Many, many years ago, as a fourth-term midshipman, a senior tactical instructor had taken a very young Hamish Alexander aside after a simulator exercise had come unglued. It hadn’t been Hamish’s fault, not really, but he’d been the Blue Team commander, and he’d felt as if it had been, so Lieutenant Raoul Courvosier had sat him down in his office and looked him straight in the eye.
"There are two things no commander—and no human being—can ever control, Mr. Alexander," Courvosier had said. "You cannot control the decisions of others, and you cannot control the actions of God. An intelligent officer will try to anticipate both of those things and allow for them, but a wise officer will not blame himself when God comes along and screws up a perfectly good plan with no warning at all." The lieutenant had leaned back in his own chair and smiled at him. "Get used to it, Mr. Alexander, because if one thing is certain in life, it’s that God has a very peculiar sense of humor... and an even more peculiar sense of timing."
Raoul, you always did have a way with words, didn’t you? Hamish Alexander thought fondly, and stepped forward to greet Sir Thomas Caparelli and his brother as the golden notes of the bugle welcomed them aboard.
Chapter Twenty
"She’s a gorgeous ship, Hamish," Lord William Alexander said as Lieutenant Robards, his older brother’s Grayson flag lieutenant, ushered them into the admiral’s day cabin aboard Benjamin the Great at the end of an extended tour. "And this isn’t half bad, either," the younger Alexander observed as his eyes took in the huge, palatial compartment.
"No, it isn’t," White Haven agreed. "Please, be seated, both of you," he invited, gesturing to the comfortable chairs facing his desk. Robards waited until they’d obeyed and White Haven had seated himself behind the desk, then pressed a com stud.
"Yes?" a soprano voice replied.
"We’re back, Chief," the lieutenant said simply.
"Of course, Sir," the intercom said in answer, and another hatch opened almost instantly. This one led to the admiral’s steward’s pantry, and Senior Chief Steward Tatiana Jamieson stepped through it with a polished silver tray, four crystal wineglasses, and a dusty bottle. She set the tray on the end of White Haven’s desk and carefully cracked the wax seal on the bottle, then deftly extracted the old-fashioned cork. She sniffed it, then smiled and poured the deep red wine into all four glasses, handed one to each of White Haven’s guests, then to him, and finally to Robards, and then bowed and disappeared as unobtrusively as she’d come.
"So Chief Jamieson is still with you, is she?" William observed, holding his glass up and watching the light glow in its ruby heart. "It’s been—what? Fourteen T-years now?"
"She is, and it has," White Haven agreed. "And you can stop hoping to lure her away. She’s Navy to the core, and she is not interested in a civilian career in charge of your wine cellar." William produced an artfully injured look, and his brother snorted. "And you can stop considering the wine so suspiciously, too. I didn’t pick it out; Jamieson selected it personally from a half dozen vintages the Protector sent up."
"Oh, in that case!" William said with a grin, and sipped. His eyes widened in surprised approval, and he took another, deeper sip. "That is good," he observed. "And it’s a good thing a total ignoramus like you has a keeper like the Chief to watch out for you!"
"Unlike idle civilians, serving officers sometimes find themselves just a little too busy to develop epicurean snobbery to a fine art," the Earl said dryly, and looked at Caparelli. "Would you agree, Sir Thomas?"
"Not on your life, My Lord," the First Space Lord replied instantly, although the corners of his mouth twitched in an almost-grin. Sir Thomas Caparelli had never felt really comfortable with White Haven, and the two of them had never particularly liked one another, but much of their personal friction had been worn away over the last eight or nine years by the far harsher grit of war. There were white streaks in Caparelli’s hair now, despite prolong, which had very little to do with age. The crushing responsibility for fighting the war with the PRH had carved new worry lines in his face, as well, and the Earl of White Haven had been his main sword arm against the People’s Navy.
"Not a bad strategic decision," White Haven complimented him now, and took a sip from his own glass. Then he set it down and looked up at Lieutenant Robards. "Is Captain Albertson ready for that briefing, Nathan?"
"Yes, My Lord. At your convenience."
"Um." White Haven looked down into his glass for several seconds, then nodded at something no one else could see. "Would you go and tell him that we’ll be—oh, another thirty or forty minutes or so?"
"Of course, My Lord." It was a moderately abrupt change in plans, but Robards’ brown eyes didn’t even flicker at his dismissal. He simply drained his own glass, bowed to his admiral’s guests, and vanished almost as unobtrusively as Chief Jamieson had.
"A well-trained young man," William Alexander observed as the hatch closed behind him, then looked at his brother. "May I assume there was a reason you sent him on his way?"
"There was," White Haven agreed. He looked up from his wine and gazed at both his guests. "Actually, there were two, but the more pressing is my feeling that there have to be more reasons for the two of you to come out here than the official communique listed. I also have an unhappy suspicion about what one of those reasons might be. Under the circumstances, I thought I’d clear the decks, as it were, so we could discuss my suspicion from a purely Manticoran viewpoint."
"Ah?" William sipped wine once more, regarded his brother with a half-quizzical, half-wary expression, then crooked an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.
"I’ve been trying to assemble Eighth Fleet for the better part of a T-year now," White Haven said flatly. "The process was supposed to be complete over nine standard months ago, and I still haven’t received the strength my original orders specified. More to the point, perhaps, I have received the units I was promised by Grayson, Erewhon, and the other Allied navies. What I haven’t seen have been the Manticoran units I was promised. I’m still better than two complete battle squadrons—seventeen ships of the wall—short on the RMN side, and nothing I’ve seen in my dispatches from the Star Kingdom suggests that those ships are going to turn up tomorrow. Should I assume that one reason Allen Summervale sent the second ranking member of his Government and the Admiralty’s senior serving officer out here was to explain to myself—and possibly the Protector—just why that is?"
He paused, and Caparelli and William looked at one another, then turned back to him.
"You should," Caparelli said quietly after a moment, "and they aren’t. Going to turn up tomorrow I mean, My Lord. We won’t have them to send you for at least another two T-months."
"That’s too long, My Lord," White Haven said in an equally quiet voice. "We’ve already waited too long. Have you seen last month’s estimates on the Peep strength at Barnett?"
"I have," Caparelli admitted.
"Then you know Theisman’s numbers are going up faster than mine are. We’re giving them time —time to get their feet under them and catch their breath—and we can’t afford that. Not with someone like Esther McQueen calling the shots on their side for a change."
"We don’t know how free McQueen is to make her own calls," Caparelli pointed out. "Pat Givens is still working on that. Her analysts don’t have a lot to go on, but they make it no more than a twenty-five percent chance that the Committee would give any naval officer the authority to build her own strategy. They’re still too afraid of a military coup."