All of those explanations for his unease were true. Unfortunately, none of them got at the root of whatever was worrying him.
He turned automatically, almost against his will, to the bulkhead calendar display. Three days since Blackbird's destruction. He didn't know exactly when Harrington's freighters had pulled out, but if they hadn't gone sooner, they must have gone as soon as she discovered Thunder's true weight of metal, and that gave him a rough time window. He might have as many as ten days or as few as eight before the Manticoran relief arrived, and every slow-ticking second of anticipation stretched his nerves tighter.
At least the Faithful seemed to realize they'd lost. The Elders' relatively speedy acceptance of his argument that further attacks would be in vain had been a welcome surprise, and if Simonds' decision to reinforce the fortifications scattered about the Endicott System was pointless, it also beat hell out of a do-or-die assault on Grayson.
They were doing exactly what he and Ambassador Lacy wanted them to, so why couldn't he feel any satisfaction?
It was the futility, he decided. The sense that events were in motion, proceeding down a foreordained path no one could alter. His awareness that it simply didn't matter anymorethat the end would be the same, whatever he did, or coaxed them into doingmade inactivity poisonously seductive.
Perhaps that was why he hadn't objected to the Sword's latest orders. Thunder of God had never been intended as a transport, but she was faster even sublight than anything Masada had, and if the thought of cluttering his ship with still more Masadans was unappealing, at least as long as she played passenger liner she wasn't being ordered back to Yeltsin. And it would at least give him the illusion of doing something.
He snorted. Perhaps he and Simonds were more alike than he cared to admit, for it seemed that was an illusion whose preservation they both craved.
He glanced at the calendar again. The first shuttles would be arriving in another nine hours, and he twitched his shoulders straight and headed for the cabin hatch. He and Manning were going to have a hell of a time figuring out where to put them, and that was good. It would give him something constructive to worry about for a while.
Admiral of the Green Hamish Alexander, Thirteenth Earl of White Haven, waited by the access tube as the pinnace docked in HMS Reliant's boat bay. His flagship was already driving towards the hyper limit under maximum military power, and if his rugged face was calm, the skin around his ice-blue eyes was tight.
He folded his hands behind him and knew the full shock hadn't yet hit. Prolong made for long friendships and associations, and he'd known Raoul Courvosier all his life. He was twelve T-years younger than Raoul had been and he'd climbed the rank ladder faster, in no small part because of his birth, but there'd always been a closenesspersonal, not just professionalbetween them. Lieutenant Courvosier had taught him astrogation on his midshipman's cruise, and he'd followed in Captain Courvosier's footsteps as senior tactical instructor at Saganami Island, and argued and planned strategy and deployment policies with Admiral Courvosier for years. Now, just like that, he was gone.
It was like waking up one morning to find he'd lost an arm or a leg in his sleep, but Hamish Alexander was familiar with pain. And terrible as this pain was, it was not what filled him with such fear. Beyond personal grief, beyond even his awareness of the outstanding leadership resource the Navy had lost with Raoul, was the knowledge that four hundred other Navy personnel had died with him, and that a thousand more were all too probably waiting for death in Yeltsin even nowif, indeed, they hadn't already died. That was what made Hamish Alexander afraid.
The tube pressure equalized, and a shortish, sturdy commander, her braided blond hair tucked under the white beret of a starship's commander, stepped out of it. Bosun's pipes shrilled, the side party came to attention, and she saluted crisply.
"Welcome aboard, Commander Truman," he said, returning her salute.
"Thank you, Sir." Truman's face was drawn and etched with weariness. It couldn't have been an easy voyage for her, Alexander thought, yet there was a fresh, peculiarly poignant sorrow he understood too well in her exhausted green eyes.
"I'm very sorry to have pulled you out of Apollo, Commander," he said quietly as they moved towards Reliant's lift, "but I needed to get under way immediatelyand I need to know everything someone who was there can tell me. Under the circumstances" He shrugged slightly, and she nodded.
"I understand, Sir. I hated leaving her, but she needs a dockyard, not me, and Commander Prevost can handle anything that comes up."
"I'm glad you understand." The door closed behind them, and Alexander examined his visitor as the lift started for the bridge. His ships had pulled out of Manticore orbit within fifteen minutes of receiving Apollo's squealed transmission, and he'd seen the cruiser's damage as she rendezvoused with Reliant to send Truman across. He still had only the sketchiest knowledge of events in Yeltsin, but one look at that mangled hull had told him it was bad. It was a miracle Apollo had remained hyper capable, and he'd wondered then what Truman would look like when she came aboard. Now he knew.
"I noticed," he chose his words with care, "that you made excellent time from Yeltsin's Star, Commander."
"Yes, Sir." Truman's voice was uninflected, and Alexander smiled.
"That wasn't a trap, Commander. On the other hand, I know perfectly well you didn't cut thirty hours off the old passage record without playing games with your hyper generator."
Alice Truman looked at him for several silent seconds. Lord Alexanderno, he was the Earl of White Haven, since his father's deathwas known for a certain willingness to ignore The Book when it got in his way, and there was an almost conspiratorial gleam under the worry in his eyes.
"Well, yes, My Lord," she admitted.
"How high did you take her, Commander?"
"Too high. We bounced off the iota wall a day out of Yeltsin."
Despite himself, Alexander flinched. Dear God, she must have taken out all the interlocks. No ship had ever crossed into the iota bands and survivedno one even knew if a ship could survive there.
"I see." He cleared his throat. "You were extremely lucky, Commander Truman. I trust you realize that?"
"Yes, Sir. I certainly do."
"You must also be extremely good," he went on in exactly the same tone, "considering that you held her together somehow."
"As you say, My Lord, I was lucky. I also have an extremely good engineer, who may even speak to me again someday."
Alexander's face blossomed with a sudden, almost boyish grin, and Truman grinned back at him. But it was a fragile, fleeting expression that died quickly, and she twitched her shoulders.
"I realize I violated every safety procedure, Sir, but knowing what Captain Harrington faced in Yeltsin, I felt the risk was justified."
"I agree completelyand I've so advised First Space Lord Webster."
"Thank you, Sir," Truman said quietly, and he nodded.
"As a matter of fact, Commander, we're going to be finding out just how good my engineers are. I'm afraid I can't justify taking two full squadrons of battlecruisers quite as high as you went, but I think we can shave a few hours off our return passage, and time is clearly the one thing we don't have."