Zhaarnak tipped his own chair back, threw back a swallow of vodka in the approved, proper Russian style, shuddered briefly, then sighed.

"Very well. I know when your mind is made up-the fact that this is the sort of 'mad, over-complicated' plan a Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee strategist would devise is obviously insufficient to dissuade you. I will not protest it further if you will agree, on your word as a father in honor of Clan Telmasa, that the entire operation will be contingent on Task Force 71's full readiness."

"You have my word, Khanhaku Telmasa," Prescott assured him in the Tongue of Tongues.

"Full readiness, Raaymmonnd," Zhaarnak stressed pointedly.

"Of course," Prescott affirmed innocently . . . in Standard English.

Kevin Sanders found himself standing behind Uaaria and Captain Chung as the staff meeting broke up. Prescott's proposed strategy had landed in the middle of the staffers like a bombshell. Even Captain Mandagalla had seemed taken aback, and Force Leader Shaaldaar had been more than a little dubious until Prescott assured him-with a sidelong glance at Zhaarnak which Sanders had fully understood-that the operation wouldn't begin until TF 71's damages had been fully repaired.

The one member of Prescott's staff who'd appeared completely unsurprised by the proposal was Amos Chung, which had given Sanders furiously to think, especially in light of the warp chart Chung had been studying. At the moment, however, the lieutenant had something else on his mind. Something much more pressing, given the very confidential briefing he'd received from Admiral LeBlanc before being sent here.

"Excuse me, Commodore," he said to Chung, with a diffidence that was quite out of character as Prescott's staff spook recalled it. "Ah, if I may ask . . . Well, I can't help being a little curious. I didn't see Vice Admiral Mukerji at the meeting."

"Admiral Mukerji," Chung replied, in a voice which was just that little bit too expressionless, "is confined to his quarters, Lieutenant."

Even Sanders blinked at that, although now that it was said, he had to admit it was unfortunately close to what he'd already suspected. He started to ask another question, then paused. He intended to acquire the information, one way or another, before he left the flagship, but Chung's tone suggested that perhaps he should seek another information source.

Fortunately, such a source was close at hand, for Uaaria'salath-ahn clearly didn't share her human colleague's reticence in this particular case.

"I have already heard the story, Aaamosssss," she said, and one lip curled to reveal a needle-sharp and fully functional canine. She glanced at Sanders. "Ahhdmiraaaal Muhkerzzhi displayed gross insubordination on the flag bridge at the critical moment of the recent battle, and Fang Pressssscott placed him under arrest for it."

Chung grimaced at the female Tabby's words, but not as if he were angry. It was more a case of someone who regretted the washing of the dirty family linen in public. Then he sighed and nodded, as if in recognition that the story was bound to become public knowledge sooner or later.

Sanders went absolutely poker-faced, looking back and forth between his two superiors. Then he cleared his throat.

"I see, Sir. May I ask if the Admiral has decided how he intends to proceed? Will he convene a court-martial?"

"Given Mukerji's rank," Chung said in a distasteful tone, obviously choosing his words with great care, "and the potential . . . conflict of interest in the Admiral's dual role as convening authority and principal in the case, I believe he intends to send Mukerji back to Alpha Centauri to await trial." The intelligence officer clearly disliked discussing the case at all, but by the same token, he seemed to realize that who he was really discussing it with-by proxy, at least-was Marcus LeBlanc. "I believe he plans to do so on the first occasion he has to dispatch a noncombatant ship to Centauri."

Since he can't very well stuff him into a courier drone, Sanders thought behind a face whose blandness matched Chung's.

"I see, Sir," he repeated. "And, since any such trial would probably require the Admiral's testimony, Admiral Mukerji may well spend some considerable time at Alpha Centauri awaiting it."

"Quite possibly, Lieutenant," Chung said in a tone clearly intended to politely but firmly close the discussion. Uaaria, however, wasn't prepared to abandon the topic just yet.

"It appears that Fang Pressssscott has found a way to rid himself of the political officer your government saddled him with," she remarked.

"Yes . . . a very risky way, politically speaking." Chung sighed-with good reason, Sanders thought. "Mukerji has powerful patrons . . . and he'll undoubtedly start pounding their ears with his 'version' of the facts the instant he arrives in Alpha Centauri."

Uaaria's ears flattened and she gave the sibilant hiss of serious Orion irritation.

"It is all beyond my comprehension. A coward like Muhkerzzhi is not worthy to roll in Fang Pressssscott's dung! Among the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee, such a chofak would long since have been killed in a duel. Assuming that anyone would soil his claws with his blood!"

Chung blinked, clearly a bit taken aback, despite his long acquaintance with her, by her vehemence, but Sanders only nodded.

"Yes, I know, Claw. You've got better sense than we do in that respect," he said, and realized as he spoke that it wasn't all diplomacy on his part. Since shipping out with Zhaarnak's task force, he'd experienced total immersion in the Orion warrior culture. Never subject to any xenophobic tendencies, he'd never thought of himself as a xenophile, either. Now he was beginning to wonder.

But most of his consciousness was occupied with composing his report to Admiral LeBlanc.

Marcus LeBlanc's eyes strayed, not for the first time, towards the strategic holo display that floated in the air of Kthaara'zarthan's office.

It wasn't what he was supposed to be focusing on, and he knew it. Nevertheless, his gaze kept wandering to the little spark that represented Zephrain. The display showed Alliance-controlled systems in green, and to LeBlanc the icon of Zephrain glowed with the light of jade eyes, haloed with an insubstantial swirl of flame-red hair.

Almost three standard years had passed since he watched Vanessa Murakuma depart from the terrace of this very building, seeming to recede into a distance greater than that which yawned between the stars. They'd communicated regularly for more than two of those years, as she'd done Kthaara's bidding and honed Fifth Fleet to a fine edge out in the remote Romulus Chain, awaiting Bug invaders who never came. Then, finally, had come the half-promised summons, offering her command of Sixth Fleet in place of the Prescott/Zhaarnak team that had moved abruptly on to Seventh Fleet in the wake of Andrew Prescott's last fight and the astrogation data it had brought home.

The offer to take over Sixth Fleet had been unexpected in every sense, LeBlanc knew. She'd expected to take Fifth Fleet with her when she moved on from Justin, but the JCS had decided that Justin continued to require a mobile fleet presence to back up the mammoth fixed fortifications which had been erected there. So if she wanted an offensive command, she was going to have to leave the fleet she'd spent literally years training.

In the end, she'd accepted the new assignment. Probably only because she knew that she'd be leaving Fifth Fleet in the hands of recently promoted Admiral Demosthenes Waldeck. Relative of Agamemnon Waldeck or not, Demosthenes was every inch a TFN admiral . . . and one of the few people Vanessa would trust to look after her people for her. And so she had set off to her new posting, to begin all over again, although at least she'd been able to take her entire staff along with her.