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"Oh, by all means," Dusserre said, and this time his tone was sour enough to curdle milk, "let's not do anything to make Ms. Anisimovna unhappy!"
Captain Gabrielle Séguin did her best to look completely calm and poised as she tucked her uniform cap under her left arm and followed the youthful lieutenant into the chief of naval operations' private office.
The fact that there'd been absolutely no warning of this meeting until the order to report to Admiral Guédon's office arrived approximately fifty-three standard minutes ago was not calculated to make Séguin confident. Admittedly, the light cruiser Camille was one of the New Tuscan Navy's most powerful and most modern units, and Séguin would probably be looking at her own rear admiral's star at the end of this commission. It wasn't as if she were some junior lieutenant being called into the captain's day cabin to be reamed a new one, she told herself.
No, a stubborn part of her replied, it's got the potential to be a lot worse than that, and you know it.
That cheerful thought carried her through the door and through the ritual handshake of greeting. Then the lieutenant disappeared, and Séguin was alone with Guédon.
Guédon was an older woman, a first-generation prolong recipient whose once-dark hair had gone gunmetal gray and whose face had developed well-defined lines. But she was still a tall, imposing figure, one who kept herself an excellent physical condition, and the stiff rings of golden braid on her uniform sleeves reached almost all the way from cuff to elbow.
"Sit down, Captain." Guédon's voice had a harsh edge, a slight rasp that wasn't exactly unpleasant but gave it a certain snap of command. Séguin had always wondered whether that was her natural voice or if she'd carefully cultivated that whiff of harshness.
"Thank you, Ma'am." Séguin obeyed the instruction, and Guédon came around to stand in front of her desk, folding her gold-braided arms in front of her while she leaned back against the edge of the desk.
"I realize you don't have a clue why I wanted to see you, Captain," Guédon said, coming to the point with all of her customary bluntness. "Well, I'm about to explain that to you. And when I'm finished, you're going to go back to your ship, and your ship is going to Pequod, and when you get to Pequod you're going to carry out a highly classified mission which the President and Cabinet have determined is vital to the interests and security of our star nation. You will not discuss this mission, its parameters, or its particulars, with anyone—ever—without my specific and personal authorization. You will not even think about this mission without my specific and personal authorization. But you will carry it out flawlessly, Captain, because, if you don't, there may not be a New Tuscany very much longer."
Séguin felt herself turning into stone in the comfortable chair, and Guédon smiled thinly.
"Now that I presume I have your attention, Captain," she said, "here's what you're going to do . . ."
Chapter Thirty-Nine
"Yes, Ma'am? You wanted to see me?" Lieutenant Askew said just a bit nervously as he entered Commander Bourget's office aboard SLNS Jean Bart.
"Yes, Matt, I do," Bourget said, leaning back in her chair. The commander was a petite brunette, with hazel eyes and what would have been called a "pug nose" on someone of less towering authority than the executive officer of one of the Solarian League's battlecruisers. As a general rule, Askew liked Bourget, who reminded him rather strongly of one of his favorite grammar school teachers, but the summons to her office had been as unexpected as it had been abrupt.
"You may recall a conversation you had with Commander Zeiss a couple of months ago," the XO said now in a straight-to-the-point tone which set all of Askew's mental hackles quivering.
"Yes, Ma'am. I do," he confirmed cautiously when she paused and cocked an expectant eyebrow at him.
"Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't she say something to you about 'lying low'?"
"Well, yes, Ma'am, but—"
"But me no buts, Lieutenant Askew," Bourget interrupted in a rather colder tone. "I thought Commander Zeiss had made herself quite clear at that time. And I suppose I should add that she did so at my specific instructions, on behalf of the Captain."
"Yes, Ma'am. But—"
"When I want to hear interruptions, Lieutenant, I'll let you know," Bourget said flatly, and Askew closed his mouth.
"Better," the exec said with a frosty smile. She swung her chair gently from side to side for several seconds, regarding him with cold hazel eyes, then drew a deep breath.
"In case you haven't already figured it out," she said, "I'm more than just a little bit pissed with you at this particular moment. Damn it, Matt—what did you think you were doing?"
This time, despite the fact that it was obviously a question, Askew found himself much more hesitant about replying. Unfortunately, he didn't have much choice.
"Ma'am, I didn't mean to make any waves. It's just that . . . just that I haven't been able to turn my brain off, and the more I looked at Thurgood's analysis, and the more I've looked at our own intelligence reports, the more convinced I am that we've well and truly underestimated the Manties' capabilities."
"It may surprise you to discover this," Bourget voice was somewhat gentler yet still carried an unmistakable note of asperity, "but the Captain and I already entertain some modest suspicions in that direction ourselves. Suspicions which, unlike certain lieutenants I might name, we've kept rather quietly to ourselves."
Askew started to open his mouth again quickly. Then he stopped, and his momentary flash of anger dissipated as he looked into Bourget's eyes.
"I didn't know that, Ma'am," he said more quietly after a moment.
"No," Boucher sighed. "No, I don't suppose you did. And I guess that's my fault. For that matter, it's probably the reason I'm so pissed at you. People tend to be that way when someone else makes a mistake because they didn't warn her not to." She rubbed her forehead. "I should've called you in for a heart-to-heart myself instead of delegating it to Ursula. But, to be completely honest about it, given that we didn't—and still don't—know exactly how your original report came into Aberu's hands in the first place, I figured having her handle it as a purely intradepartmental matter might keep the entire conversation below Aberu's radar. Not drawing any more attention to you seemed like a good idea. And, frankly, so did distancing myself and the Captain from any appearance of . . . over enthusiastically endorsing your conclusions."
Askew nodded slowly. He found himself wishing rather passionately that the exec had been willing to explain the situation to him more aggressively from the outset, but he understood her logic. It was the sort of convoluted thinking that too often turned out to be the price of survival in the SLN's Byzantine internal maneuvering.
"Now, however," Boucher continued a bit more briskly, "you appear to have well and truly loomed above the radar horizon, Matt. Apparently your latest literary effort got squeezed right through the same rathole—whatever it is—into Aberu's in-basket. And if she was less than amused with your first memo, that was nothing compared to the way she reacted to this one."
Askew swallowed. He'd taken every precaution he could, short of writing the entire report in longhand on old-fashioned paper and hand-delivering it to the captain, to keep it secure. Obviously, he'd failed. That suggested among other things that it had to be some sort of unauthorized, illegal hack from someone on Admiral Byng's staff. It couldn't have come to them through what the ONI sorts called a "human intelligence source," since he hadn't opened his mouth and verbally discussed his conclusions and concerns with a solitary living soul. The only question that remained in Askew's mind was whether the hacker in question had penetrated only his own security or that of his report's single addressee: Captain Mizawa.