Stokes' face turned an intriguing shade of puce. His assignment to command Manticore Astro Control coincided with Baron High Ridge's assumption of the premiership. ACS was a civil service organization, despite its military ranks, but it came under the authority of the Ministry of Trade. Like his colleague Janacek, at the Admiralty, the Earl of North Hollow had wielded a clean broom when he took over at Trade, and Stokes had been his handpicked choice for the Junction. Like many of North Hollow's allies, he was not held in particularly high esteem by Earl White Haven. Nor had White Haven ever made any effort to conceal that fact.
"Look," Stokes half-snarled, "I don't really give a good goddamn about all of that crap! If you want to use the Junction, fine. But you'll damned well take your own slot in the transit queue instead of coming through here and bumping anybody in your way!"
"We'll make transit as we arrive," White Haven replied coldly, "or there will be a formal protest from Protector Benjamin on Foreign Secretary Descroix's desk by this time tomorrow." He showed his teeth briefly. "Admiral MacDonnell brought it with him in case it might be needed. And that protest will be accompanied by a report from Admiral MacDonnell specifically listing the names of the Manticoran officers who refused to honor the Star Kingdom's solemn obligations under interstellar covenant. A covenant from which the Protectorate will offer to withdraw if the Star Kingdom finds its reciprocal obligations under it odious. Somehow, Allen, I don't think you want to be named in Admiral MacDonnell's report."
Stokes' expression seemed to congeal like cold gravy. Its angry flush faded abruptly into something much paler and tinged with green. The Junction lay four hundred and twelve light-minutes from Manticore-A. At the moment, the capital planet itself was on the far side of the primary, which added another twelve light-minutes. Of course, ACS had been provided with grav-pulse communicators as soon as they became available. Although the capital planet lay beyond direct transmission range of even the latest generation FTL systems, repeater stations had been emplaced to cover the gap, which meant that the sheer distance between Stokes and the city of Landing no longer imposed the delays of simple light-speed transmission lags. At the moment, however, that was of scant comfort to Admiral Allen Stokes.
However quickly his message could reach the capital, there was still going to be an inevitable period of confusion and consternation at the far end of the com link. Nobody was going to want to stick his neck out until he'd had time to consult a copy of the treaty, his own immediate superiors, at least three attorneys, and probably a justice of the Queen's Bench. As White Haven had just observed, however, the first Grayson warships would reach the transit threshold in little more than ten minutes. Which meant that no one on Manticore was going to take the heat off of Stokes in time to do him any good.
The Astro Control commander was quite certain that both Stefan Young and Sir Edward Janacek were going to be livid the instant they heard about this. And he was equally certain that the two of them would relieve some of their frustration by taking it out on whatever unfortunate officer gave the Graysons permission to make transit. But if he didn't give them transit authority, and if White Haven was telling him the truth about the strength of protest Benjamin was prepared to lodge, the consequences for one Allen Stokes' career would probably be even worse. Whatever Janacek's view of the value of the alliance with Grayson might be, neither he nor North Hollow was about to court responsibility for wrecking it. And especially not at a moment when diplomatic tensions with the Republic of Haven were at their highest level since the war. So if Stokes defied MacDonnell—and White Haven—and his refusal to let the damned Graysons trample all over his traffic patterns blew up into a major diplomatic incident, he would almost certainly become the sacrificial victim offered up in its wake.
He drew a deep breath and glowered at White Haven, but even he knew that his expression lacked the voltage of true defiance.
"I feel certain," he said, with all the dignity he could muster, "that the high-handedness of this arrogant disruption of the Junction's normal civilian transit patterns will be protested at the highest level of government. There are, after all, proper procedures—procedures allies observe as a matter of simple, minimal courtesy. I, however, am not prepared to compound the diplomatic exchanges which this . . . incident will inevitably generate. I continue to protest in the strongest possible terms, but we will clear your units for immediate transit upon their arrival. Stokes, clear."
The com screen blanked, and Hamish Alexander looked at Niall MacDonnell and grinned.
"I don't think he likes us very much," the Earl of White Haven observed. "What a pity."
"Well," Commander Lampert said quietly, his eyes on the date-time display, "that's that."
"What?" Captain Reumann looked up from the message board in his lap. He let his command chair come fully upright, and swiveled it to face his executive officer. Lampert waved one hand wordlessly at the time display, and Reumann followed the gesture, frowned in brief thought, and then chuckled humorlessly.
"You know, Doug, the die was actually cast, if I may be permitted a somewhat purple phrase, when the Admiral sent Starlight on her way. It's not like we could have called anything back once she headed off into hyper, you know."
"Oh, I realize that, Sir." Lampert shook his head with a lopsided grin. "I suppose it's just that I'm a compulsive stage watcher."
" 'Stage watcher'?" Reumann shook his head. "I'm afraid am not familiar with that one."
"We're the ones who insist on chopping complex operations up into discrete stages so that we can check them off, one at a time." Lampert shrugged. "I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's how I keep things organized."
"Well, I certainly can't complain, then," Reumann told him. "Without you to keep the Sovereign organized, God knows where we'd be. But somehow I don't think the Admiral would be very happy about the results."
"Executive officer's job, Sir," Lampert replied with another shrug. "All the same, I'll feel better this time day after tomorrow."
"You'll feel better this time day after tomorrow if the ops plan works," Reumann corrected, and Lampert grimaced.
"I seem to recall having heard somewhere that it was an officer's job to project cheerful confidence, Sir."
"Indeed it is. And it's also an officer's job to remain constantly aware of potential difficulties which may interfere with the successful completion of the tasks assigned to him. Like, for example, the Manty navy." Reumann chuckled again at Lampert's expression.
"Sorry," he said after a moment, with an edge of contrition. "I don't really mean to give you a hard time, Doug. Just put it down to the peculiar way I deal with defusing my own tensions."
" 'S another thing execs are there for, Skipper." Lampert shrugged. "If the Master after God can relieve his tension, thereby improving his own efficiency, just by abusing his hapless executive officer, then said hapless executive officer is only too pleased to suffer for the good of the Service."
"Yeah. Sure he is." Captain and first officer grinned at one another, but then, as if by unspoken agreement, their eyes slid once more to the time display on the bulkhead, and their grins faded.
When it came down to it, Reumann reflected, Lampert was right. Maybe they couldn't have changed the schedule, and no doubt they truly had been committed from the moment Admiral Giscard activated Operation Thunderbolt on the instructions of President Pritchart and the Congress. But there was something more than merely symbolic about Starlight's departure from Trevor's Star to Basilisk via Manticore. Battle divisions and squadrons had been departing First Fleet's rendezvous for several days, each force heading off for its own individual objective. In fact, all of First Fleet had dispersed in accordance with Thunderbolt's minutely organized timetable, and no one could possibly have called any of them back. So the Rubicon had actually been crossed well before Starlight reached Trevor's Star. But there was still a special significance to the dispatch boat's mission, even if Reumann couldn't possibly have offered a logical explanation for why that was true.