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He hid a mental grimace. Without any way to ask Karlotte—or Byng—what the hell had really happened, all they could do was look at the Manties' so-called data. Not that it was particularly probable that the Manties would have handed it over to Roelas y Valiente in the first place if they'd thought it was likely to give them any useful information. Still, forewarned was forearmed, and all that. And they might need all of the forewarning they could get to tidy this one up before it splashed all over everyone.
"Anyway," Kingsford said, flipping the chip folio across his desk, "here it is. Go analyze away. I'd like to hear something back in a day or two."
"So, Irene, what do you make of all this?" Captain Daud ibn Mamoun al-Fanudahi asked casually as he seated himself beside Captain Irene Teague in the Anchor Lounge, the Navy Building's 0-6 dining room, and Teague glanced at him sharply.
The Anchor Lounge was reserved solely for Navy captains, although the occasional, particularly audacious Marine colonel might occasionally invade its sacred precincts, and it was a very nice dining room, indeed. Far short of the sybaritic luxury of the flag officers' dining room, of course, but much more magnificent than mere commanders or lieutenants (or Marine majors) were likely ever to see. And, because it was located in the Navy Building, it was much less uncommon to see Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet officers rubbing elbows here, as it were. Officially, it was even encouraged, since they were all members of the same Navy. Unofficially, it was extraordinarily rare, even here, for officers in the Solarian League Navy's competing branches to actually seek out one another. It simply wasn't done.
Al-Fanudahi and Teague were something of a special case, however. Although he came from an old and well respected Battle Fleet family while Teague was equally well co
The man really is completely tone deaf, she thought. Not enough he has to put his own career at risk, now he's got to do the same thing for me!
She gave him an exasperated look, yet her heart wasn't fully in it. Although she (unlike him) was far too politically astute to openly contest official wisdom in some sort of quixotic quest, she rather respected al-Fanudahi's apparent indifference to official displeasure. Of course, he was still only a captain, despite the fact that he was twenty T-years older than she was—and Battle Fleet, at that. So while she was prepared to respect him, she really had very little desire to emulate him.
Even though she did find herself quite often in agreement with at least some of his less outrageous theories.
"What do I make of what, Daud?" she asked after a moment.
"Of our latest little tidbit," al-Fanudahi said. "You know, the one from our friends in Manticore."
"I'm not sure this is the best place to be discussing it," she responded a bit pointedly. "This isn't exactly the most secure—"
She broke off as one of the uniformed stewards arrived with her soup course. The steward placed it before her, made sure both her water glass and her glass of iced tea were full, and took al-Fanudahi's order, and Teague found herself hoping that the interruption would distract her politically inept colleague from his current self-destructive hobbyhorse.
Not that she really expected it to happen, of course.
"Oh, come on," he said, confirming the accuracy of her expectations almost before the steward was out of earshot. "You don't really think the entire content of the Manties' note hasn't already hit the grapevine ru
He snorted and rolled his eyes. Teague glared at him, but then her glare faded just a bit as she recognized the glint of amusement in those same eyes. The rotten bastard was actually enjoying himself!
She started to say something tart and pithy, then stopped herself. First, because it was only likely to amuse him even more, given his obviously twisted sense of humor. And, second, because he was right. She had no doubt at all that the information the two of them had been ordered to keep "Most Secret" was all over the Navy Building by now.
I really ought to shut him up anyway, because I just know he's going to say something I don't want anyone thinking I might agree with. On the other hand, he's way senior to me—in fact, he's probably the most senior captain in the entire damned Navy, given how many times he's been passed over for promotion by now. There's no way anybody's going to be able to blame a wet-behind-the-ears young sprout like me just because one of the old sweats she works with decides to bend her ear over lunch.
For that matter, her lips twitched in what could have turned into a smile,if I let him run on and just nod politely here and there, I can probably convince anybody who's watching us that I wish he'd just take his ridiculous theories and go away.
"All right." She sighed, dipping her spoon into the lobster bisque in front of her. "Go ahead. I'm not going to be able to stop you, anyway, am I?"
"Probably not," he agreed cheerfully. "So, to repeat my original question, what do you make of all this?"
His voice remained as amused as ever, but his eyes had narrowed intently, and she realized he was serious. She gazed at him for a second or two, then swallowed a spoonful of the rich, thick soup and looked back up at him.
"With all due respect, Captain," she said, "one of the things I make of it is that a certain Battle Fleet admiral doesn't have the brains God gave a cockroach."
It was not, she realized, the most respectful possible comment a mere captain might have made about a senior admiral, but she wasn't too worried about that. Given traditional attitudes on both sides of the divide, people probably would have been more surprised if she hadn't been disrespectful. Besides, Byng obviously was an idiot . . . even if his chief of staff was related to her (and al-Fanudahi's) ultimate boss at ONI.
"I might not have expressed myself quite that, um . . . frankly," al-Fanudahi said with a grin. "Not that I don't think the sentiment was entirely appropriate, of course. But I believe we can both take Byng's less than stellar intellect as a given. I'm more interested in your impressions of the data itself."
"The data itself?" Teague's eyebrows furrowed in genuine surprise. He only nodded, and she considered the question for several seconds, then shrugged.
"It seems fairly straightforward to me, actually," she said finally. "Something—or someone, rather—blew up the New Tuscans' space station, Admiral Byng clearly pani—"
She paused, deciding there were some verbs a Frontier Fleet Captain shouldn't be using about an admiral even if he was a Battle Fleet officer.
"Admiral Byng clearly concluded that the Manties had been responsible for it," she said instead, "and responded to the perceived threat. I wasn't there, of course, but my initial impression is that he responded too quickly and . . . too forcefully, but that's not really my call."
Al-Fanudahi cocked his head, his expression skeptical, and Teague felt the tips of her ears heat. While she was undoubtedly correct that it wasn't her place to make any final judgments on Byng's actions, providing the analysis on which those judgments would be based was supposed to be one of Operational Analysis' primary functions. The fact that its analysis was more likely to be used to whitewash someone than to nail actual cases of obvious incompetence was one of those little secrets polite people didn't talk about in public. On the other hand, failing in its responsibility to report unpalatable truths was hardly OpAn's only fault. They were also supposed to be the office which identified and analyzed potential foreign threats or new developments which might require modifications of the SLN's operational doctrine, and they didn't do very much of that, either. In fact, OpAn did a lot less of either of those things than al-Fanudahi—and Teague—thought it ought to be doing, although Teague (unlike al-Fanudahi) wasn't prepared to make her views in that regard officially explicit.