Blair hesitated. "I appreciate it, Flint, I really do. But. . ." He shrugged. "Maybe another time. I'm . . . supposed to meet someone."
At that moment the door opened and Rachel Coriolis came in, greeting him with a cheerful wave. Flint looked from Rachel to Blair.
"I see. I'm sorry . . . I didn't know you moved quite that fast. Colonel." She turned and walked away before he could respond.
Admiral Tolwyn took over a set of interconnected compartments one deck below the bridge; one of these was converted into a dining room with a table able to seat twelve. Blair was the first to arrive, and Tolwyn greeted him with a hearty smile and a handshake.
"Ah, Colonel," he said expansively. "Let's hope that this is our last cruise together."
Blair felt a flicker of apprehension. The comment could be interpreted several different ways and he wondered if subconsciously Tolwyn was revealing an anxiety about his plan to end the war.
Tolwyn glanced around the room. Though clean and reasonably neat, there was no disguising the fading paintwork, the frayed carpets, or the general air of age and neglect that permeated the entire ship. "I never dreamed that we'd be reduced to pulling ships like this back into the front line. The Battle of Terra put us on the ropes, no matter what the government is now saying about it being a glorious victory. One more victory like that and the human race will be a forgotten footnote in the history of the universe!"
Tolwyn looked away for a moment. "When will this end," he whispered. Blair watched him closely, surprised at the clear evidence of strain.
"She's a good ship, Admiral," Blair said quietly. "And Eisen's a good captain. We haven't had much time for spit and polish lately. The Kilrathi have been keeping us busy.
"Indeed." Tolwyn looked back up, barely regaining his composure. "I've been following your operations with some interest, Colonel. You ran into our old friend Thrakhath, I hear."
"Yes, sir," Blair admitted, trying to keep his voice level. He looked away, thinking about Angel again.
"I was sorry to hear about Colonel Devereaux," Tolwyn went on, almost as if he was reading Blair's mind. "A pity, really. General Taggart made a mistake, committing her to his little project before a final decision was made.
"When did you know she was dead?" Blair demanded.
"The information couldn't be released," Tolwyn said quietly. "I'm sorry Blair, we had to keep our sources safe. It was strictly 'need-to-know' material. You understand."
"What I understand, sir, is that you and General Taggart have been competing over your damned secret projects and Angel got caught in the middle." Blair gave Tolwyn an angry look. "And now it's our turn. Victory's . . . and mine. I don't much care what happens to me any more, Admiral, but I hope you don't make these other people pay the same kind of price Angel already shelled out just to prove that your damned gun works the way you said it would."
"Still the same old Chris Blair," Tolwyn said evenly. "Always tilting at windmills. Look, Colonel, I know you don't like my methods, but the fact is that I get things done. I first got involved with the early planning; of Project Behemoth nearly ten years ago. I got pulled from my job as head of Terran Defense to bring it on-line and I'm going to see it through to the end. And God help anyone who stands in my way, even a living legend like yourself. Son, I know you don t like some of the implications behind this project, but it is kill or be killed. It's that simple."
"I'm all for ending the war, Admiral," Blair told him. "And if it means giving you the credit — and a shot at being the next Confederation President, no doubt — that's fine by me. But I won't stand by and watch you trample good people in the dirt. Captain Eisen, for instance. What are your plans for him? Are you planning on usurping command of this ship the same way you did on Tiger's Claw?"
"I'd be careful regarding my choice of words if I were you, Colonel," Tolwyn said. "Admirals, by definition, do not usurp command. Captain Eisen retains his post . . . but I am in overall command of this mission. Period." He turned away from Blair. "I had hoped that we would finally achieve a measure of respect for one another after all this time, Colonel. I am the first to admit that I once misjudged you, back at the start of your career, with the Tiger's Claw incident. Perhaps now you are misjudging me. Still, you'll obey your orders, like a good soldier, won't you, Blair? No matter where they end up taking you."
Blair studied the slender, elegant back for a long moment in dawning understanding. "All that guff Kevin handed us about warning shots . . . We're headed to Kilrah with that thing, aren't we? No matter what . . ."
The Admiral turned back to him. "What would you aim for if you had the biggest gun in the universe? When are you going to realize, Colonel, that we're playing for keeps here? I would have thought you, if anyone, would approve . . . after what happened to Angel."
He had trouble framing a reply. There was a part of Blair that agreed with Tolwyn. After what happened to Angel, he wanted nothing more than revenge, and if that meant taking apart all of Kilrah . . .
But despite the rage inside him, Blair couldn't see himself taking part in the destruction of an entire race.
The door buzzed before he could come up with an answer. As Tolwyn admitted Captain Eisen and Commander Gessler, Victory's First Officer, Blair found himself wondering if the admiral might be right after all. Perhaps all that really mattered, in the end, was winning.
He was very quiet over dinner that evening.
The atmosphere in the ready room was tense as Blair entered. It was strange for Eisen to be relegated to a chair at the foot of the table, while Tolwyn presided in the captain's accustomed place. The sight sent a little shiver down Blair's back, making him think of Tiger's Claw and Captain Thorn, all those years ago.
Commander Gessler and Colonel Ralgha were also present, as was Kevin Tolwyn and another of the admiral's aides, Commander Fairfax, representing the carrier's intelligence department. They watched the admiral expectantly as he settled into his seat and switched on the map table's holographic projector.
"Gentlemen," he said, smiling with the pride of a father displaying photos of his firstborn. "I give you the Confederation's finest achievement . . . the Behemoth."
The image was ugly, an ungainly, bulky, barrel-shaped monstrosity that dwarfed the Confed dreadnought shown alongside it for scale. A few dozen ships the size of Victory could have fit in the enormous maw at one end of the barrel. Behemoth might well have been the largest spacecraft ever constructed, certainly the largest ship to sail under Confederation colors.
"This device is the product of a decade of research and development by some of the finest scientific minds in the Confederation," Tolwyn continued. "It is the weapon that will bring an end to this war once and for all."
The view changed from an external shot to a computer schematic as Tolwyn continued. Taking up a laser pointer, he used its narrow light beam to highlight features as he spoke. "Behemoth is a series of linked superconducting energy amplification conduits, focusing an output of five hundred million gigawatts into one lancing point. A target at the end of that point is destroyed . . . utterly. And the energy released by the impact is enormous: devastating. Even the scientists can't say for sure whether the energy beam itself would destroy an entire planet, but they do agree that the resultant seismic stresses should be enough to tear it apart, particularly a world like Kilrah which is already highly unstable. The upshot, gentlemen, is this. Behemoth can destroy worlds, and properly employed it can knock the Kilrathi Empire out of the war in a few short strokes."