"Permission to come aboard, Sir?" the Secretary of War requested formally as the twittering pipes finally fell silent, and Captain Reumann nodded sharply.
"Welcome aboard the Sovereign, Sir!" he replied in a carrying voice. "It's a pleasure to see you back aboard again," he added in a lower, more conversational tone, and held out his right hand.
"It's a pleasure to be back, Pat," Theisman replied, gripping the proffered hand and shaking it firmly. "I only wish Bolthole were close enough to Nouveau Paris that I could get out here more than three or four times a year."
"So do we, Sir," Reumann assured him.
"Well," the Secretary said, glancing approvingly around the orderly, disciplined boat bay, "maybe we'll be doing little something about that."
"Excuse me?" The captain cocked his head, and Theisman grinned, although there was a faint edge of something besides humorpossibly even a trace of worryin his expression.
"Don't worry about it, Pat. I promise I'll explain everything before I head back to the capital. In the meantime, however, Admiral Foraker and I have a few things we need to discuss."
"Of course, Sir," Reumann acknowledged, and stepped back as Theisman turned to offer his hand to Shannon.
"Admiral," the Secretary of War said, and Shannon smiled.
"Admiral," she repeated, fully aware of how much he preferred to think of himself in his persona as Chief of Naval Operations, someone who was still a serving officer and not merely a political animal. His eyes twinkled as he squeezed her hand firmly, then she cocked her head.
"I'd tentatively scheduled welcoming cocktails in the officers' mess," she said, "but none of our plans were set in ceramacrete. Should I assume from what you just said to Pat that I should reschedule the festivities until after you've had a chance to tell me just what brings you clear out here?"
"Actually, I think I'd prefer for you to do that, if it won't inconvenience people," Theisman said, and she shrugged.
"As I said, none of our plans were really definite, Sir. We didn't have enough of an idea of what was on your agenda for this trip to make any hard and fast arrangements." She turned to a chunky captain at her right elbow. "Five, I seem to have forgotten my com again. Would you screen Paulette for me? Ask her to see to it that everyone knows we're going to Plan Beta."
"Of course, Ma'am," Captain William Anders replied with a slight grin. One thing about the old Shannon Foraker which remained the same was a degree of...absentmindedness where the minutiae of day-to-day life was involved. It took a certain talent to "forget" her wrist com, but she managed to do it at least twice a week.
The hirsute captain activated his own com and punched in the combination for Lieutenant Paulette Baker, Foraker's flag lieutenant, and she turned her own attention back to Theisman.
"Do we need to speak in private, Sir? Or should I assemble my staff, as well?"
"I'll want to bring all of them up to speed while I'm out here," he said, "but I think I'd prefer to brief you individually before that."
"Of course. In that case, would you care to accompany me to my day cabin?"
"I think that would be an excellent idea," he agreed, and she glanced back at Anders.
"Did you catch that, Five?" she asked.
"I did. And I'll pass it on to Paulette, as well."
"Thank you." She smiled at him with a warmth which transfigured her narrow, severely attractive face, and then gestured respectfully for Theisman to proceed her to the lifts.
"After you, Sir," she invited.
It took several minutes to reach Foraker's day cabin, despite the fact that the architects had deliberately placed it close to the lift shaft core. Of course, "close" was a relative term aboard something the size of Sovereign of Space. The superdreadnought was the next best thing to nine million tons of battle steel and armor. She was also the first unit of the biggest and most powerful class of warships the Republic of Haven had ever built, although it probably wouldn't hold that distinction for long. The plans for the follow on Temeraire class were well into the final approval stage, and if things stayed on schedule, the first Temeraire would be laid down here at Bolthole within the next three or four months, for completion in another thirty-six. Which might have been a considerably longer building time than someone like the Manties would have required, but still represented an enormous decrease in construction times for Haven...much of which was the work of one Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker and her staff.
Still, they got to their destination eventually, and Foraker removed her cap and tossed it to Chief Callahan, her steward, as she and Theisman stepped past the Marine sentry and through the hatch into her cabin.
Chief Petty Officer Sylvester Callahan caught the airborne headgear with the ease of much practice and only a hint of a long-suffering sigh. Foraker was well aware that she owed that restraint to Theisman's presence, and she grinned smugly at the steward. Not that she'd been quite so comfortable with him when he was first assigned to her. It had taken her months to get used to the very notion of having a "steward" of her own, admiral or no admiral, because such "elitist" institutions had been among the first casualties of Rob Pierre's systematic efforts to eradicate all traces of the old Legislaturalist officer corps. A part of Foraker had rebelled against the restoration of the old officer corps' privileges, and she was just as happy Theisman had refused to reinstate at least half of them. But she'd also been forced to admit that assigning stewards to commanding officers and flag officers actually made an awful lot of sense. Any CO had vastly more productive things to do with her time than to tidy up her own quarters or polish her own boots. Perhaps even more importantly, senior officers needed keepers who they could count on to keep their lives functioning smoothly while they dealt with the unending series of decisions and judgment calls which came with their own jobs.
And those of them who tended to be just a tad on the absentminded side needed keepers more than most, she admitted.
"The Admiral and I have some things we need to discuss, Sly," she told Callahan. "Do you think you could scare up a few munchies for us while we do?"
"I'm sure I can, Ma'am," Callahan replied. "How heavy did you have in mind?" She cocked an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. "Lieutenant Baker already commed about the change in plans," he explained. "As I understand it, dinner is being moved back by about an hour and cocktails are being moved around behind it. So I simply wondered whether you and the Admiral would require a light snack, or something a little more substantial to carry you."
"Um." Foraker frowned, then glanced at Theisman. "Admiral?"
"I'm still on Nouveau Paris time," the Secretary told her. "Which means I'm about two hours overdue for lunch right this minute. So I think 'a little more substantial' is a pretty fair description of what I'd like."
"Hear that, Sly?"
"I did, Ma'am."
"Then make it so," she told him with a grin, and he bowed slightly and withdrew in the general direction of his pantry.
She watched him go, then turned back to Theisman once more, and waved at one of the comfortable chairs.
"Please, Admiral. Have a seat," she invited.
"Thank you."
Theisman settled into the indicated chair and gazed about himself thoughtfully. This was his first visit to Foraker's shipboard quarters, and he was impressed by the simplicity of the furnishings with which she'd surrounded herself. She seemed to have overcome her aversion to "pampering" herself at least to the extent of acquiring proper powered chairs, and the wet bar and liquor cabinet in one corner of the spacious compartment looked promising. But aside from that, she seemed to have settled for standard Navy-issue furniture and carpet, and the handful of art pieces on the bulkheads, while pleasant to the eye, were hardly high-ticket items. Which was pretty much in keeping with the woman he'd selected to head Project Bolthole for him, and he was pleased to see that she was still with him, despite the power and authority Shannon Foraker had come to wield.