At first, only shocked speechlessness saved MacGregor from saying the unsayable. Then, as that faded, cold calculation took its place. Waldeck had been about as clear as his compulsive deviousness ever allowed him to be: Rehabilitate Mukerji and send him to Sixth Fleet, and this committee will make no further trouble about Prescott.
"Yes!" Wister exclaimed, no longer able to restrain herself. "Admiral Mukerji understands the proper role of the military in a constitutional democracy-unlike a fascistic beast like Prescott! He's always shown the proper deference to the elected representatives of the people! He-"
MacGregor ignored the noise and looked steadily into the eyes that peered out from between Waldeck's rolls of fat. She knew she would have to accept this. So it wasn't worth the political price to say what she wanted to say: "Unresolved questions" my ass, you tub of rancid lard! There was never any question about Mukerji's cowardice in Operation Pesthouse. He should have been shot-and would have been, if he hadn't spent years assiduously sucking up to you and other maggots like you.
No, the most we could do was relieve him. And it was Raymond Prescott's report that enabled us to do even that much. And now even that is going to have to be undone, as the price of keeping Prescott where he is and able to function effectively.
She waited until Wister had run out of breath or rhetoric or, perhaps, both. Then, ignoring the assemblywoman totally, she addressed Waldeck.
"I'll certainly take your suggestion under advisement, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps something of the sort can be arranged." She told herself that her self-imposed limits in the matter of Scotch could go to hell, just for tonight. But even that thought couldn't keep her from adding one thing, in a carefully diffident voice. "One point, Mr. Chairman. In light of the . . . history of Admiral Mukerji's relationship with Admiral Prescott, have you considered the possible impact of this move on the efficiency of Sixth Fleet's command structure?" Waldeck looked blank. She tried again. "I mean, the effectiveness of Admiral Prescott-and, by extension, of Sixth Fleet-in doing its job, which is protecting all of us from the Bugs."
Waldeck continued to wear an uncomprehending look, as though MacGregor had spoken in a foreign language-as, in fact, she had. Then he brushed it aside.
"Well, I'm sure any difficulties can be worked out. And now, the Chair will entertain a motion to adjourn."
CHAPTER SEVEN: To Hold Back Hell
Another wave of fighters swept outward, glinting in the light of the blue giant star called Reymiirnagar-dazzling even across 3.6 light-hours-and arrowed away towards a warp point which, from the standpoint of the Bugs, justified this system's nickname: "Hell's Gate."
Actually, Reymiirnagar was called that because one of its eight warp points led to the system of Telik, which the Bugs had turned into a fair approximation of Hell after their first war with the Star Union of Crucis. Still, the mammoth asteroid fortresses which now guarded the system had given the name a whole new meaning. There were only six of those monstrous constructs, squatting sullenly within the minefields that protected them from ramming attacks. But they had expelled waves of missiles, over and over, each armed with the warhead equivalent of a deep-space laser buoy, to sear the warp point's circumambient space with bomb-pumped x-ray lasers.
And that warp point is about to get even more hellish, thought a shaken Aileen Sommers.
She stood before the great curving observation screen on the flag deck of Glohriiss. The flagship was a converted Niijzahr-class fast superdreadnought, but she thought of it as an assault carrier-which, functionally speaking, it now was. The deck vibrated under her feet as another squadron of fighters began to launch-the first fighters the Crucians had ever built.
No, she reminded herself firmly. Not "Crucians." The correct term is ghornaku, or "sharers of union." The Zarkolyans and Telikans and Br'stoll'ee and so forth like being called "Crucians" almost as much as the Scots and Welsh like being called "Englishmen."
But, she amended the thought as she watched the fighters streak outward, it's appropriate for those pilots. They really were Crucians, members of the batlike (to Terran eyes) race which had founded and still dominated the Star Union.
Wingmaster Demalfii Furra had also been a racial Crucian. Sommers would take to her grave the memory of her first sight of Survey Flotilla 19's mysterious rescuer in the com screen-the first time the two races had ever set eyes on each other. How long ago had it been . . . ? She did the mental arithmetic with practiced ease. Fourteen standard months. It was now April, 2365, on the world she didn't let herself spend too much time remembering.
She felt another launch through the soles of her feet, and watched as the fighters flashed outward into the starfields. "Green" was too weak a word for these pilots, going into action for the first time after crash training in their race's first fighters. But Sommers had watched that training, and understood the implications of what she was watching. The Crucians were unique: toolmakers who were also functional flyers. A species that possessed two such extreme specializations at once was like a custard pie in the pompous face of scientific dogma. Sommers couldn't bring herself to worry about the headache the news would give human xenologists. What mattered was that the Grand Alliance now had an ally-without knowing about it just yet-with the potential to produce even better fighter pilots than the Ophiuchi.
Now that they have fighters, came the inevitable, guilt-inducing afterthought.
As if to underline it, Feridoun Hafezi appeared beside her, looking his most disapproving.
"Don't say it!"
"Don't say what?" Hafezi's black eyebrows were arches of uncomprehending innocence.
"You know perfectly well what! You're going to tell me I had no authorization to give the Crucians strikefighter technology."
"I wasn't going to say that. Besides, I don't have to. Your own guilty conscience obviously already did it for me."
"I do not have a guilty conscience! How could I have kept it from them, short of blowing up all of SF 19's fighters and carriers, as well as wiping all our databases? Should I have done that just to keep a vital technological edge away from a race that's fighting for its existence against the Bugs? A race, I might add, that saved our personal bacon! And furthermore-"
"All right, I admit it! You don't have a guilty conscience." Hafezi held up a hand to ward off renewed expostulations. "Besides, that really wasn't what I was thinking of."
"Oh?" Sommers cocked her head. "Then how come you're looking like the righteous wrath of Allah?"
"You know perfectly well why," he grumped, echoing her in a way of which neither of them was aware, and she sighed.
"I thought we'd been over that. It's vital that I accompany this fleet personally, as an earnest of our commitment to-"
"You could have sent me to represent you. Or Milos." He waved vaguely outward, indicating the part of the formation where Kabilovic was launching his human and Ophiuchi-piloted fighters-the few that weren't scattered around the Star Union to serve as training cadre-in support of the Crucians. "Or . . . somebody. But you've got no business anywhere near this battle, Aileen!"