In his less cynical moments, Higgins didn't find that difficult to accept. Yet he was still more than a bit bemused by the quirk of fate which had put him in command of Home Fleet and, in the process, converted him into the only "Admiral of the Fleet" currently in Manticoran service.
Of course, he wouldn't have been where he was if not for the massive losses the Royal Manticoran Navy had suffered in the Battle of Manticore. To his considerable astonishment, Allen Higgins had become one of the dozen or so most senior flag officers in the entire Navy in the wake of that brutal winnowing. When Duchess Harrington had relinquished command of Home Fleet to resume command of Eighth Fleet—or, rather, when there'd been enough Manticoran and Alliance ships-of-the-wall to rebuild a Home Fleet in addition to Eighth Fleet—Allen Higgins had found himself replacing her. Well, stepping into her position, since it was unlikely anyone could actually replace her.
Although Higgins respected Alexander-Harrington's accomplishments, he was also one of those officers who was well aware of the role the media had played in creating the legend of "the Salamander." To her credit, she seemed to genuinely attempt to avoid that sort of media adulation, but coupled with her stature on Grayson and her political status as one of the main leaders of the Opposition to the High Ridge Government, it had turned her into the next best thing to a physical avatar of the goddess of war as far as the Manticoran public was concerned. And, for that matter, as far as most of the Navy was concerned. Which had made stepping into her shoes an interesting experience.
It also accounted for some of his current apprehension. After all, no matter how well he did, he was going to find himself being compared to the memory of Sebastian D'Orville, who'd died leading the previous Home Fleet into headlong battle, or of Duchess Harrington, whom Higgins had relieved as Home Fleet's CO, and whose Eighth Fleet had saved the home system from Operation Beatrice. And, if he were going to continue to be honest, part of that apprehension also stemmed from what had happened in Grendelsbane. There was no point trying to pretend the experience hadn't scarred him. He didn't think it had left him doubting his judgment, but it had left him dreading a repeat performance. He would have felt much more comfortable if he'd been able to convince himself lightning didn't really strike twice in the same place. Unfortunately, it did. So instead, he spent his time telling himself disasters like Grendelsbane weren't really lightning bolts, so he didn't have to worry about stupid proverbs.
Which, he reflected, makes me feel ever so much better when I think about it.
His lips twitched as that brought him almost full circle through the cycle of thoughts which always ran through his mind at moments like this. It was fortunate his sense of humor, at least, had survived Grendelsbane and the Battle of Manticore, he supposed. It was a dryer and sometimes more biting sense of humor than it once had been, but it was still there, and he suspected he was going to need it, now that Lacoцn One was in effect. The League wasn't going to be happy when it discovered Manticore had closed the Junction to all Solly traffic. Or that nondiscretionary recall orders had been issued to every Manticoran merchantman in Solarian space. Or, now that he thought about it, that orders had been dispatched to every station commander to take whatever steps seemed necessary to protect Manticoran ships, property, and lives from Solarian action.
No, they weren't going to be very happy about that at all, he thought. In fact, he reflected, as he looked at his flagship's crest, mounted on the flag bridge bulkhead beside the lift doors, a lot of them were going to be taking his flagship's name in vain when they heard about it.
HMS Inconceivable . He wasn't sure what he thought of "inconceivable" as the name for one of Her Majesty's starships, but it was certainly a fitting appellation for his flagship, under the circumstances.
* * *
"I don't suppose you've got that flight schedule for me yet," a patient, long-suffering voice said as Colonel Andrew LaFollet of the Harrington Steadholders Guard stepped through the office door, and he looked at the speaker with an artfully innocent expression.
"Flight schedule?" he inquired blankly. "Which flight schedule would that be?"
His sister glared at him, and the treecat on the end of Miranda LaFollet's desk bleeked a laugh.
"The one," she said with a ferocious glower, "for the trip to Sphinx. You do remember the trip to Sphinx? The one for Claire's birthday?"
"Oh, that schedule!" He smiled at her. "What makes you think I might have it? You're the one in charge of things around here when the Steadholder and Mac are away, not me!"
Miranda glowered some more, but the smile twitching at the corners of her mouth gave her away. After a moment, she gave up. There was no point trying to change her big brother at this point. Besides, she'd be disappointed if she succeeded . . . she thought.
"All right," she said. "You win. I'll make the flight arrangements, but I can't do that until you hand me the security plan. So where is it?"
"Oh, well, I've got that right here," he told her with a chuckle and tossed the chip folio across to her. She missed the catch, but Farragut reached up a long-fingered true-hand and plucked it neatly out of the air.
"Thanks," she told the 'cat as he handed it across to her. "Nice to see that at least some male members of some species are capable of showing a modicum of courtesy," she added, looking rather pointedly at Andrew.
"Ha! He's just sucking up to his celery source!"
Miranda laughed, and Andrew winked at her, then waved casually and headed back out of her office. She smiled after him for a few moments, then shook her head and inserted to the data chip into her reader. A file header appeared on her display, and her smile faded into a frown of intensity as she studied the file's contents.
She supposed it was entirely possible—even likely—that a great many Manticorans would find it more than mildly ridiculous for someone to file a security plan that ran to better than fifty pages just for a day trip to take a ten-month-old baby and his grandmother to his aunt's birthday party. Miranda LaFollet, on the other hand, did not, because the grandmother in question was her Steadholder's mother, and the ten-month-old was Raoul Alfred Alastair Alexander-Harrington, who would someday, Tester willing, be her Steadholder.
Not that she'd be around to see that day. At least, she hoped she wouldn't, she thought with a familiar edge of bittersweetness. She'd been just too old for prolong when the treaty of alliance with Manticore brought it to the planet Grayson. At fifty, she was thirteen years younger than Lady Harrington, but if anyone had simply looked at the two of them, they would have thought the interval was twice as great . . . and in the opposite direction. Miranda would have been more than human if there hadn't been times she resented the extended lifespans Manticorans took for granted, but she'd truly come to terms with it. Or she thought she had, at least. And if neither she nor Andrew would ever be able to receive the prolong treatments, their younger siblings, like her brother Micah, certainly had.
She sat gazing sightlessly at the display for a couple of seconds, then shook her head with a snort. She had more important things to do than sit around brooding, she told herself tartly, and returned her attention to Andrew's plan.
* * *
"—stupidest damned idea I've ever heard of! It's not like we don't have other things—worthwhile things—we could be doing instead, after all! And if anything ever really happens to the station, who the hell's going to have time to run for a frigging life pod in the first place?"