David Weber - The Short Victorious War

"I see," Honor said quietly.

"I thought you would." Sarnow frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "I'm not entirely happy about it, but there's no way to change it. I'm afraid, however, that it may involve us in helping Van Slyke bring him up to speed, and I wanted you to hear about it from me."

"Thank you, Sir. I appreciate that."

"Yes." Sarnow shrugged again, then straightened. "Well, so much for the unpleasant news. Will you join me for lunch? Bring Commander Henke with you, and we'll make it a working meal."

"Of course, Sir. We'll be there."

"Good." Sarnow nodded to her and killed the circuit, and she leaned back and gathered Nimitz in her arms.

"Time for breakfast before you go?" Paul called from the tiny attached dining cabin, and she shook herself.

"Always," she told him, "and I hope you've got some celery for a certain furry bandit."

Pavel Young stepped through the tube from his cutter into HMS Crusader 's boat bay. Crusader was older and smaller than his own Warlock, but even Young could find nothing to fault in the sharpness of the side party or the spotlessness of the boat bay gallery, and he nodded approvingly, for a neat ship was an efficient ship.

"Welcome aboard, Lord Young. I'm Commander Lovat, the Exec. The Commodore asked me to escort you to his briefing room."

"Of course, Commander." Young took in the slender commander's intricately-braided chestnut hair and attractively curved figure and gave her a gracious smile. He wouldn't mind having her for his exec, and he let his eyes linger unobtrusively on her hips and nicely filled trousers as he followed her to the lift.

Lovat led him to the flag briefing room without conversation and pressed the hatch admittance key for him.

"Here we are, Sir." Her voice was pleasant but cool, and Young gave her an even more gracious smile as the hatch opened.

"Thank you, Commander. I hope we meet again." He brushed against her as he stepped past her into the briefing room, then paused as he saw not the commodore but another commander with the aiguilette of a staff officer.

"Good morning, Lord Young," the commander said. "I'm Arthur Houseman, Commodore Van Slyke's chief of staff. I'm afraid the Commodore ran into a last-minute delay after you were already in transit. He asked me to assure you that he'll be here as soon as he can and to make you welcome until he arrives."

"I see." Young advanced across the compartment and took one of the chairs at the table with a suppressed frown. It always irritated him to be fobbed off with some junior officer, but he supposed it wasn't really Houseman's fault. "Please, sit down, Commander," he said, indicating another chair, and Houseman sat.

Young leaned back, considering the staff officer from under lowered lids. Houseman. One of the Waldsheim Housemans from New Bavaria, no doubt—he had the look. Young curled a mental lip in contempt. The Housemans were notorious for their extreme Liberal politics, always whining about "the little man" and "social responsibility." Which, Young had noticed, didn't prevent any of them from enjoying every advantage their own lofty birth and wealth provided. It only gave them a smug sense of complacency when they looked down their noses at other people who did the same things without mouthing pious platitudes to proclaim their own worthiness.

"I imagine you didn't get much notice when they sent you out here, Sir," Houseman said in the tone of one making polite conversation.

"No, I didn't." Young shrugged. "But when the Admiralty cuts you urgent priority orders, you don't complain. You just execute them."

"So I've noticed. But at least your arrival spared you what the rest of us had to endure yesterday, Sir."

"Yesterday?" Young cocked his head, and Houseman smiled humorlessly.

"We were part of Commodore Banton's screening element," he explained. Young still looked blank, and the commanders smile turned even more sour. " Crusader got wiped out along with her battlecruisers when our gallant flag captain pulled her little surprise, Sir."

Young sat very still, mental antennae quivering at Houseman's acid tone. He wondered if the commander realized how much he'd just given away, and another corner of his mind wondered why Houseman hated Harrington.

And then it clicked. Houseman.

"No," he leaned casually back, crossing his legs, "I missed the exercise. Of course, I've known Captain Harrington a long time. Since the Academy, in fact."

"You have, Sir?" The lack of surprise in Houseman's voice suggested his earlier revelation had been intentional, and his next words confirmed it. "I've only known her for a few months, myself. Of course, I've heard about her. One does hear things, you know, Sir."

"I do indeed." Young showed his teeth in an almost-smile. "I understand she's made quite a name for herself in the last few years." He shrugged. "She always was... determined, one might say. I always thought she was a bit hot-tempered, myself, but I don't suppose that's a drawback in combat. Not as long as you don't lose your head, of course."

"I agree, Sir. On the other hand, I'm not certain 'hot-tempered' is exactly the way I'd describe the flag captain. It's too... too mild, if you see what I mean."

"Perhaps it is." Young bared his teeth again. It wasn't quite the thing to encourage an officer to criticize one of his superiors, but Houseman wasn't just any officer. He was chief of staff to a commodore Harrington would have to deal with on a regular basis, and Van Slyke would have to be superhuman not to be influenced by his chief of staff's opinion of the flag captain.

"Actually, you may have a point, Commander," he said, settling in for a long—and profitable—conversation. "I remember back at Saganami Island she had a tendency to push people. Always within the letter of the regs, of course, but I always thought..."

A quiet signal chirped through the eye-soothing dimness of the Central War Room, known to its inhabitants as "the Pit." Admiral Caparelli raised his head to check the master display at the far end of the Pit for the new incident's location, then punched up the details on his terminal, and his eyes flicked over the data.

"Bad?" Admiral Givens asked quietly across the smaller quadrant plot holo, and he shrugged.

"More irritating than serious—I think. Another in-and-out at Talbot. Of course—" he smiled without mirth "—the report is eleven days old. Tidings may have gotten a bit more than 'irritating' since."

"Mm." Givens pursed her lips and brooded down at the holo between them. Her eyes were focused on something only she could see, and Caparelli waited patiently for her to hunt down whatever it was. Several seconds passed, then a full minute, while he listened to the Pit's quiet background sounds before she shook herself and looked back across the tiny stars at him.

"A thought, I take it?"

"More of a general observation, really."

"Well, don't sit on it till it hatches, Pat."

"Yes, Sir." She gave him a fleeting smile, then turned serious. "The thing that just occurred to me—something that's been occurring to me for several days now—is that the Peeps are being too cute for their own good."

"Ah?" Caparelli tilted his chair back and raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"I think they're trying for too fine a degree of coordination." Givens waved at the display. "They've been turning the pressure up for weeks now. At first it was just 'mystery' raiders we couldn't positively ID, and when we knew they were Peeps, there was no combat. Then they started actively harassing our patrols. Now they're pouncing on convoys and system pickets with hunt-and-kill tactics. But every time they do something to up the ante, it starts at one point, then ripples out north and south."