said nothing, it had all been gone over a hundred times before. He still blamed himself for the lose of Marine Six, even though an admiralty board had vindicated him and, beyond that, decorated him for saving an entire planet, which the terrorists were set to douse with Anthrax derivative C.
"So you became the academic type instead," Skip pressed. "But you've kept your ear to the wire, you know what's up and you have the mind to analyze it. I've read your papers, and there're a few others over at Fleet who pay attention to them as well. By the way, you might not know this yet but I slapped a classified on that last little tirade of yours. Your comparisons of current conditions to those from before our scrap with the Yan back in the twenty-fourth century and the Americans in the Pacific back in the twentieth were a little too close for comfort."
"So what the hell is going on?"
"We're moving towards a declaration of war with the Kilrathi."
His friend nodded. "Knew that, everyone does."
"That's the point. The government will declare war to silence the complaining from the border worlds, but we're stuck with Plan Orange Five."
Startled, Turner looked over at his friend.
"That's insane. It calls for limited action only, push them back slowly through the Facin Sector and hold elsewhere. Punitive response only to force them to cease their border harassment. Damn it all, Skip, the plan is predicated on the Kilrathi behaving like humans and not the predators that they are. Measured limited response simply won't work with them."