"And the other thing she's had has been a positive gift for being in the right place at the right time—or the wrong place, at the wrong time, from our perspective. As you just observed, most of her actions have been on a fairly small scale, compared to something like White Haven's offensive just before the cease-fire. But they've had an impact all out of proportion to their size. Which undoubtedly accounts for a huge part of her reputation. If you want to put it that way, she's been lucky, although to some extent it's been a case of making her own luck. Which is one reason why I personally think that sending us out here was the right idea, despite any reservations I may feel."
"It was, Sir?" DeLaney looked at him again, and he snorted.
"Molly," he said, and it was his turn to sound patient, "I'm perfectly well aware that you think I've been a bit Cassandra-like about this entire operation. That, however, is known as the determined but sober attitude of a responsible military commander." The chief of staff's blush was considerably darker this time, and he smiled at her. "I'd be more than human—and an idiot, to boot—if I didn't have huge reservations about taking a fleet this size this far away from any of our bases or support structure to attack an officer with Harrington's reputation. Even assuming that we completely defeat her, which I happen to think we will, we're going to take losses and damage, and it's a hell of a long voyage home from here. Having said all of that, the very fact that Harrington enjoys the reputation and stature that she does makes her a sort of military objective in her own right. Defeating her, hopefully decisively, at the same time Thunderbolt is crunching up the Manties' frontier systems, will be a body blow to the Manty public's confidence and willingness to fight. And depriving the Manties of her services if they don't decide to start negotiating with us in good faith wouldn't be anything to sneeze at, either. Although at least this time, if we manage to capture her again, I can damned well guarantee there won't be any trumped up charges or plans for executions!"
DeLaney started to reply, but the lift car reached its destination before she could, and she stood aside to allow her admiral to precede her into the flag deck passage.
The rest of the staff was waiting, along with Captain Caroline Hughes, Majestic's CO, and Commander Pablo Blanchard, her exec. Second Fleet's task force and squadron commanders attended the meeting electronically, their faces floating in the quadrants of a holo display above the briefing room conference table. DeLaney knew that Tourville would really have preferred to have them aboard Majestic in the flesh for this final meeting, but that hadn't been practical. The fleet was squarely in the heart of a grav wave, bearing down on Sidemore, which made it impossible for any impeller-drive small craft to transport personnel back and forth between its units. For her own part, DeLaney was perfectly satisfied with the electronic substitute for an old-fashioned face-to-face meeting, but her boss was more of a traditionalist in that respect.
Those physically present stood as Tourville entered the compartment, then seated themselves once again after he'd settled into the chair at the head of the table. He tipped that chair back while he slowly and carefully prepared a cigar, stuck it into his mouth, lit it, and produced a cloud of fragrant smoke. He grinned through the fog bank of his own making, like a mischievous little boy, as the overhead air return sucked it away, and DeLaney hid a smile of her own. He was back on stage again, once more the hard-charging complete naval officer, ready, as the old cliche put it, to kick ass and take names.
"All right," he said briskly. "In about five hours, we're going to be dropping in on Sidemore without calling ahead for reservations." Several people chuckled, and his mischievous grin grew fierce. "When we do, there are going to be some people who won't be especially happy to see us. Which is going to be unfortunate . . . for them." A louder chuckle responded, and he nodded at his operations officer. "And now," he said, "Commander Marston is going to answer any last-minute questions you may have about exactly how we're going to make sure that it's unfortunate for them. Jeff?"
"Thank you, Sir," Commander Marston replied, and turned to face both the others present in the briefing room and the camera which connected the compartment to the holographic faces above the conference table. "I know all of you are familiar with our basic operational plan," he began. "Several of you, however, have expressed some concerns, particularly about the points covered in Annex Seventeen, so I thought, with your permission, Admiral, that we might start there."
He glanced at Tourville, who waved his cigar in an airy gesture of approval.
"Very well, then. First, Admiral Zrubek has raised a very interesting point in regard to the proper employment of our long-range recon platforms." He nodded respectfully to the holo quadrant filled by the recently promoted commander of Battle Squadron Twenty-One, which included eight of Second Fleet's twelve SD(P)s. "I've discussed the same point with Captain deCastries and Commander Hindemith," Marston continued, "and we've come to the conclusion that . . ."
Lester Tourville leaned back comfortably in his chair, listening with both ears, and half of his attention, to Marston's brisk, competent exposition. He would have paid more attention to the actual explanation if he'd had less confidence in the ops officer's ability and thoroughness. As it was, he was free to spend his time doing what, as far as he was concerned, was the true purpose of this meeting—taking the pulse of his command team's state of mind.
What he saw pleased him. One or two of them were obviously a bit on the anxious side, but he didn't blame them for that. Indeed, a certain edge of nervousness was probably a good thing, and there were enough others—like Zrubek and DeLaney—whose supreme confidence in the ops plan and, he supposed, in his own leadership, more than offset it. Yet however anxious or however confident any one of them might be, there was no hesitation. These people were as ready as anyone could possibly be for the task before them.
"Talk to me, Andrea," Honor said briskly but calmly as she arrived on Werewolf's flag bridge. Nimitz rode in her arms, once more in his own, custom-designed skinsuit, and she paused to park him on the back of her command chair. She gave his tufted ears a caress, then turned back to face her operations officer while the 'cat's nimble true-hands fastened the harness straps between his skinsuit and the chair.
"We still don't have positive confirmation, Your Grace," Captain Jaruwalski replied, "but I don't think there's much question. It's the Peeps."
"I tend to agree with Andrea, Your Grace," Mercedes Brigham put in from her own console, "but at the same time, I don't think we should positively rule out the possibility that this could be the Andies, instead." Honor looked at her, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I'm not saying that I believe it's the Andies, Ma'am. But until we know for certain, one way or the other, I think we'd better keep an open mind on the subject."
"That's a valid point," Honor acknowledged. "But whoever it is," she turned to consider the huge holo sphere of the master plot, "they look like they mean business."
"They certainly do that," Brigham agreed, and stood to join Honor beside the plot.
The unknown units were headed in-system on a course which would bring them to a zero-zero intercept with Marsh in just over six hours, assuming that they made turnover in three. And there were quite a few of them. In fact, it looked very much as if her "official" order of battle would have been outnumbered by at least fifty percent.