He looked back at her now, without so much as a glance at Pritchart, and cocked his head. He was a tall man, just a hair over a hundred and ninety centimeters, but lean, with a bony face and a high-arched nose. That face made an excellent mask for his thoughts, but his hazel eyes were another matter. They considered McQueen alertly, watchfully, with the caution of a man who had already narrowly escaped disaster after being made the scapegoat for a failed operation that was also supposed to have had "a major impact on the war."
"One of the reasons you came to mind," McQueen went on after a heartbeat, "is your background as a commerce-raiding specialist. I realize operations in Silesia didnt work out quite the way everyone had hoped, but that was scarcely your fault, and I have expressed my opinion to that effect to Citizen Chairman Pierre."
Something flickered in the backs of those hazel eyes at that, and McQueen hid a smile. What shed said was the exact truth, because Giscard was entirely too good a commander to toss away over one busted operation. And it hadnt been his fault; even his watchdog, Pritchart, had said as much. And perhaps there was some hope for the Republic still when a peoples commissioner was prepared to defend a fleet commander by pointing out that "his" failure had been the fault of the idiots whod written his orders. Well, that and the Manty Q-ships no one had known existed. And, McQueen admitted to herself, both of those and Honor Harrington. But at least shes out of the equation now... and Giscard is still here. Not a bad achievement for the misbegotten system he and I are stuck with.
"Thank you, Citizen Secretary," Giscard said after a moment.
"Dont thank me for telling him the truth, Citizen Admiral," she told him, showing her teeth in a smile which held a hint of iron. "Just hit the ground running and show both of us that it was the truth."
"Ill certainly try to, Maam," Giscard replied, then smiled wryly. "Of course, Ill have a better chance of doing that when I at least know enough about this operation to know which way to run."
"Im sure you will," McQueen agreed with a smile of her own, "and thats exactly what I invited youand, of course, Citizen Commissioner Pritcharthere to explain. Would you come with me, please?"
She stood, and by some sort of personal magic, everyone else in the roomincluding Erasmus Fonteinstood aside to let her walk around her desk and lead the way towards the door. She was the smallest person in the room by a considerable margin, a slender, slightly built woman a good fifteen centimeters shorter than Pritchart, yet she dominated all those about her with seeming effortlessness as she led them down a short hall.
Im impressed, Giscard admitted to himself. Hed never actually served with McQueen, though their paths had crossed briefly a time or two before the Harris Assassination, and he didnt know her well. Not on a personal level, at any rate; only an idiot would have failed to study her intensely since her elevation to Secretary of War. He could well believe the stories hed heard about her ambition, but he hadnt quite been prepared for the magnetism she radiated.
Of course, radiating it too openly could be a Bad Thing, he reflected. Somehow I dont see StateSec being comfortable with the notion of a charismatic Secretary of War who also happens to boast an excellent war record.
They reached the end of the hall, and a Marine sentry came to attention as McQueen keyed a short security code into the panel beside an unmarked door. The door slid open silently, and Giscard and Pritchart followed McQueen and Fontein into a large, well-appointed briefing room. Citizen Admiral Ivan Bukato and half a dozen other officers, the most junior a citizen captain, sat waiting at the large conference table, and nameplates indicated the chairs Giscard and Pritchart were expected to take.
McQueen walked briskly to the head of the table and took her seat, her compact frame seeming even slighter in the comfortable grasp of her oversized, black-upholstered chair, and waved her companions to their own places. Fontein deposited himself in an equally impressive chair on her right, and Giscard found himself at her left hand, with Pritchart to his own left. Their chairs, however, were much less grand than the ones their betters had been assigned.
"Citizen Admiral Giscard, I believe you know Citizen Admiral Bukato?" McQueen said.
"Yes, Maam. The Citizen Admiral and I have met," Giscard admitted, nodding his head at Peoples Navys de facto CNO.
"Youll get to know the rest of these people quite well over the next month or so," McQueen went on, "but for now I want to concentrate on giving you a brief overview of what we have in mind. Citizen Admiral Bukato?"
"Thank you, Citizen Secretary." Bukato entered a command into the terminal in front of him, and the briefing room lights dimmed. An instant later, a complex hologram appeared above the huge table. The biggest part of it was a small-scale star map that showed the western quarter of the PRH, the war front, and the territory of the Manticoran Alliance clear to the Silesian border, but there were secondary displays, as well. Graphic representations, Giscard realized, of the comparative ship strengths of the opponents on a class-by-class basis, with sidebars showing the numbers of units sidelined for repairs or overhaul.
He sat back, studying the holo and feeling Citizen Commissioner Pritchart study it beside him. Unlike many officers of the Peoples Navy, Giscard actually looked forward to hearing his citizen commissioners impressions and opinions. Partly, that was because Pritchart had one of the better minds he had ever met and frequently spotted things which a trained naval officers professional blinders might prevent him from considering, which helped explain what made her and Giscard one of the PNs few smoothly functioning command teams. There were, however, other reasons he valued her input.
"As you can see, Citizen Admiral Giscard," Bukato said after a moment, "while the Manties have pushed deeply into our territory since the beginning of the war, they havent pushed very much further into it since taking Trevors Star. It is the opinion of our analysts that this reflects their need to pause, refit, catch their breath, replace losses, and generally consolidate their position before resuming offensive operations. In addition, a large minority opinion holds that they may be becoming rather less offensively minded now that theyve added so much of our territory to their defensive commitments.
"Neither Citizen Secretary McQueen nor I believe that they contemplate voluntarily surrendering the initiative, however. We subscribe to the belief that they definitely plan to resume the offensive in the very near future, and that when they get around to it they will go after Barnett from Trevors Star. To that end, we have been continuing to reinforce Citizen Admiral Theisman. Citizen Secretary Klines intentionor perhaps I should say hopewas that Citizen Admiral Theisman would attract Manty attention to his command area and hold it there as long as possible in order to divert the enemy from deeper thrusts into the Republic. And, of course, he was to entice the enemy into a battle of attrition in hopes of costing the Alliance more tonnage than he himself lost. What he was not expected to do was to defend Barnett successfully."
Giscard managed not to sit sharply upright in his chair or otherwise draw attention to his reaction, but his eyes widened at the acid tone of Bukatos last two sentences. Giscard had known Citizen Secretary Kline was unpopular with his uniformed subordinatesnot surprisingly, since the man had been an incompetent political hack with a taste for humiliating any officer he decided was "an elitist recidivist" hungering to restore the officer corps to its old independence of action. But for Bukato to show contempt for even an ex-secretary so openly in front of both Pritchart and Fontein indicated that the changes at the top of the War Office must have been even more sweeping than most people suspected.