"Well," he said, shaking off the somberness memories of the battle always produced, "I've got some good news for once. Rear Admiral Truman says she's finally got a space for us in R&R."
"She does?" Nagchaudhuri straightenedr, expression brightening. Rear Admiral Margaret Truman, a first cousin of the rather more famous Admiral Alice Truman, was the commanding officer of Her Majesty's Space Station Hephaestus , and HMSS Hephaestus happened to be home to the Repair and Refit command to which Hexapuma 's repair had been assigned.
"She does indeed. Captain Fonzarelli will have docking instructions for us by tomorrow morning, and the tugs will be ready for us at oh-nine-hundred."
"That's going to piss Aikawa off," Nagchaudhuri observed with a grin, and FitzGerald laughed.
"I imagine he'll get over it eventually. Besides, he was due for a little leave."
Ensign Aikawa Kagiyama had been one of Hexapuma 's midshipmen on her previous deployment. In fact, he was the only one still aboard her. Or, rather, assigned to her, since he wasn't onboard at the moment.
"I guess we can always ask Hephaestus to delay our repairs a little longer. Long enough for him to get back from Weyland for the big moment, I mean," Nagchaudhuri suggested.
"The hell we can!" Fitzgerald snorted. "Not that I don't appreciate the way he looked after me after Monica, or anything. I'm sure he'll be disappointed, but if we delay this any longer just so he can be here for it, his loyal crewmates would probably stuff him out an open air lock!"
"Yeah, but he's fairly popular. They might let them have a helmet, first," Nagchaudhuri replied with an even broader grin.
"And they might not, too." Fitzgerald shook his head. "No, we'll just let this be his little surprise when he gets back."
"I hope he's enjoying himself," Nagchaudhuri said more seriously. "He's a good kid. He works hard, and he really came through at Monica."
"They were all good kids," FitzGerald agreed. "And I'll admit, I worry about him a little. It's not natural for the XO to have to order an ensign to take leave. Especially not someone with his record from the Island!"
"He has been well behaved since we got back from Monica," Nagchaudhuri acknowledged. "You don't think he's sick, do you?"
"No, I think it's just losing all his accomplices." Fitzgerald shrugged. "With Helen off as the Skipper's new flag lieutenant, and with Paulo assigned to Weyland with Ginger, he's sort of at loose ends when it comes to getting into trouble. For which we can all be grateful."
"That depends. Are we going to get a fresh complement of snotties for him to provide with a suitably horrible example?"
"I doubt it." Fitzgerald shrugged again. "Given the fact that we're going to be sitting in a repair dock for the next several months, I imagine they'll be looking for something a bit more active for snotty cruises. Besides, even if we get a fresh batch, he's an ensign now. I think he'd actually feel constrained to set them a good example."
"Somehow I find it difficult to wrap my mind around the concept of Aikawa being a good example for anyone—intentionally, I mean. At least without having Helen around to threaten him if he doesn't!"
"Oh, come now!" Fitzgerald waved a chiding finger at the XO. "You know perfectly well that Helen never threatened him. Well, not too often, anyway."
"Only because she didn't have to make it explicit," Nagchaudhuri countered. "One raised eyebrow, and he knew what was coming."
Chapter Six
President Eloise Pritchart raked stray strands of platinum-colored hair impatiently from her forehead as she strode into the sub-basement command center. In contrast to her usual understated elegance, she wore a belted robe over her nightgown, and her face was bare of any cosmetics.
The head of her personal security team, Sheila Thiessen, followed close behind her. Unlike the President, Thiessen had been on duty when the alert was sounded. Well, not precisely on duty, since her official shift had ended five hours earlier, but she'd still been on-site, wading through her unending paperwork, and she was her well-groomed, fully clothed, always poised normal self.
Despite which, she thought, the hastily-dressed President still managed to make her look drab. In fact, the President always made everyone around her seem somehow smaller than life, especially at moments of crisis. It wasn't anything Pritchart tried to do; it was simply what genetics, experience, and her own inherent presence did for her. Even here, even now, awakened from what had passed for a sound sleep in the months since the twin hammer blows of Javier Giscard's death and the massive casualties the Republic of Haven had suffered in the Battle of Monica, despite the ghosts and sorrow which haunted those striking topaz eyes, that sense of unbreakable resolve and determination was like a cloak laid across her shoulders.
Or maybe that's just my imagination , Thiessen told herself. Maybe I just need for her to be unbreakable. Especially now .
Pritchart crossed quickly to the comfortable chair before her personal command and communication console. She nodded to the only two members of her cabinet who'd so far been able to join her—Tony Nesbitt, the Secretary of Commerce, and Attorney General Denis LePic—then settled into her own seat as it adjusted to her body's contours.
Nesbitt and LePic both looked tense, worried. They'd been working late—the only reason they'd been able to make it to the command center this quickly—and both had that aura of end-of-a-really-long-day fatigue, but that didn't explain their tight shoulders and facial muscles, the worry in their eyes. Nor were they alone in their tension. The command center's uniformed personnel and the scattering of civilian intelligence analysts and aides threaded through their ranks were visibly anxious as they concentrated on their duties. There was something in the air—something just short of outright fear—and Thiessen's bodyguard hackles tried to rise in response.
Not that the anxiety level about her came as any sort of surprise. The entire Republic of Haven had been waiting with gnawing apprehension for almost half a T-year for exactly this moment.
Pritchart didn't greet her cabinet colleagues by name, only gave them that quick nod and smiled at them, yet her mere presence seemed to evoke some subtle easing of their tension. Thiessen could actually see them relaxing, see that same relaxation reaching out to the people around them, as the President took her place without haste then settled back, shoulders squared, and turned those topaz eyes to the uniformed man looking down from the huge smart wall display at one end of the large, cool room.
"So, Thomas," she said, sounding impossibly composed. "What's this all about?"
Admiral Thomas Theisman, Secretary of War and Chief of Naval Operations for the Republic of Haven, looked back at her from his own command center under the rebuilt Octagon, a few kilometers away. Given the late hour, Thiessen suspected that Theisman had been in bed until a very short time ago himself. If that was the case, however, no one would have guessed it from his faultless appearance and impeccable uniform.