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"Sir, PT and E may be one of the older lines, but we're not exactly crowding the Hauptman Cartel. We're not that big an outfit," Ragnhild protested.
"And, Sir, with all due respect, while I may have seen Cathy-I mean, Ms. Montaigne-in action, I've never been especially interested in politics. Certainly not on the level Mr. Van Dort seems to be."
"Noted, and noted. Nonetheless, however inadequate you may feel your qualifications are, they are superior in this regard to those of your fellow snotties. So, one of you is going to draw the assignment. What we're here to determine is which one it will be."
FitzGerald smiled at their expressions, then pointed at the chairs behind them.
"Sit," he said, and they sat.
"Good." He smiled again. "The interview process will now begin."
"Welcome aboard Hexapuma , Mr. Van Dort," Captain Terekhov said, standing just inside the boarding tube as his guest came aboard from the Rembrandt Navy shuttle.
"Thank you." The tall, fair-haired Rembrandter reached out to shake the captain's hand. Unlike Captain Groenhuijen, he showed no particular inclination to mangle the digits in his grasp.
"I've been instructed by Baroness Medusa to personally thank you for your willingness to return to Spindle with us," Terekhov continued.
"That's very kind of her, but no thanks are necessary. I'm not certain I can provide the assistance she needs, but anything I can do, I certainly will."
"No one could possibly ask more than that. May I introduce Commander FitzGerald, my Executive Officer?"
"Commander," Van Dort acknowledged, shaking the XO's hand.
"And this is Commander Lewis, my Engineer."
"Commander Lewis." Van Dort smiled as the engineering officer stepped forward. "I well recall my own days as a merchant spacer. Which means I know who really keeps any ship ru
"I see you're as perceptive as everyone said you were, Sir," Ginger Lewis said with a smile of her own, and he chuckled.
"And this," the captain continued, "is Midshipwoman Zilwicki."
Van Dort turned towards Helen with a smile, then paused. It was a tiny thing, no more than a momentary hesitation, but she saw something flicker in his eyes.
"Midshipwoman," he murmured after a moment, and offered her his hand in turn.
"Mr. Van Dort. This is an honor, Sir."
The Rembrandter made a tiny, graceful brushing-away gesture with his free hand, his eyes still on her face, and Terekhov smiled.
"With your permission, Sir, I've taken the liberty of assigning Ms. Zilwicki to get you settled in aboard Hexapuma and to serve as my personal liaison with you. I believe you'll find she has considerably more experience with the sorts of responsibilities facing you than you might expect from someone of her age and lack of seniority."
Van Dort had opened his mouth, as if to politely reject the offer, but he closed it again at Terekhov's final sentence. Instead of speaking, he simply gazed at Helen for another second or two, and she felt uncomfortably as if he'd just put her on some sort of invisible scale that weighed her abilities with meticulous precision. Or as if he knew something about her she didn't know herself. Which was ridiculous.
"That's very considerate of you, Captain," he said finally. "I trust Ms. Zilwicki won't find my requirements too onerous."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that, Sir," Terekhov murmured with a wicked little smile. "After all, Ms. Zilwicki's on her snotty cruise. She's supposed to find her duties onerous."
"So what's he like?" Leo Stottmeister demanded.
"Van Dort?" Helen looked up from the maintenance manual on her reader. She, Leo, Aikawa, and Paulo d'Arezzo were off duty, and she'd been boning up on maintenance procedures for the broadside graser mounts. Abigail Hearns intended to conduct a verbal exam on the subject the next day, and Helen believed in being prepared.
"No, the Andermani Emperor," Leo said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "Of course Van Dort!"
"He's a nice enough guy. For an old geezer." Helen shrugged.
"Scuttlebutt says he's a real hard-ass political type. Some kind of hired gun the Provisional Governor is calling in."
"Then scuttlebutt has its head up its ass," Helen replied tartly.
"Hey! I'm just saying what I've heard," Leo said a touch defensively. "If I'm wrong, straighten me out, don't bite my head off!"
Helen ran her hands through her hair with a grimace.
"I really do have to study this maintenance manual."
"Bull," Leo shot back. "You know that stuff forward and -backward-you've aced every proficiency exam we've had!"
"He's got a point, Helen," Aikawa said with a grin. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's one thing. But you really need to come up with a better excuse than that."
"All right. All right!" She gri
She accompanied the last sentence with a stern gaze, and her audience nodded in acknowledgment.
"Having said that, I think he really is a nice guy. He's worried, I can tell you that much, although I don't know how much he knows about what the Baroness has in mind. He seems to be as smart as they come, too. And he spends most of his time buried in briefing papers and personal correspondence from what looks like people all over the Cluster. I guess the reason I kind of snapped at you, Leo, is that the one thing he isn't is a 'hired gun.' This is a very serious player-maybe even more serious, in some ways, than Cathy Montaigne-and this entire a
"I wonder if Terekhov's picked up Van Dort yet?" Rear Admiral Khumalo murmured.
"I beg your pardon, Sir? Were you speaking to me?"
"What?" Khumalo shook himself and straightened in his chair. "Sorry, Loretta. I suppose I was actually just thinking out loud. I was wondering if Hexapuma' s reached Rembrandt yet."
"She probably has," Captain Shoupe said after a quick, reflexive glance at the date/time display on the briefing room bulkhead. The rear admiral's daily staff conference had just broken up, and abandoned coffee and teacups stood forlornly beside mostly empty carafes.
"I certainly hope so," Khumalo said, and the chief of staff looked quickly back at him. His broad face looked weary, far more worried than he'd permitted it to look during the staff meeting.
"If she hasn't already, I'm sure she will in the next day or so, Sir," she said encouragingly.
"The sooner the better," Khumalo said. "I'm not sure I'm prepared to admit it to Mr. O'Shaughnessy, but the situation on Montana's threatening to get badly out of hand. I'm still more than a little uneasy about the entire notion of meddling in their internal political quarrels, but given this latest news..." He shook his head. "If Van Dort-and Terekhov, I suppose-really can do anything about it, then the sooner we get them there, the better."
Shoupe kept her expression carefully neutral, but she was a little taken aback by Khumalo's attitude. Her superior must be even more concerned about the Montana Independence Movement than she'd thought to have changed his position that radically.
"May I ask if the Provisional Governor's firmly decided Montana has priority over Split, Sir?" she asked respectfully.
"You may, and I don't know," Khumalo replied with a half-smile, half-grimace. "All I can say is that with it looking more and more as if the Kornatians really did nail Nordbrandt, Montana's relative priority's risen pretty steeply. Especially after Westman's last little trick!"
Shoupe nodded. News of the MIM's destruction of the Montana System Bank's headquarters had reached Spindle the day before.
Why, oh why, she wondered, couldn't our problem-child star systems be closer to each other. Or to us, for that matter.
Split lay just over 60.6 LY from Spindle. Montana was 82.5 LY from Spindle, and over a hundred and twenty from Split. Even a warship like Hexapuma would require more than eight days to make the trip from Spindle to Split. Montana was the next best thing to twelve days away, and the trip from Montana to Split would require better than seventeen days. All of which made coordination between Spindle and what looked like being the Cluster's two true flashpoints a genuine, unmitigated pain in the ass. Just getting information back and forth, even using the speedy dispatch boats which routinely traveled in the riskier Theta Bands of hyper-space, took literally weeks. No matter what Rear Admiral Khumalo or Baroness Medusa decided to do, they could absolutely count on the fact that the information on which their decision was based was out of date.
"I suppose we should concentrate on being glad Nordbrandt and the FAK seem to be out of business, Sir," she suggested after a moment. "That doesn't make dealing with Mr. Westman any more attractive, but at least it's an improvement over having to deal with both at once!"
"A point, Loretta," Khumalo agreed with a tired smile. "Definitely a point."