Jason however, came from Topaz-a warm, dusty world with little axial tilt-and he preferred less chilly environs. He rubbed his hands briskly and tried to look patient as she sucked in the crisp air.
"All right, Jason," she smiled finally. "Lead on."
"Good!" he agreed quickly, and guided her through a double-paned door into what had been a palatial foyer before the Republican Navy took charge. A pair of Marine guards came sharply to attention as they stepped inside, and as Han noted their unsealed holsters, she suddenly realized what those angular shapes in the marsh had been: not chesht-pickers, but heavy armored vehicles. And the thick glass entry doors weren't glass at all, but armorplast capable of resisting medium artillery fire!
"Good evening, Admiral Li. Admiral Windrider." A Marine major saluted them. "May I see some identification?"
He subjected their ID folios to the most rigorous check Han had seen since the war began. What in God's name was going on here?
"Thank you, sir." The major returned her ID and summoned an armed orderly. "Chief Yeoman Santander will escort you to the planning room."
"Thank you, Major." Han returned his salute, then followed the silent yeoman into the house proper and down a corridor. He stopped and opened a door, raising his voice without entering.
"Admiral Li and Admiral Windrider, sir!" he said crisply, and stepped back as they passed him.
"Thank you, Chief Santander," a warm, easily recognized voice said.
"Magda! Jason didn't say you were here!"
"I know he didn't." Magda Petrovna smiled from behind her desk in the large, brightly lit room, and the paired stars on her collar mirrored Han's. "Very few people know I'm here, and they aren't talking."
"But why all the secrecy?"
"I'm about to tell you, Han," Magda said with the chuckle Han remembered so well. "After which you'll disappear, too. Where's she off to, Jason?" Brown eyes rose to smile over Han's head at Windrider.
"Vice Admiral Li is returning to Novaya Rodina for debriefing," Windrider said smoothly. "In fact, I escorted her aboard ship myself."
"You see?" Magda asked with a grin.
"No, I don't see at all!"
"It's pretty simple, really. You and I, my dear, are the Republic's last great hope." Magda's voice was humorous; her eyes weren't.
"Meaning what?" Han demanded.
"Meaning that you and I-with the help of a few souls like Jason, Bob Tomanaga, and Tsing Chang-are now the Republic's answer to Ian Trevayne."
"We're going back to Zephrain?" Han was stunned by the recklessness of the idea. "Magda, I don't think you understand just what-"
"No, Han," Magda said softly. "Trevayne is coming to us. He's staging a breakout sometime in the next five standard months."
Han sat down heavily. It had all come at her too fast, she thought dazedly. The homecoming, her medal and promotion, all the secrecy and security-now this. She couldn't have understood correctly.
"Five months." She shook her head. "Magda, it isn't possible. He doesn't have enough hulls to mount a sustained offensive-not a decisive one-now that we know what he's got and the panic factor's been eliminated, and there's no point in his taking losses for anything indecisive. Besides, those monsters of his take a long time to build-they mass over a half million tonnes each, Magda! He won't risk them without a decisive objective in view."
"Correct." Magda tipped back her chair and a half-smile lurked in her eyes. "But he is coming out. What could inspire him to do that?"
"Nothing," Han said, but she sounded less certain. She thought furiously for a minute, then looked up again. "Are you saying they're planning a joint operation? A simultaneous attack by the Rump and the Rim?"
"Give the lady the prize," Windrider said softly.
"But that's crazy, too," Han protested quietly. "There's no way they could coordinate. I never figured out how they get messages back and forth, but it seems pretty clumsy, however they do it."
"Right again," Magda nodded, "but let me show you something." She rose, and Han's eyes widened in amazement.
"Damn! I keep forgetting to allow for that." Magda stood back from her desk and patted her stomach with a wry frown. Her new figure, Han thought with a helpless chuckle, was definitely non-reg.
"What's so funny?" Magda demanded, then touched her stomach again and laughed. "This isn't what I wanted to show you."
"You thought I wouldn't notice?"
"No, you silly slant-eye, I just forgot you didn't know. It's all over the Fleet by now-and that cad in the corner is making insufferably proud noises over every bar on Bonaparte."
"I see." Han managed to stop chuckling, but her voice was a little unsteady. "And you don't think your timing was a bit off?"
"Hell," Magda laughed, "this little stranger is one reason I got this job. Everyone knows pregnant women are barred from combat. Ergo, I'm barred from combat, which makes my disappearance for planning purposes that much easier to explain. And as for my 'timing'-" she met Han's eyes, suddenly serious "-you're one reason for that."
Only Magda could have said that without opening her own wounds, Han thought affectionately.
"I don't want what happened to you happening to me now that I've found Jason," Magda said quietly. She reached out a hand, and Windrider was there in an instant to take it. "So I'm having at least one child before I go out to be shot at again. Besides," she smiled gently, holding out her free hand to Han, and for the first time her voice was hesitant, "this child is for you, too, Han."
"Me?" Han was deeply touched as she took the offered hand.
"Yes. We'd like-like it very much-to name her Han."
Han's grip tightened, and a seemingly endless silence stretched.
"If you can't think of a better name," she said finally, "I'd be proud. Very proud."
"Done!" Jason's brusque cheerfulness broke the spell, and Han was grateful. She drew a deep breath and blinked twice.
"But I think you were going to show me something besides my future namesake?"
"So I was," Magda said, tucking an arm through Han's and leading her over to a wall panel. She punched buttons busily, and a huge hologram filled the darkened room. Han stared at it raptly; she hadn't seen a warp map quite that large since the Academy.
Magda picked up a luminous pointer and moved to the center of the map.
"This helps with visualization, Han," she said, turning brown eyes spangled with tiny stars to her friend. "Our warp lines are green. The Rump's are red; the Rim's amber. Notice anything?"
"Besides the lack of any red-amber connections?"
"That's certainly the salient point, but I'm thinking about something else: distances. At closest, and always excluding passage through Orion or Crucian space, they're at least a dozen transits apart. So whatever they do, they're facing a long, drawn-out campaign before they get back into contact, right?"
"I'd think so, yes."
"So did we. We have, however, certain intelligence assets in the Rump. Not in the Rim, I'm sorry to say, and our very best conduit didn't give us a word of warning about it, but computer analysis of what we do have has picked up on something very interesting.
"First," she tucked her pointer under her arm, for all the world like a pregnant schoolteacher in uniform as she ticked off points on her fingers, "Rump construction rates have been low, which confused us until we found out why. The Galloway's World Raid did more than take out a couple of yards, Han; it took out the entire archipelago. They've recovered now, but it explains why the Rump's been so sensitive to combat losses.