"I see your point," Admiral Draskovic said, and sat back in her chair to regard him with carefully disguised thoughtfulness. There was something about him that baffled her. No, not baffled—confused, perhaps. He said all the right things, yet she had a sense that he didn't mean exactly what she thought he did. A part of her almost suspected that he was laughing at her from behind his respectful expression and aristocratic accent, but that was ridiculous, and she knew it.
If the captain felt the least discomfort under her regard, he disguised it admirably. No doubt he'd had plenty of practice at that. Unlike Draskovic, he not only came from a traditional naval family, but boasted connections to the most rarefied heights of the Manticoran nobility. He'd probably attended more formal dinners and met more senior officers and peers of the realm than Draskovic ever had, despite the half-T-century difference in their ages. Or the gulf between their ranks.
For just a moment, Josette Draskovic felt a stab of sheer, unadulterated resentment as she took in his superbly tailored, not-quite-regulation uniform and complete self-assurance. She'd worked hard all of her life to attain her present rank and authority; he'd been born into an elite world of privilege and advantage that had raised him to his current position with the inevitability of gravity.
She started to speak again, then stopped and gave herself a stern mental shake. How he'd gotten to where he was was really beside the point, wasn't it? He'd certainly demonstrated his fitness to command a Queen's ship at Tiberian last year, after all. And whatever some might have suspected about the connection between his birth and his career prior to Tiberian, the Navy had universally approved the promotion to captain senior-grade—and the Manticoran Cross—which that battle had earned him.
"The... 'debate' between the Government and the Opposition is probably enough to confuse anyone," she acknowledged. "Especially when we're having to make so many hard decisions about the Navy budget. That's one reason why what you accomplished out there has such implications for our domestic public opinion. It was so black-and-white, an example of the suppression of piracy and murder which has always been the Navy's primary peacetime job."
"As you say, Ma'am," he agreed. "At the same time, however, I think it's fair t' point out that the pirates and murderers in question had managed t' get their hands on modern Solarian warships. It seems t' me that the question of just how they managed t' pull that off deserves some careful consideration."
"Oh, I certainly agree with you there, Captain. Admiral Jurgensen has ONI working on that very question, I assure you."
"May I ask if they've come up with any theories, Ma'am?"
"Several," she said wryly. "Most of them mutually contradictory, of course."
"Of course," he agreed with another small smile.
"Obviously, the Sollies didn't just 'lose' four modern cruisers, whatever their government's official 'we don't have any idea what happened' position may be," Draskovic continued. "On the other hand, the Solarian League is huge, and we all know how little genuine control over its internal bureaucracies—including its military bureaucracies—its government really has. One theory is that some Frontier Fleet admiral decided to provide for her retirement by putting some of her ships up for sale rather than mothballing them. Which would be a neat trick, if she could do it. Personally, I don't see it. In the first place, those ships were too modern for anyone to be disposing of them on any pretext, including mothballing, I can think of. And even if they hadn't been, I can't quite convince myself that even the Sollies' logistics people wouldn't notice the complete disappearance of a million and a half tons worth of warships sooner or later!"
"Unless it was someone a lot more senior than any Frontier Fleet commander," Oversteegen said thoughtfully. "Someone with the reach and authority t' make embarrassin' paperwork vanish at its destination, instead of its origin point."
"That's more or less the thought that had occurred to me. I've spent enough time wrestling with our own paperwork to realize how much easier it would be for some bureaucratic chip-pusher at the top to arrange for their disappearance. Especially someplace like the League." She shrugged. "My personal theory is that somebody very senior in their equivalent of BuShips probably has a bank account somewhere with a very high credit balance."
"I'd be inclined t' agree with you, Ma'am," Oversteegen said. "But I still have t' wonder how someone like that made connections with a batch of Silesian pirates in the first place."
"I doubt that she ever did—directly, at least," Draskovic replied with another shrug. "God only knows how many middlemen may have been involved in the deal! Whoever first took them off the books probably disposed of them to a fence somewhere, who finally brokered the deal at third or fourth hand to the scum you and your people took out."
"You're probably correct," Oversteegen said after a moment, although his tone suggested that he wasn't totally convinced that she was. "But however they got their hands on them, they were operatin' an awful long way from Silesia at Tiberian. And that's not exactly an area noted for rich pickin's for pirates, either."
"No, Captain, it isn't," she acknowledged, allowing just a trace of coolness to color her own tone. "Those same thoughts have occurred to Admiral Jurgensen and his analysts, I assure you. As has the point that they deliberately chose to engage you. That's not typical pirate behavior, even at four-to-one odds."
"As you say, Ma'am." Oversteegen shifted ever so slightly in his chair. "I hope I don't appear t' be belaborin' the obvious, Admiral. It's just that no one seems t' have come up with answers t' the questions which bother me most. Or, at least, no one's mentioned any of those answers t' me if they have come up with them." He shrugged. "Given the casualties my people took, I'm afraid I have more than a passin' interest in them."
"I can certainly understand that," Draskovic assured him more sympathetically. "Unfortunately, until and unless ONI can get its hands on some solid leads, I don't think anyone is going to be able to provide those answers."
Oversteegen nodded, and a brief silence descended upon the office. Draskovic allowed it to hover for a moment, then drew a sharp breath and straightened in her own chair.
"Obviously, Captain Oversteegen, what happened in Tiberian is one of the reasons we're redeploying Gauntlet to Erewhon now that she's completed her repairs."
Oversteegen regarded her with polite attentiveness, and she shrugged.
"You've demonstrated that you have a good general awareness of the situation in the Erewhon area. That's a major plus. And the fact that you found and took out the pirates who'd ambushed one of Erewhon's own destroyers and killed its entire crew is another one, especially in light of the current... strain in our treaty relationship with Erewhon." And, she did not add, so is the fact that your mother is the Prime Minister's second cousin.
Oversteegen's expression didn't even flicker, but something about his eyes suggested to Draskovic that he'd heard what she carefully hadn't said. Well, no one but a complete political idiot could have been unaware of that consideration in his place. But that was all right. In fact, it was considerably more than all right. Too many of the officers who'd earned reputations in combat against the People's Republic of Haven had made their disagreement with the current Government's policies abundantly clear. Having one of their own demonstrate that he was just as capable—at least!—as the Government's detractors had been a godsend.
"From what you've just said, Ma'am," Oversteegen said after a moment, "I gather that Gauntlet will be operatin' solo again?"
"In light of our current naval posture and the fact that Erewhon is—or certainly ought to be—capable of looking after its own security interests, I'm afraid that it's impossible to justify a larger Manticoran naval presence in the area." Draskovic waved one hand and pursed her lips slightly. "I don't know how much a larger naval presence would actually help, under the circumstances," she admitted. "I don't claim to have any special expertise where Erewhon is concerned, but my own read of the situation is that the present tension in our relationship didn't develop overnight. Which suggests that it's not going to go away overnight, whatever we do.