Helen's eyes flipped to the petite, fine-boned blonde with the improbably dark complexion. Kaplan happened to be looking at her at the moment, and the commander smiled at Helen's obvious surprise. And her chagrin, for that matter, as she scolded herself for not noticing the white beret of a starship's CO tucked under Kaplan's epaulet.
"These other two gentlemen," Terekhov continued, pulling her attention back from Kaplan, "are Captain Frederick Carlson, the commanding officer of HMS Quentin Saint-James, and Commander Tom Pope . . . my new chief of staff."
This time both of Helen's eyebrows rose in astonishment.Hexapuma had been back in home space for substantially less than two days. In fact, she'd only docked here at Hephaestus three hours ago. The captain hadn't even been off the ship yet—couldn't even have had so much as the opportunity to give his wife a hug! Things simply didn't change this quickly and drastically—not even in the Navy!
Not usually, at least.
"As I'm sure both of you were already aware, things have changed considerably since we first deployed to Talbott," Terekhov said, almost as if he'd heard her thoughts, and smiled thinly. "Quite a bit of that seems to be our fault, as far as the Admiralty is concerned, so they've decided we ought to do something about it.
"Obviously," he continued, "the Navy's deployment plans in general are in what we might charitably call a state of flux. The cancellation of the summit talks with Haven and the decision to resume active operations make it even more unlikely that the Admiralty is going to be able to free up wallers to reinforce Admiral Khumalo anytime soon. In addition, it's effectively anchored Admiral Blaine to the Lynx Terminus, where he can get home in a hurry if he has to. Which has lent added emphasis to the Admiralty's decision to reinforce Talbott primarily with lighter units.
"In addition to the ships Vice Admiral Gold Peak already has, an additional squadron ofNikes is in the process of forming. Admiral Oversteegen is its commander (designate), and as soon as all of its units have joined up, it—and he—will be transferred from Eighth Fleet to Tenth Fleet. In addition, however, the Admiralty is already prepared to deploy a full squadron of brand new Saganami-Cs and one of the new Roland-class destroyer squadrons to Talbott.Tristram—" he nodded at Kaplan "—is one of the Rolands. And I, to my considerable surprise, am the newly designated commodore of CruRon 94. Commander FitzGerald will take over Hexapuma, Commander Pope will be acting as my chief of staff, and Captain Carlson will be my flag captain."
Helen glanced at Lieutenant Hearns, who seemed remarkably composed, given how caught-in-the-slipstream Helen felt as the captain's—no, the commodore's—explanation rolled over her. She hoped she looked like she was at least managing to keep up with him, although she was at a loss to understand how he could be so calm about it all. He sounded as if things like this happened to him every day!
"I'm sure that by now both of you are wondering why I've dragged a pair of such relatively junior officers in to explain all of this to them. Well, I do have a reason. Two of them, in fact.
"With so many ships moving in so many directions in such a short period of time, the Admiralty is finding it just a bit difficult to meet everyone's manning requirements. For example, Commander Pope didn't know until last week that he was going to be anyone's chief of staff, and the decision that he was going to be my chief of staff was actually made this morning. It looks as if we're going to be deploying at least one or two people short for the rest of the staff, as well, although BuPers has given me permission to poach additional officers from Admiral Khumalo when we get back to Spindle. Commodore Chatterjee, the senior officer of Commander Kaplan's destroyer squadron, is in rather better shape than that where his staff is concerned, but several of his units are undermanned.
"And the reason we've called the two of you in for this little conversation is that one of the slots I still need to fill is the flag lieutenant's billet, andTristram needs a good tac officer.
"Helen," he looked directly at her, "you worked out very well as my liaison with Mr. Van Dort. I believe we have an established and efficient working relationship, and you're already very familiar—especially for an officer of your youthfulness—with the political and military realities of the Cluster. I mean, the Quadrant. Normally, the flag lieutenant's slot would be filled by someone rather more senior than you are at the moment, and I'm well aware that what you would really prefer at this point in your career is to move directly into a tactical department slot somewhere. I don't want you to feel pressured, and if you decide you want a tactical assignment, I will unreservedly recommend you for it. At the same time, the opportunity for this sort of experience, this early in your career, doesn't happen along every day. And, unfortunately, given the time constraints involved, I need your decision almost immediately—within the next twelve hours, at the latest. And I, also unfortunately, am about to leave for several hours of conferences at Admiralty House. Since I needed to speak to you personally about this, I had to cram it at you before I leave the ship, as it were.
"As for you, Abigail," he turned to the lieutenant, "Commander Kaplan has specifically requested you as Tristram's tactical officer."
Helen's brain had been doing its best to imitate a chipmunk in the headlights as she tried to assimilate Captain—No, damn it! she told herself sharply—Commodore Terekhov's offer. Now, despite herself, her head snapped around towards Abigail.
At a hundred and eighty-nine thousand tons, the Roland was bigger than a pre-MDM light cruiser . . . and she was armed with Mark 16s, just likeHexapuma. She and her sisters were the plum assignments of the Navy's destroyer force, and they were offering aRoland's tactical department to a brand new senior-grade lieutenant?
"I'm flattered, Sir, of course—" Abigail began, but Commander Kaplan interrupted her.
"With your permission, Sir?" she said to Commodore Terekhov. He nodded, and Kaplan turned to Abigail.
"Before you turn it down because you think you're too junior for the slot, or because you think it's time you moved back over to the GSN, let me explain a few things to you. First, you arguably have more tactical experience actually using the Mark 16 in combat than anyone else in the entire Navy—in fact, than anyone else in either of your two navies—given how quickly AuxCon—and I—got taken out of action in Monica. While there may be someone else whose overall experience with the Mark 16 matches yours, I can't think of any other officer of your rank who's been responsible for managing an entire squadron's—hell, an entire light task group's—fire in a furball like that one. So, yes, you are junior for the slot. But you've also demonstrated your competence under fire, which a lot of tactical officers senior to you haven't, and you bring with you a lot of very valuable experience with Tristram's primary armament.
"And as far as moving back over to the GSN is concerned, this is the first squadron ofRolands to be formed. For a change, we're actually ahead of Grayson in deploying a new class, and High Admiral Matthews has specifically requested that Grayson personnel be assigned to it to help develop doctrine and accrue experience with the new class and its weapons. I'm thinking you'd be an extremely logical choice for that assignment. You're already fully experienced in how we Manties do things, and, let's face it, you're still the first Grayson-born female officer in the entire GSN. Getting your ticket punched as a full-fledged tactical officer, in command of your own department, is only going to bolster your authority when you finally return full-time to Grayson. And when you do, unless I very much miss my guess, High Admiral Matthews is probably planning to assign you to relatively light units, where your example will be most direct and where you're least likely to get shoved away into some admiral's convenient flagship pigeonhole just because he can't—or doesn't want to—figure out what to do with you. That being the case, adding demonstrated familiarity with the new destroyers and cruisers—and their main weapons systems—to your résumé strikes me as a very good idea."