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CHAPTER THREE

“I talked to the florist this morning,” Commander Lisa Donnelly said as she carefully speared a crouton with her fork. “Those roses we wanted have come in.”

“That’s the last of them, right?” Lieutenant Commander Travis Long asked, cutting off a piece of fish.

“As far as I know.” Lisa smiled impishly. “Sorry yet that I said yes?”

“Hardly,” Travis assured her, reaching across the table to squeeze her free hand. “However, I’m starting to think it was easier to plan the attack on Walther than this wedding.”

“Be grateful we didn’t have to rent a church or hall,” Lisa said. “That would have added an entirely new layer to the proceedings.”

“Um,” Travis said, putting the bite of fish in his mouth. He still didn’t know why Damocles’s commander, Captain Hari Marcello, had offered his home for his XO’s wedding.

Granted, Marcello’s wife came from money, the house was tastefully regal, and the great room was more than adequate for the modest ceremony Travis and Lisa had planned. But it still seemed odd, and Travis wasn’t yet sure if he was comfortable with the arrangement.

With the wedding only a week away, though, he’d better get comfortable with it in a hurry.

“So is Basaltberg the new buttered toast?” Lisa asked.

Travis blinked. “What?”

“You know, like something is the greatest thing since buttered toast,” Lisa said, her expression studiously casual. “You keep comparing things to the attack on Walther. I’m just wondering if that’s your new standard for complication, like buttered toast is the standard for greatness.”

“I don’t keep saying that,” Travis protested, frowning as he searched his memory. As far as he could recall, he hadn’t even mentioned Admiral Basaltberg and the joint Manticoran/Andermani attack on the Volsung base since he’d told Lisa all about it two months ago. “When else did I say that?”

“When we were ordering the cake.”

“I wasn’t talking about difficulty there,” Travis protested. “I just said—” he broke off, feeling his face warming as the full memory clicked.

“Right,” Lisa said, her eyes twinkling. “You said the cake would feed the entire crew of an Andermani battleship. Then there was that Czech waiter at Puffin’s Roost—you said his accent was thicker than Andermani German. Then there was—”

“Okay, okay,” Travis cut in. “Point taken. Sorry, but that whole thing was…well, it made a huge impression on me, okay? Not just the battle itself, but also realizing how pathetically unprofessional and out-of-date the whole RMN is.”

“Careful,” Lisa warned. “Talk like that will get you thrown off your ship and dumped into a classroom. Oh, wait,” she added, brightening. “You’ve already done that.”

“Not necessarily,” Travis said, trying hard to get a little dignity back. A waste of effort; Lisa was an expert at stripping away such things.

But only the surface dignity, the layer Travis automatically put up as armor against the world around him. She never touched the inner dignity, the core of humanity and the essence of what made him who he was. He’d pondered that long and hard, and had eventually concluded that she simply didn’t want him trying to pretend he was anyone but the man she knew him to be, no matter how slightly skewed from reality the image and pretense might be.

Which Travis was fine with when it was just with her. With Lisa, he was perfectly comfortable opening himself up completely. It was the rest of the world he was still a little leery of. He’d been shot at too many times to leave the personality armor at home.

“Or at least maybe not permanently,” he continued. “A guy I know in BuPers says I’m going to be getting new orders, possibly for a battlecruiser.”

“Really,” Lisa said, sitting up a little straighter. “Which one?”

“That part he was a little vague on,” Travis said. “I think they’re still shuffling people around and are looking to see where I would fit best.” He considered. “Or looking for a captain who’s willing to take me.”

“Oh, come on—Clegg’s report on you can’t have been that bad.”

“I don’t know,” Travis said, wincing a little at the memory of all those strained or outright hostile encounters he’d had with Casey’s commander on that last voyage. “Just because we won doesn’t mean all the personal problems went away. She probably gave the credit for the victory to the Andermani—which she would be totally right to do—and warned them that anyone offering me a berth should make it a wide one.”

“I think she was probably fairer than that,” Lisa said. “But anyway, a battlecruiser would be good for you. Not that Casey’s not a plum assignment, but TO on a battlecruiser is the real launching spot for a major command.”

“Especially after…?” He paused, raising his eyebrows invitingly.

“Fine,” she said, sighing in mock defeat. “After Walther. Fair warning: I hope you’ve got all that out of your system, because after today I don’t want you talking any more about Basaltberg or the Andermani or Walther—”

She broke off, lifting her uni-link and keying it. “Donnelly,” she said, her voice going all brisk and professional.

The speaker was set for directional, and Travis couldn’t hear what the person at the other end was saying. But suddenly Lisa’s throat tightened, and he saw some of the color drain from her face. “On my way,” she said, standing up as she keyed off.

“What is it?” Travis asked, standing up as well and beckoning urgently to the waitress.

“They’re activating Response Alpha,” Lisa said, her voice grim. “Perimeter just reported a hyper footprint. Two contacts, twelve light minutes out, just off a least-time course for Manticore.”

Travis hissed under his breath. Twelve minutes until an ID beacon or voice transmission could arrive. Twelve minutes for the RMN to scramble to a war footing, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

Twelve minutes before they knew if they were once again about to be thrown into a battle for the Star Kingdom’s survival.

So far it was just two ships. But that didn’t mean there weren’t more lurking out in the darkness.

Damocles still on ready-60?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lisa said as she headed toward the café door. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah, go,” Travis said. The waitress held out her tablet with the bill, and he punched in the payment. “Hang on,” he said, hurrying to catch up. “I’ll drive—you might need to talk to people.”

* * *

“Systems are coming up on schedule,” Marcello’s voice came from Lisa’s uni-link as Travis burned through the sky toward the shuttle landing field. “Where are you?”

“Close, Sir,” Lisa said, looking out at the cityscape below and doing a quick calculation. “About two minutes from the dock.”

“Very good, Commander. There’s a shuttle prepped and waiting, with another dozen aboard or on their way. ETD, about five minutes. Is your fiancé with you?”

“Yes, Sir. We were just at lunch.”

“Hammering out the final wedding details, no doubt. Well, tell him I wish I could bring him aboard, but this time around we’ve got our full complement.”

“Understood, Sir,” Lisa said, looking sideways at Travis. The uni-link’s speaker was on directional, but the echo effect inside closed spaces sometimes opened up the range of audibility.

But if Travis had heard, he gave no sign. His full attention was probably split between his driving and doing the same mental countdown Lisa was on when the intruders’ ID beacons or voice messages would arrive.

“And remind him to go easy on the accelerator,” Marcello added dryly. “He gets hit with a police override it’ll not only make you late, it’ll ruin his squeaky reputation. See you soon, XO.”

The captain’s voice clicked off, replaced by the feed from the secure com net designed to keep all the officers, those already aboard as well as those on their way, abreast of the ship’s status. Lisa listened closely to the mix of brisk conversation and system reports from Damocles’s various departments, paying special attention to the tones and stress levels of those voices.

But the months of status and planning revisions the RMN had instituted since the last time unknowns had entered the system—not to mention a double boatload of drills—had paid off. While everyone she could hear was clearly alert, no one seemed anywhere near the edge of panic. They, and the Damocles, would be ready whenever the intruders’ signal reached them.

Assuming whoever was out there wanted to talk. The Volsung Mercenaries who’d come to wipe out the Star Kingdom two years ago hadn’t. Maybe this new batch of invaders wouldn’t, either.

On paper, of course, a pair of ships barely qualified as a threat, especially with the Royal Manticoran Navy in far better shape now than it had been during the Volsung attack. But Lisa knew better than to let that fool her. Just because they could only see a single battlecruiser didn’t mean there weren’t more ships out there, either hiding behind the main ships’ wedges or else sweeping in on ballistic vectors from other directions with their wedges down, completely invisible until they reached sensor range. Whatever the intruder said or didn’t say, the RMN was still going to a war footing.

Lisa would be part of that defensive line. Travis wouldn’t.

Again, she sent him a sideways look. A minute and a half from the shuttle; maybe half a minute until the ID signal reached them. Just enough time to land, exchange a quick kiss, and race off in their separate ways.

Or would he kiss her? Travis was a little awkward about public displays of affection, especially when they were both in uniform and surrounded by other RMN personnel. Even with her possibly going to her death, would he unbend enough for a final kiss?

For that matter, did she even want him to kiss her?

She wanted him to, of course. Wanted it desperately. But at the same time, all the novels she’d read while growing up, all the dramas and tear-jerkers she’d seen in her teenage years, had generated a quiet but firm voice in the back of her head warning her that a dramatic good-bye kiss was a sure omen of impending death for one or both of the participants. If Travis kissed her, did that mean she was doomed to die, alone, in the cold vacuum of space?

Nonsense, of course. Utter melodramatic, illogical, hack-writer nonsense.

But the voice refused to go away.

“Should be here,” Travis murmured.

Lisa shook away the horrible image of herself floating lifeless through the wreckage of what had once been her ship. He was right: the ID should have arrived a few seconds ago. Right now Admiral Carlton Locatelli and Defense Minister Dapplelake were pondering their new information, perhaps listening to whatever message had come along with the ID. Pondering the Star Kingdom’s response…

Abruptly, the conversation from Damocles cut off. There was a brief pause—

“—best wishes from His Majesty, Emperor Gustav of the Andermani Empire,” a hearty, heavily accented voice boomed from the speaker. “The Emperor feels we are long overdue for an official visit to our neighbors in the Star Kingdom of Manticore, as we’ve also been negligent in our obligation to greet and pay our full and proper respects to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. I trust our arrival is not at an inconvenient time; as you of course know, the realities of distance are not conducive to advance notice.

“Please respond at your convenience as to which approach vector and orbital lane you wish us to use. I will look forward to meeting in person and in due course with your Queen and other officials. Repeating: Greetings to the Star Kingdom of Manticore. I am Admiral Gotthold Riefenstahl, Graf von Basaltberg, commanding a diplomatic mission aboard SMS Zhong Kui. I bring you best wishes from His Majesty, Emperor Gustav of the Andermani Empire—”

Belatedly, Lisa realized the speaker was still on directional and keyed it to general. “Travis—”

“Yeah,” he breathed. His eyes still focused forward, but they now held a completely sandbagged look.

Apparently, he had been able to hear the focused speaker.

Lisa let the message run another full repetition anyway before keying it back to directional.

“Well,” she said. For once, she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’ll be damned,” Travis said, sounding completely sandbagged. “Of all the people in the galaxy…”

“I assume that was him?” Lisa asked.

“Oh, yes,” Travis assured her. “Admiral Basaltberg. Big, bluff, and incredibly competent.”

“And condescending?” Lisa suggested, remembering some of Travis’s stories about Casey’s time with Basaltberg.

“Hardly at all, really, and only when we deserved it,” Travis assured her.

“Okay.” Lisa took a deep breath, still listening with half an ear to Damocles’s status feed. “Okay. The captain’s ramped us down to Readiness Two, but I still have to get aboard.”

“I know,” Travis said as he dropped the air car toward the pad.

“One other thing,” Lisa added as her brain began to come on-line again. “About your promise earlier. I guess that if you really feel the need to talk about the Andermani some more, I’m okay with it.”

“Thanks,” Travis said dryly, giving her a lopsided smile. “It’s good to have official permission.”

“You’re welcome,” Lisa said. “Hey, that’s just the kind of person I am.”

And with the danger past, and her private fears put back to sleep, she was definitely going to get that good-bye kiss.

* * *

Unlike most of the room number plaques in the Admiralty Building, the one for Room 2021 wasn’t accompanied by any additional name or department ID plates. Most of the Navy personnel who passed by probably didn’t really notice, while those who did probably assumed it was an office so deep in the bowels of BuPers that its occupant didn’t rate anything but a room number.

But then, Senior Chief Charles “Chomps” Townsend thought as he pushed open the door and headed inside, he’d always liked assumptions, especially those the assumer didn’t even realize he or she was making. Such assumptions formed the underpinnings of many magic tricks—and way too many political speeches—and were an equally useful tool to anyone in intelligence work.

Which was handy, because behind the door of Room 2021 was the nerve center of Delphi, the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s almost-brand-new Special Intelligence Service.

Flora Taylor was sitting at her usual gatekeeper desk in the small anteroom, smiling pleasantly and keying open the inner door for everyone who was authorized to be there, and merely smiling pleasantly at everyone who wasn’t. “Hey, Flora,” Chomps greeted her as he closed the door behind him. “The boss in?”

Lady Calvingdell is in, yes, Senior Chief,” Flora said, her tone a couple of degrees cooler than her smile. For all the casual camaraderie between Delphi’s personnel, Flora still insisted on maintaining proper decorum where the SIS chief was concerned. She’d reprimanded Chomps for his attitude once or twice, then apparently given it up as hopeless.

“Thanks,” Chomps said, circling the desk and heading for the door behind her. The room’s bank of sensors and facial-recognition programs had already given him the once-over, confirmed he was allowed inside, and put up a subtle green bar at the bottom of Flora’s computer display. The door’s lock snicked off as he reached it, and he pushed his way through.

He’d expected to find a beehive of semi-chaotic activity. To his surprise, there were only six other men and women in the large main room, all busily working at their computers, while Clara Sumner, Lady Calvingdell, stood behind them with her arms folded across her chest. She half turned as the door opened, saw it was Chomps, and jabbed a finger toward another computer halfway across the room. He nodded acknowledgment of the order and angled toward it as Calvingdell also headed that way.

They reached the computer at the same time. “Townsend,” Calvingdell greeted him, waving him to the chair. Her face was tense, but there was an extra glint to her eyes. “I appreciate you coming in on such short notice.”

“No problem, My Lady,” Chomps said as he carefully lowered his Sphinxian bulk into the chair. The Navy acknowledged the presence of Sphinxians in the Academy, but he never entirely trusted the furniture to have gotten the memo. “What’s going on?”

“First, you need to hear the following message,” Calvingdell said, leaning over his shoulder and tapping a key. “It came through from the battlecruiser that hit the hyper limit about an hour ago.”

Chomps had just enough time for a startled look—a battlecruiser?—when a familiar voice boomed from the speaker. “Greetings to the Star Kingdom of Manticore. I am Admiral Gotthold Riefenstahl, Graf von Basaltberg, commanding a diplomatic mission—”

Calvingdell let the message play out, then keyed it off. “We’ve compared the message to recordings Captain Clegg brought back from Walther,” she said. “The analysts say it’s a ninety-nine-plus probability that this is indeed the man you met there.”

“I agree, My Lady,” Chomps said. “Not just the voice, but the intonation, cadence, and phrasing. If this is a trick, it’s a very good one.”

“Yes,” Calvingdell said grimly. “But I’d expect nothing less from our friend Smiley.”

Chomps scowled. Smiley—the Delphi nickname for the master manipulator and casual murderer who’d already crossed the Star Kingdom’s path at least three times. Would the man really have the chutzpah to try for a fourth? “Impersonating an Andermani admiral is a pretty risky move,” he pointed out.

“So is bringing in a mercenary gang to attack a sovereign star nation,” Calvingdell countered. “Don’t worry, Locatelli is just as paranoid as I am, and it’s his job to get the RMN ready in case this is a trick.” She smiled thinly. “It’s our job, on the other hand, to be ready in case this really is the Andermani reaching out to us.”

Chomps nodded. He saw now where this was going. “Understood, My Lady. Do you want me to be part of the welcoming committee, or just hang around at meetings and parties.”

Calvingdell frowned. “What in the world gave you the impression that you’ll be attending parties with the upper brass, Senior Chief? No, I just want you to write down everything you can remember about Basaltberg. Not just what’s in your official report, but every nuance of conversation, body language, likes, dislikes, sense of humor, and everything else.”

“Okay,” Chomps said mechanically, his mind still back on the first part of her answer. “With all due respect, My Lady, I assumed you’d want me to put all that into action. It’s a lot easier for me to read Basaltberg directly than for you to try to teach someone else how to do it.”

“That’s what Long will be there for,” Calvingdell said. “Long and Clegg.”

“I’m better than Travis at that sort of thing,” Chomps persisted. “And Clegg hasn’t got any training at all.”

“I’m sure you’re right on both counts,” Calvingdell said. “Unfortunately, because of your unique standing aboard Casey, you interacted with Basaltberg way more than any of her other petty officers. He can greet senior officers like Clegg and Long like old friends without problem. But someone might notice and wonder if he did the same with you.”

Chomps took a careful breath. There had to be a properly respectful and diplomatic way to say this…

“Yes, it’s ridiculous and paranoid,” Calvingdell went on sourly. “It also wasn’t my decision. ONI is still unhappy about sharing their sandbox, and they don’t want us hogging the spotlight on this.”

Chomps huffed out an exasperated sigh. The Office of Naval Intelligence had been brought into the secret of Delphi’s existence shortly after the Silesian mission, and had been glowering about it ever since. The fact that Chomps and Travis had brought back a treasure trove of data—data which ONI hadn’t had a single thing to do with—hadn’t helped their attitude any.

Chomps had hoped the resulting turf wars between Calvingdell and ONI Director Admiral Barnam Knox might have settled down by now. Apparently, they hadn’t.

“If you’ll excuse the language, My Lady, it seems to me that a royal screw you is in order here,” he said. “Basaltberg’s mission is clearly political in nature, whether it’s being carried out by the Andermani military or not, which puts it squarely into our laps. Besides which, we’re already in position with Basaltberg and ONI isn’t.”

“Indeed,” Calvingdell said. “And you think I somehow missed those points in our discussions?”

Chomps winced. “No, of course not,” he said. “Sorry.”

“So we play nice,” Calvingdell said. “Aside from the fact that they’d dearly love an excuse to shut us down, we’re facing an unknown threat out there and only a fool fights over the buffet table when the avalanche is rolling down at him. Understood?”

“Understood, My Lady.”

“Good,” Calvingdell said. “So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to give me everything you can on Basaltberg, then you’re to go on leave for a couple of weeks, or until the diplomats decide they’ve talked enough and call it a day. Someplace outside of Landing, preferably. Sphinxians are a bit—shall we say noticeable?—and no one wants to risk Basaltberg spotting you in a crowd.”

“How very prudent of them,” Chomps muttered. “I don’t suppose Delphi might be willing to pay for this forced leave?”

“As a matter of fact, we are,” Calvingdell said. The small smile made a brief reappearance. “Nice to know I can still surprise you. Now get busy. Basaltberg will make orbit in about five hours, and I want you gone by then.” She gave him a brisk nod and headed back toward her lurker position behind the other analysts.

Chomps watched her first few steps, a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach, as his visions of dress uniforms, elite company, and free food evaporated.

Still, he couldn’t argue with her logic. For decades ONI had been the Star Kingdom’s sole foreign intelligence agency, collecting data for both the Navy and the Foreign Secretary. With the latter office being largely ceremonial, though, its needs tended to get ignored as ONI focused more and more on military intel. Furthermore, the same inertia that had once affected the entire Navy had seeped into ONI as well, leaving it hidebound and heavily political, to the point where its small staff had done little except read dispatches as they came in and drool over ads for weapon systems the RMN would never have the budget to buy.

It was that lack of genuine usefulness that had prompted the creation of Delphi four years ago, and as far as Chomps was concerned it had more than proven its value.

But ONI was still there, it was still staffed by the privileged few, and—most important of all—still had more than its fair share of support in the Navy and among several influential members of the Lords. The last thing any of them wanted was a toe-to-toe fight, at least not until Delphi had proved itself beyond anyone’s ability to scoff.

The mission to Silesia and Casey’s joint mission with the Andermani had been a good start. Basaltberg’s presence here was ample proof of that. But Calvingdell clearly wanted more.

And really, it had been a long time since Chomps had had a genuine vacation. Especially a paid one. Flexing his thick fingers, he got to work.

And as he worked, he wondered.

If people like him weren’t going to the grand galas being planned for the Andermani, who was being invited?


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