Hitting the ground running with that sort of an assignment had been no picnic, but at least he’d been permitted to keep his staff together during their stay in Manty custody, and its members had been kept busy dealing with his many responsibilities as the senior officer of the original Second Fleet’s surrendered personnel. (For that matter, he’d been the most senior Republican POW taken during the entire war, which he considered a somewhat dubious distinction.) As a result, it had remained a functional, well integrated team when he needed it, although getting all of its members used to the notion of fighting with the Manties, rather than against the Manties, hadn’t been the easiest thing he’d ever done. Which was fair enough. Getting himself used to the notion after so many years had taken some doing. In many ways though, Tourville suspected, Adamson’s lack of imagination had actually made it easier in the operations officer’s case.
“Signal from Commander Pruitt, Sir.” Lieutenant Commander Anita Eisenberg remained far and away the most youthful staff officer Tourville had ever had, but her promotion from lieutenant during her stay as a POW had been amply merited. He hadn’t had all that much need for a communications officer per se, yet she’d made herself invaluable in dozens of other ways. “Cantata’s initiating download now.”
“Thank you, Ace.” Tourville gave her a brief smile, then looked back at Adamson. “Any changes, Frazier?”
“Don’t see any, Sir.” Adamson’s tone was a bit absent as he watched his side plot updating from HMS Cantata’s download. “Looks like Filareta’s maintaining acceleration. If he does, he’s going to cross the limit in about another four minutes. At which point”—the ops officer’s tone shifted from absent to intensely satisfied; he did have a lively imagination when it came to tactics, and he’d been looking forward to this ever since the ops plan had been explained to them—“he is going to be well and truly screwed.”
Tourville nodded. His expression was thoughtful, but his fingers were busy unwrapping one of his trademark cigars, and it was a bit hard to hide the smile which might have undermined his flag officer’s gravitas as he realized every officer and rating on RHNS Terror’s flag bridge was watching him. Those cigars were part of his image, and he felt ripples of anticipation radiating outward, as if those men and women — most of whom had known him only by reputation until he arrived to take command — had been waiting for the evidence that they truly were going to do this.
The treecat perched on the back of his command chair, on the other hand, made a soft sound of mingled resignation, amusement, and scolding. Lurks in Branches didn’t like the smell of burning tobacco. Or he claimed he didn’t, anyway; Tourville had caught him sniffing at it with what looked suspiciously like appreciation once or twice. Either way, he seemed willing to put up with it as part of the price of looking after his assigned two-leg, although he definitely wasn’t above making his public attitude clear. Tourville’s ability to read sign was still rudimentary, but he didn’t need to be able to read it fluently to understand Lurks in Branches’ message when the ’cat’s long-fingered true-hands sealed his skinsuit helmet as soon as the human started unwrapping the cigar.
“Then I suppose we should get ready to dance,” he said dryly, and smiled at the hermetically protected treecat as he stuck the cigar into his mouth. He made sure he had it at the proper, jaunty angle before he looked at the com displays which tied him to the flag bridges of the brand-new Second Fleet’s three constituent task forces.
He’d worked hard to fit into his new command assignment ever since he’d found out he was going to have it, and it helped that he knew all three of his task force commanders reasonably well. It still hadn’t been easy. After the next best thing to a solid T-year away from a command deck, he’d felt undeniably rusty, and he’d wondered how the three of them were going to feel about taking the orders of an admiral who’d rather decisively lost the last battle he’d fought in this very star system. For that matter, he still wondered how Admiral Pascaline L’anglais, the commanding officer of Capital Fleet, had felt when almost seventy percent of her wall of battle was suddenly stripped away and sent off to fight under someone else’s command. In her place, Lester Tourville would have been royally pissed, and he wouldn’t have cared who knew it.
Of course, at that point the plan had been for Thomas Theisman to command the reconstituted Second Fleet, and not even someone with L’anglais’ well-known temper would have cared to argue that point. That had changed along with the initial plan for dealing with Filareta, however. The suggestion that Theisman might actually contribute even more effectively from someone else’s flagship had come from Duchess Harrington, but somewhat to Tourville’s surprise, Theisman had embraced the idea enthusiastically, which had left Second Fleet with no flag officers who’d ever actually commanded a full-scale fleet in action.
Except for Lester Tourville, that was.
“All right, People,” he told his task force COs. “Commander Adamson is sending all of you the execute signal now. The timer’s ticking. Any last immortal words anyone wants to say?”
He raised his eyebrows, then produced an old-fashioned silver lighter, activated its tiny plasma bubble, and puffed the fragrant tobacco carefully alight.
“I don’t know about ‘immortal words,’ Admiral,” Vice Admiral Oliver Diamato said, with an off-center smile, “but I guess we’re about as ready as we’re going to get.” He shook his head. “I have to say, though, I’m still wondering when we’re going to wake up and find out this was all a really weird dream.”
“It may be a dream, Oliver,” Vice Admiral Jennifer Bellefeuille said from her quadrant of the display, “but, frankly, the thought of fighting Sollies instead of Manties makes it more pleasant than quite a few I’ve had!”
Vice Admiral Sampson Hermier, Tourville’s third task force commander, only shook his head with a rather bemused smile of his own. He was almost as young as Diamato, which was an accomplishment for an officer of his seniority, and he was one of the few survivors of what had once been a moderately prominent Legislaturalist family. Tourville knew him less well than he did Diamato or Bellefeuille, but his combat record was excellent. If it hadn’t been, Thomas Theisman would never have tapped him for task force command.
Especially not command of one of these task forces.
“Well,” Tourville said thoughtfully, squinting through a haze of smoke before the ventilators wisped it away, “with the exception of Sampson, here, we’ve all had our butts kicked at one time or another by the Manties. So I’ll grant you it feels a bit bizarre. But to be honest, Jennifer, I think you’ve got a point. And speaking only for myself, I have to admit part of me really wants to see these goddamned arrogant Sollies taken down a peg. Besides,” his smile disappeared, “we know who the real enemy is now.”
His eyes had hardened along with his tone, and his subordinates looked back at him in grim agreement. He held their gazes for a moment, then continued more briskly.