"Yes, Sir."
"Had you done anything that could have gotten him pissed off enough at you to fabricate some sort of complaint in an effort to make trouble for you?"
"Sir, I can't think of a single thing," she said, shaking her head. "I did everything exactly by The Book, the way I've done it every time before. But it was like . . . I don't know, exactly, Sir, but it was like he was waiting for me to do something he could complain about. And if I wasn't going to do it, then he was ready to claim I had, anyway! I've never seen anything like it, Sir."
She was obviously even more confused than she was worried, and Denton made another mental check mark of approval for her end-of-deployment evaluation. Despite her evident concern that he might wonder if she was trying to cover her posterior, she'd reported the entire episode to the XO as soon as she'd come back aboard ship. And the XO had been sufficiently perplexed—and concerned—to pass her report along to Denton before she'd even left his office. Which was the reason Monahan was now sitting in Denton's day cabin repeating her account of the customs inspection.
"So you went aboard, asked for his papers, checked them, and did a quick walk-through, right?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And he was giving you grief from the very beginning?"
"Yes, Sir. From the minute I cleared the personnel tube. It was like he was on some kind of hair trigger, ready to bite my head off over anything, no matter how polite my people and I were. Skipper, I think I could have complimented him on the color of the bulkheads and he would have managed to turn it into some sort of mortal insult!"
The young woman—she was only twenty-two T-years old—had clearly never experienced anything like it. Denton had, on the other hand, although it had usually been from a Solarian merchant spacer, not someone from New Tuscany. Some Sollies went out of their way to attempt to provoke a Manticoran officer into providing a basis for complaints and allegations of harassment. It was something Astro Control back in the home system encountered with depressing frequency from Solarian ships passing through the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, as well. Some Sollies simply resented the hell out of the fact that a single little out-system star nation dominated such a huge percentage of the League's total carrying trade. They went around with planet-sized chips on their shoulders where the Star Kingdom was concerned as a consequence.
But the Sollies who did that also knew they were representatives of the Solarian League. They were armed and armored with all of the arrogant Solly assurance that there was nothing any mere Manticoran could really do to punish them if they got out of line. That was one of the things Denton himself personally most hated about Solarians. And it was also what puzzled him about this incident, because New Tuscany was a single-system star nation, so poor it didn't have a pot to piss in. So what could possibly possess a New Tuscan merchant skipper to risk deliberately antagonizing the Royal Manticoran Navy here in a star system which had just become Manticoran territory?
"Sir?"
Denton shook himself back up out of his thoughts and looked back at Monahan.
"Sorry, Rachel." He gave her a quick smile. "Wool gathering, I'm afraid. You had something else you wanted to add?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Well, add away," he encouraged.
"Sir, it's just, well . . ." She seemed a bit hesitant, then visibly steeled herself for the plunge.
"Sir, it's just that I had this funny feeling that he wasn't really saying any of it for my benefit."
"What do you mean?" Denton's eyes narrowed.
"It was more like he was talking about me than to me," she said, sounding as if she were picking her words carefully, trying to find the ones to explain whatever it was she was groping towards. "Like . . . like somebody in one of the Academy's training holos, almost."
"Like he knew it was being recorded," Denton said slowly. "Is that what it felt like?"
"Maybe, Sir." Monahan looked more worried than ever. "And it wasn't just me he was complaining about, either."
"Meaning?" Denton tried to keep any note of tension out of his voice, but it was hard, given the mental alarm bells trying to ring somewhere deep down inside him.
"Meaning that he didn't say just 'you' when he was complaining about what a hard time I'd been giving him. He said that, but he also said things like 'you people,' too. Like there were dozens of me, all trying to give him and his friends trouble."
"I see."
Denton sat in thought for several more seconds, not particularly liking the speculations chasing around the inside of his brain like hamsters in an exercise wheel, then returned his attention to the ensign sitting before him.
"Rachel, I want you to know that you did exactly the right thing reporting this. And that neither the XO nor I believe for a minute that you did a single thing wrong aboard that ship. I don't know exactly what his problem was, but I'm sure you handled yourself just as well as you always have in the past."
"I tried to, Sir," she said, unable to hide her enormous relief at his firmly supportive tone. "The more it went on, though, the more I started wondering if I had done something to tick him off!"
"I doubt very much that you did anything at all," Denton said in that same firm tone of voice. "Unfortunately, you may well encounter the same thing again. God knows most of us have run into it a time or two, although it's usually from the Sollies, not from someone like the New Tuscans. I'm sorry it happened to you here, but it's probably just as well to get the first dose out of the way early in your career."
"Yes, Sir," she said, and he flashed her a smile of approval.
"All right," he said with an air of finality. "I think you've probably given me everything you've got, so there's no point our sitting here chewing it over any more or wondering what kind of wild hair might have inspired him to go off that way. I would like you to go ahead and record a formal report on this, though. If he does actually decide to complain to someone, I want to have your version of the encounter already on the record to help shoot him down."
"Yes, Sir," she said again.
"In that case, why don't you go ahead and get that taken care of right now, while events are still fresh in your mind?"
"Yes, Sir."
Monahan obviously recognized her dismissal, and she rose, braced briefly to attention, and left. Denton gazed at the closed door for several moments, then punched a combination into his com terminal.
"Bridge, XO speaking," a voice said. "What can I do for you, Skipper?"
"I've just finished talking with Rachel, Pete. I see why you sent her to see me."
"She did seem more than a little upset," Lieutenant Peter Koslov said. "But it was the nature of what that New Tuscan bastard said that really worried me."
"Agreed. I don't want to make a big thing out of this and worry her any more than she already is, especially not before she gets her formal report together for me. But, that said, I want you to have a word with the rest of her boarding party, especially Chief Fitzhugh. And have a quiet word with any of the other JOs who've been running the customs inspections. See if any of them may have heard some of the same kind of remarks and just not been as willing as Rachel to bring them to our attention. And if they have heard anything like that, I want details of time, place, and content."
"Yes, Sir."
Koslov sounded rather grimmer than he had a moment ago, Denton noticed.
"One other thing," the CO continued. "I want every party that goes aboard anybody's merchant shipping wired for sound and vision. I don't especially want you to mention it to anyone aboard ship, either, because I don't want anyone obviously playing to the camera from our side. So find someplace to put a parasite cam. I don't want to give away any image quality unless we have to, but I'm less worried about picture than I am about sound."
"Skipper, I don't think I like what I think you're thinking."
"Well, if you hadn't been thinking in the same direction yourself, you wouldn't have gotten Rachel in to see me quite this promptly, now would you?" Denton shot back.
 
; "It was more an itch than any sort of full-blown suspicion, Sir."
"In that case, your instincts may just have been serving you entirely too well, I'm afraid," Denton said grimly. "I don't have any idea why this might be going on, and it may be that you and I are both just imagining things. But it may be that we aren't, either, and Admiral Khumalo made the point that he wanted us to keep our eyes and ears open when he sent us out. So go ahead and make those inquiries for me. And get those bugs planted. Maybe we can sneak them into the boarding officer's memo boards or something. I don't know, but I do know I want the best hard records we can get of every visit to a New Tuscan ship. And I want the same thing from our inspections of anyone else's shipping, as well, to serve as a base for comparison. Clear?"
"Clear, Skipper," Koslov replied. "I don't like where we seem to be going with this, but it's clear."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"Not much of a picket, is it?" Michelle Henke commented quietly to Cynthia Lecter, twelve days after her conversation with Josef Byng, as HMS Artemis and the other three ships of the first division of Battlecruiser Squadron 106 decelerated towards a leisurely rendezvous with the ships Augustus Khumalo had detached to keep an eye on the Tillerman System when he returned to Spindle from Monica.
"No, Ma'am," Lecter agreed, equally quietly. "On the other hand, Admiral Khumalo didn't have a lot to work with. And I don't think anyone expected Vice Admiral O'Malley to be recalled quite so . . . precipitously."
"You do have a way with words, don't you, Cindy?" Michelle smiled without very much humor, but she had to admit that Lecter had made an excellent point. Two of them, in fact.
Which leaves me with a not-so-minor problem of my own, she thought dryly. Nobody had a clue the Sollies were going to send such a big-assed task force straight out to Monica to wave in our face. But now we know they have . . . and that we are going back to war with Haven, too. So do I reinforce Tillerman by detaching a couple of battlecruisers, or do I leave Tillerman like it is and take everybody I've got back to Spindle to keep things concentrated?
The question was, unfortunately, one she wouldn't be able to duck, much as she might have wished she could do exactly that. The mere notion of dividing her forces in the face of any potential threat from the Solarian League was calculated to inflict insomnia on any fleet commander. On the one hand, the three days she'd spent in Monica had convinced her that whatever else Josef Byng might be in the vicinity to accomplish, it wasn't to reassure one Michelle Henke of his friendly and pacific intent. So if she didn't reinforce the pair of over-aged light cruisers and the single destroyer Khumalo had been able to station here, she risked sending the entirely wrong signal not just to him but to everyone else in the Talbott Quadrant. She dared not give anyone—especially Byng—the impression that she would be unwilling to run serious risks, or even fight, to defend the territory and citizens of the newborn Star Empire of Manticore. For that matter, she had both a legal and a moral responsibility to do just that, regardless of the nature of the threat.
On the other hand, even a pair of Nikes might find themselves hard-pressed against all of Byng's battlecruisers at once. Despite the advantages in range and hitting power the Mark 16 and Mark 23 provided for the RMN, enough effective missile defense could go a long way towards blunting that advantage, and no one had any way to assess just how effective SLN missile-defense doctrine might actually be. Michelle strongly doubted that it would be enough to tip the odds in the Sollies' favor, but she couldn't be positive of that before the fact. Worse, even if it turned out after the fact that two Nikes were, indeed, a match for everything Byng had, Byng wouldn't know that ahead of time, either. For that matter, he'd never admit it—probably even to himself—no matter how much evidence anyone presented to him before the shooting started. Michelle had seen enough Manticoran officers who were capable of that sort of self-delusion when it suited their prejudices. Someone like Byng would be able to pull that off effortlessly.
And if he doesn't recognize—or admit—the threat even exists, then the "threat" won't deter him for a moment, will it? she thought bitingly. Aside, of course, from the possibility that taking out our "outnumbered and outgunned" picket would be crossing a line he may have specific orders not to cross.
Yeah. Sure he does. If you're willing to bank on that, girl, don't be accepting any real estate deals that involve bridges or magic beans!
She grimaced, then inhaled deeply and glanced over her shoulder at Lieutenant Commander Edwards.
"Contact Devastation, Bill. My compliments to Commander Cramer, and would it be convenient for him to join me for dinner here aboard Artemis at, say, eighteen-thirty hours?"
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," the com officer replied, and Michelle turned her attention to Gervais Archer.
"As for you, Gwen," she said with a smile, "you get to go tell Chris that Commander Cramer will be joining us for dinner. Make sure Captain Armstrong and Commander Dallas know they're invited, as well."
"Yes, Ma'am," Gervais replied gravely. He supposed some might argue that the admiral was being just a bit presumptuous to be organizing dinner parties when the guest of honor hadn't confirmed that he'd be present. On the other hand, it was just a bit difficult for Gervais to conceive of any commander who wouldn't somehow find it possible to fit an invitation from any admiral into his schedule, no matter how busy it might be.
"Oh, and, Bill," Michelle said, glancing back at Edwards. "While you're sending out the invitations, go ahead and invite Captain Conner and Commander Houseman, too."
Commander Wesley Cramer of Her Majesty's Starship Devastation was a hard-bitten looking officer, forty-one T-years old (which made him three T-months younger than his own cruiser), with dark hair and quartz-hard gray eyes. His neatly clipped mustache mostly hid a scar on his upper lip, one of several souvenirs of a bruising Saganami Island rugby career, and it didn't look as if he'd mellowed a great deal since leaving the Academy.
Which, Michelle reflected, suited her just fine, under the circumstances.
She examined him with carefully hidden intensity as Gervais Archer ushered him into the magnificent dining cabin BuShips had seen fit to provide for her. Despite the fact that he was both the commander of a Queen's ship and currently the senior officer assigned to Tillerman, he was also junior to every officer in the compartment except Archer himself. If he was particularly aware of that fact, however, it didn't seem to weigh too heavily upon him.
"Commander Cramer," Gervais murmured to her by way of formal introdmction, and she extended her right hand.
"Commander," she said.
"Milady," Cramer responded, gripping the offered hand firmly.
"Let me introduce you to everyone," she continued, turning to her other guests. "Captain Armstrong, of the Artemis, and her XO, Commander Dallas. Captain Conner, of the Penelope, and his XO, Commander Houseman."
Cramer was busy shaking hands as she spoke, and she gave him a moment to catch up before she turned to the members of her own staff who were present.
"Captain Lecter, my chief of staff; Commander Adenauer, my ops officer; and Lieutenant Commander Treacher, my logistics officer. And I believe you've already met Lieutenant Archer, my flag lieutenant."
It took Cramer a few more moments to shake all of the newly introduced hands, and then Michelle nodded towards the large table under its snow white tablecloth and burden of plates, crystal, and gleaming tableware.
"One of my own previous COs was firmly of the opinion that a good meal was often the basis for the most effective officers' conferences," she observed. "Which, in case any of you somehow failed to catch my subtle implication, was an invitation to eat."
It was fascinating to watch Admiral Gold Peak in action, Gervais Archer reflected some time later. Despite her lofty birth, there was an undeniable earthiness about her basic personality, and he'd come to wonder if she might not have developed that trait deliberately. He'd already seen ample evidence of her effortless mastery of the proper rules of etiquette and her abilit
y to project the public persona appropriate to someone who stood only five heartbeats away from the Crown of Manticore. Very few people, watching her operate in that mode, would ever have grounds to suspect how much she clearly loved escaping from it, he thought, but anyone who'd worked with—or for—her for any length of time knew exactly how little she liked playing that particular role. And it wasn't as if she needed to remind anyone in the Navy that the Queen was her cousin. First, because however much she might have wished they didn't, everyone already knew. But second, and more importantly, because she needed no aristocratic airs to underscore her authority. She'd demonstrated her competence too many times, and even if she hadn't, five or ten minutes in her presence would have made that competence painfully clear to anyone, however "casual" or "earthy" she might choose to appear.
Now she leaned back in her chair at the head of the table, nursing a cup of coffee instead of one of the wineglasses several of her guests preferred, and favored Commander Cramer with a smile which held very little humor.
"Now that we've impressed you with my hospitality, Commander," she said dryly, "I suppose we probably ought to get down to business."
Cramer nodded politely in acknowledgment, and a trace of true amusement worked its way into her smile.
"I've read your reports," she continued, and Gervais knew she truly had read them, not simply skimmed them, after they'd been burst-transmitted to Artemis. "I'm very pleased with what you've managed to accomplish here," she went on. "On the other hand, there's not much point any of us pretending that you're in any position to hold off some sort of serious attack on Tillerman."
Cramer nodded again, and the admiral sipped from her coffee cup again.
"Under almost any other set of circumstances, Commander, I would be completely satisfied to leave Tillerman in your care. Given our recent encounter with so many Solarian battlecruisers at Monica, however, and given the proximity of both Meyers and Monica to Tillerman, I think we need something a bit more . . . impressive here in the system. Mind you, I'm not happy about the notion of spreading our forces out in penny packets. We're too thin on the ground—for the moment, at least—to go around diluting our combat power that way. Unfortunately, I don't see any real option here. At least for the foreseeable future, Tillerman's going to be our most advanced picket in an area where we've already crossed swords with a Solarian client state. Given that, it turns the entire region into a potential flashpoint that I believe requires a force which is not simply more powerful than yours but is self-evidently more powerful. Powerful enough to give any reasonable potential adversary pause. My judgment in that regard represents absolutely no reflection on you, any of your people, or the other ships under your command here."