Askew felt as if he'd just been punched in the gut, and his face tightened painfully.
"Let me finish before you say anything," Bourget said quickly, holding up her index finger. Her eyes met his, and after a moment, he managed to nod yet again.
"I realize exactly how this looks to you at this moment," the exec continued then in a quietly compassionate voice. "Hopefully, it will also look like that to Aberu and Thimár—and, for that matter, Admiral Byng. As far as they'll be concerned, Captain Mizawa got the message and shit-canned your entire career. And getting you aboard Restitution will also get you out of Jean Bart and hopefully out of their field of vision, as well.
"In this case, however, appearances are a little deceiving. First, Admiral Sigbee is an old friend of the Captain's. He's discussed this situation with her—I don't know in exactly how much detail—and she's agreed to make a place on her staff for you, despite the potential for pissing off Admiral Byng. Second, whatever Aberu and Thimár may conclude, the Captain—and I, and Commander Zeiss—will all be endorsing your efficiency report in the most positive terms. Third, there's been no official communication between Admiral Byng or any member of his staff and Captain Mizawa about the Admiral's concerns about your 'defeatism.' Because of that, no mention of it will appear in your file."
She paused at last, and Askew inhaled deeply.
He understood what Captain Mizawa was trying to do, and he deeply, deeply appreciated it—especially considering the distinct possibility that if Admiral Byng or his staffers did decide to personally oversee the "shit-canning" of his career, they, too, would recognize what the captain was up to. But it wasn't going to be pleasant, whatever happened. When the number two officer in a battlecruiser's tactical department suddenly found himself assigned as an assistant public information officer, people were going to assume—usually with reason—that he had royally screwed up somehow. The efficiency reports from Captain Mizawa and Commander Bourget would probably counter that assumption in front of some theoretical future promotions board, but they weren't going to do a thing about how his new shipmates were going to regard him when he arrived aboard Restitution. Nor was there any assurance that Aberu and/or the others, would be prepared to settle for his obvious current disgrace.
Which didn't mean it wasn't absolutely the best Captain Mizawa could do for him.
"I . . . understand, Ma'am," he said finally, very quietly. "Thank you. And please thank the Captain for me, too."
"I will, of course," she replied. "Not that there's any need to. The only thing I regret—and I'm sure I speak for the Captain, as well—is that you got caught up in all this crap and that this is the best we can do to protect you from the consequences of doing your job." She shook her head. "I know it doesn't seem that way at the moment, but sometimes, the good guys really do win, Matt. Try to remember that."
Lieutenant Commander Denton frowned unhappily as he contemplated the events of the last couple of days.
He appreciated Admiral Khumalo's official approval of his actions here in Pequod, but he hadn't needed the dispatches from the admiral and Captain Shoupe to warn him to watch his back. In fact, there were more dispatches from him already en route to Spindle, with the details of fresh confrontations with New Tuscan skippers. Now the New Tuscan trade attaché was getting into the mix, as well, registering "formal protests" over the "increasing high-handedness" of HMS Reprise and her personnel. And, to make things even worse, there were being genuine incidents and confrontations now. The New Tuscans were being increasingly sullen, insulting, and rude during routine inspections and ship visits, and even their non-officers were starting to push the limits. Denton suspected that a lot of what they were seeing out of the regular spacers was the result of their having been fed stories about Manty insults and bullying aboard other ships by their own officers. By now, most of them seemed to believe all of those alleged incidents had actually occurred, and none of them were in particularly conciliating moods. Which meant—since Denton and his people had jobs to do—that every New Tuscan ship was a smouldering powder keg just waiting for a spark, and there'd been some genuinely ugly confrontations as a result.
His people were trying hard to avoid pumping any hydrogen into the fire . . . for all the good it seemed to be doing. The entire ship's company knew about the stream of complaints and protests by now, but they still had their duties to discharge. And, like their captain, they'd come to the conclusion that all of this had to be orchestrated by some central authority and that it had to be headed towards some specific climax. And, once again like their captain, every damned one of them wished he or she had some clue—any clue—what that climax might be . . . and how it might be avoided.
Unfortunately, no one had been able to come up with that clue.
Oh, how I wish the Admiral would hurry up and get someone senior out here, Denton thought fervently. I don't care if it would be an escalation. I'm delighted that everyone is so damned pleased with how well I've done so far, but I'm getting awful tired of waiting for that other shoe. And I'm damned certain that whenever it finally comes down, I'm gonna find myself ass-deep in a shitstorm that's way the hell and gone above my pay grade!
He knew why his nerves were even tighter than they had been, and his eyes slid across the tactical display to the data code of NTNSCamille. The New Tuscan light cruiser was about thirty percent larger thanReprise, and the NTN had a decent tech level for a Verge star system. It wasn't as good as the Rembrandt Navy, or the San Miguel Navy, perhaps, but it was two or three cuts above the average hardscrabble, hand-to-mouth, third- or fourth-tier "navies" one normally saw out in this neck of the woods.
Despite that, and despite the fact thatReprise was no spring treekitten, Denton wasn't at all intimidated by the larger ship's firepower. The truth, as he felt quite confidentCamille's captain realized as well as he did, was that the cruiser wouldn't stand a chance against the smaller Manticoran destroyer.
Unfortunately, it's not as simple as deciding who can blow who out of space, he reflected grimly.
Camille had arrived in Pequod almost five local days ago, and Captain Séguin had immediately informed the Pequod system authorities that New Tuscany had decided it would be both useful and advisable to permanently station one of its warships in Pequod as a formal observer. It was not, she had hastened to assure everyone in sight, viewed or intended by New Tuscany as a hostile act or as an affront to Pequod's sovereignty. Indeed, it was New Tuscany's hope, as the formal notes she'd delivered on behalf of Foreign Minister Cardot and Prime Minister Vézien made clear, that having an official New Tuscan presence in the system would help to cool things down, rather than heat them up.
Sure it was. Denton shook his head. If he hadn't been convinced all of the "incidents" New Tuscan merchant skippers were complaining about had been deliberately concocted on orders from their home government, he might have been willing to at least entertain the possibility that Séguin was telling the truth. Unhappily, he was convinced that if the New Tuscan government had been serious about bringing an end to the tension, all it really had to do was tell its captains to stop doing what it had them doing. Which meant Camille was obviously here for something else, and that "something else" wasn't going to turn out to be something Denton wanted to know anything about. That much, at least, he was sure he could count on.