Richards looked away. “I know, Jason. Believe me, I know. Everyone lost somebody to that damned war.”
In the awkward pause that followed Bondarevsky found himself wondering what the Admiral was thinking about from his own mysterious past. Vance Richards had been the chief of Naval Intelligence for the entire Confederation before taking “retirement” to head up the secret mission that had put Confed ships, including Bondarevsky’s old carrier, under the command of the Landreich during the months leading up to the Battle of Earth. His life had been shrouded in secrecy for years, and he never talked about himself. But the bleak tone of his voice hinted at losses of his own.
“If I might be remindin‘ you, Admiral,” Aengus Harper broke the mood with a light tone, “it’s late for your appointment you are. And you’ll have to be seeing that flock of VIPs afterward.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Richards said with a faint smile. “And to think I invested all that money in a portable computer secretary.”
“I’ll not delay you, Admiral,” Bondarevsky said. “I assume we’ll get a chance to see you on the ship later?”
Richards shook his head. “I’d like it if you’d join me, Jason,” he said. “I think you’ll be interested in my…appointment. Someone you haven’t seen for a while, I’d imagine.”
“As you wish, Admiral,” Bondarevsky responded.
“You’ll have to get out of practice with all the formalities, lad, if you’re going to join the Landreich. Don’t forget, our President’s a wanted mutineer and our fleet would likely lose an engagement with a squadron of target drones. Isn’t that what you told me, back when we first got a look at Kruger’s little corner of the frontier?“
“Things change, Admiral,” Bondarevsky said with a grin.
“Your luggage, sir?” Harper asked before he could turn away. “So I can see to getting it stowed while you hobnob with the great?”
Bondarevsky indicated the kitbag he’d set down beside the desk while waiting for the security doors to open. “It’s all yours, lieutenant,” he said. “Sparks, if you could go with Mr. Harper, I’m sure you can get us settled in by the time I get back.”
“Aye aye, skipper,” Sparks responded. “I’ll take care of things for you.
“Just this, sir?” Harper asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow as he took the kitbag. “You cut your ties with the Earth an’ all, heading out for a new life on the frontier, and all you care to take is a single kitbag? They say the Spirit urges us to travel light, sir, but I’m thinking this is a mite extreme.”
Bondarevsky shrugged. “Coventry took a direct hit in Officer’s Country during the battle, and there wasn’t much left of my personal effects. Since then…who has the urge to gather a lot of junk, when you’ve lived your whole life out of a flight deck locker?”
“Well, sir,” Harper said, studying him with an appraising eye, “ ’tis plain you’ll be fitting in with the rest of us poor but honest colonials. Some of the lads were afraid you’d turn out to be a pompous twit, all rules and regulations and such-like debs.”
That made Richards smile more broadly, despite the mild profanity. “Debs”-from debris-was one of those swear words that had entered the lexicon as a result of the war. Most Confederation officers maintained an official air of disapproval when it came to swearing among their juniors…but Richards had been out on the frontier for years now, and evidently had cultivated a more relaxed attitude in the interim. “Well, Lieutenant, I’m glad our new recruit has your full approval. I’ll leave you to your duties.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Harper told him, but the gleam in his eye was mocking.
As they walked together down the concourse Bondarevsky heard the older man chuckling. “Pity young Mr. Harper didn’t know you when you had Tarawa,” he said. “Maybe he would have had a…less charitable view of you back then.”
“Implying I was a pompous twit, Admiral?”
“Not precisely. But I can recall that you weren’t exactly impressed with the way old Kruger ran things. And you didn’t hesitate to let him hear about it. He still talks about you, you know.”
“I said what I had to say, sir,” Bondarevsky told the admiral, bristling.
“That, my dear Jason, is exactly why he still talks about you,” Richards said. “And why you’re still just about the only Confed officer I’ve ever heard him speak of with anything remotely like approval.” He paused. “I’ve seen the young lady before, I’m sure, but I can’t place her.”
“One of my officers on Coventry, sir,” Bondarevsky said. “Before that she was a petty officer crew chief on Tarawa. You probably remember her from back then.”
“And she wants to join the FRLN too?” The admiral raised an eyebrow. Bondarevsky remembered that he had a reputation for frowning on loose morals in the people under his command, a legacy of long service in Intelligence where concern over security gave rise to a strong desire to avoid scandal of any sort among sensitive personnel. Was Richards afraid there was some improper relationship between him and Sparks?
The thought made him want to smile. “She’s a top-notch techie, Admiral,” he said quietly. “And I owe her more than I could ever pay back. I figured Kruger’s crew could find a place for her holding together some of those old tubs of theirs.”
Richards shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure of that. Just so long as there aren’t any…entanglements. Things are going to be tricky enough without introducing any extra distractions.”
“I can assure you, Admiral, that entanglements are about the last thing I’d want right now, myself. You can count on my full attention, sir. But if you have any doubts, I’ll tell her I didn’t have any authority to suggest she sign on with the Republic.”
That won’t be necessary, Jason,“ Richards said. ”Even if you were involved with her…sometimes my newfound casual Landreich face slips and I revert to type. You’ll have to put up with it sometimes, I’m afraid, if you’re going to be working with me again.“
The admiral changed the subject to ask for details about the Behemoth fighting and Coventry’s brush with the Kilrathi. From long experience of Richards and his secretive ways Bondarevsky didn’t ask where they were going or who they were supposed to meet. Instead he answered the older man’s questions, and the talk shifted to postwar politics and the question of defense policy as they continued to walk through the long, empty corridors. It was no surprise that Richards took a dim view of the situation that had developed in the three months since the signing of the peace treaty.
“I’m telling you, Jason, the Confed government won the war and then turned right around and lost the peace,” Richards said angrily. “Instead of making sure the Cats finally got the idea of what it really means to surrender, those dumb bastards pulled back at the last minute and left so damned many loopholes I wouldn’t be surprised to find they were right back where they started in another ten or twenty years.”
“Admiral?” Bondarevsky fixed him with a surprised look. “Everything I heard about the treaty sounded pretty damned good.” He hesitated. “And if we’d made the terms any harsher we might have ended up with another Versailles.”
‘Twentieth Century, right? You were always the history buff.“
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “World War One. The Allies toppled the Germans and then imposed an impossible peace settlement on them. Twenty years later they were at war again, and one of the big factors was the German anger over the way they’d been treated. When the Second World War ended, treaty terms to Germany and Japan were a lot less restrictive, and both powers evolved into stable allies for the Western powers.”
“Yeah,” Richards said. “I’ve studied the period too, lately. Max Kruger likes history as well, you know. Well, there’s a big difference. After World War Two the Allies moved in on the Axis powers. Occupation. Foreign aid. Enforced development of Western-style democracies. But the Confederation didn’t do that with the Kilrathi, Jason. We wiped out their leadership and damn near destroyed their entire culture when we took out Kilrah with the Temblor Bomb. But we didn’t offer anything constructive to replace what they lost. Since the end of the war the Kilrathi clans have been allowed to do pretty much whatever they please, and what a hell of a lot of them please involves trying to put together petty clan-run states that don’t care about the treaty at all. There’ve been raids all along the frontier, and the Confederation doesn’t do a damn thing about them. That’s my real reason for being here, you know. Max Kruger wants me to deliver another protest to the Confed government over the latest string of Kilrathi raids across the Landreich border. Not that it’ll do a damn bit of good.”