Echoes Of Honor

least, she appeared to be a competent enough supply clerk. If Giscard or someone else—like MacIntosh, perhaps? —did the hard work by figuring out what was needed and where it might be found, she could probably be relied upon to do the paperwork to get it, anyway.

He realized his thoughts had drawn him into contemplative silence and shook himself. It was time to get down to business.

'Good morning, people,' he said. 'I realize this is the first opportunity we’ve all had to sit down together, and I wish we had more time to get to know one another before we jump into the deep end, but we don’t. The units assigned to Operation Icarus are coming from all over the Republic; just assembling them is going to take better than two T-months. Minimum training and rehearsal time will eat up at least another month, and our orders are to commence operations at the earliest possible moment. That means getting the details and the compositions of our task forces worked out now, not waiting until our squadrons are concentrated.'

He gazed around their faces, letting that sink in and noting their expressions while it did. No real surprises there, he decided.

'Citizen Commissioner Pritchart and I have worked together in the past with fair success,' he went on after a moment. After all, any admiral who didn’t acknowledge his watchdog’s presence—and explicitly concede her authority—was unlikely to remain in command for long, despite any changes Esther McQueen might be engineering at the top. 'I believe I speak for both of us when I say that we are more interested in initiative, industry, and suggestions than we are with complete observation of all nuances of proper military procedure. Citizen Commissioner?'

He glanced at Pritchart, his expression cool, and she nodded.

'I think that’s a fair statement, Citizen Admiral,' she said. 'What matters, after all, is the defeat of our elitist opponents... and, of course, those domestic elements which might conspire against or fail the needs of the People.'

A brief chill seemed to sweep the compartment, and Giscard let his mouth tighten. But that was the only expression of disagreement a prudent admiral would permit himself, and he cleared his throat and continued in determinedly normal tones.

'Over the next few days, we’ll be taking the War Office’s basic ops plan apart, looking at all the pieces, and then putting it back together again. Obviously, each of you will have his or her own spheres of responsibility and areas of expertise. I don’t want anyone sitting on any thought or question which comes to mind just because it’s not officially in ‘his’ area, however. The success of our mission matters a lot more than stepped-on toes, and I’d rather have officers who are willing to risk asking potentially dumb questions or make suggestions which may or may not work. Anyone can keep his mouth shut and look wise, citizens; only someone willing to appear foolish in the pursuit of his duty can actually be wise. Remember that, and I think we’ll get along well.'

He deliberately did not look at Pritchart this time. It wasn’t precisely a challenge to the people’s commissioner, but it was a clear statement of who he expected to exercise authority in the professional sphere.

'Now, then,' he said, looking at MacIntosh. 'I wonder if you could begin by laying out the basic parameters of Fleet HQ’s ops plan, Citizen Commander?'

'Yes, Citizen Admiral,' MacIntosh said respectfully. He let his eyes sweep over the notes on his display for another instant, then looked up and met the gazes of his fellow staffers.

'In essence,' he began, 'Citizen Secretary McQueen and Citizen Admiral Bukato have decided that the Manties’ current lack of activity offers us an opportunity to recapture the strategic initiative for the first time since the war began. Our present margin of superiority over the Manties, while still substantial in terms of total tonnage, is much lower than it was before the war, particularly in terms of ships of the wall. That means that scraping up the reserves to make Icarus possible will impose a considerable strain on other operational areas. Nor will the strength which can be committed to us allow us as much margin for error as we might wish. HQ stresses—quite rightly, I think—that we must employ our forces in the most economical possible fashion. Operational losses in pursuit of our objective are to be expected, and those resulting from calculated risks will not be held against us.' And you can believe as much of that as you want to, Giscard thought wryly. 'Indeed, Citizen Secretary McQueen specifically directs us to remember that audacity and surprise will be our most effective weapons. But for us to carry Icarus off, we must allocate our available strength very carefully.'

He paused as if to let that sink in, then glanced back down at his notes again.

'At the present moment, our order of battle is slated to include the equivalent of two dreadnought and four superdreadnought squadrons—a total of forty-eight of the wall—supported by ten squadrons of battleships, for a total of a hundred and twenty-eight capital ships. Our battlecruiser element will consist of three squadron equivalents, for a total of twenty-four units, and Citizen Admiral Tourville will be joining us shortly aboard one of them to serve as Twelfth Fleet’s second in command.'

Several people looked up at that, and Giscard hid a smile at their expressions. Like Giscard himself, most of the officers in that briefing room were disgusted by Honor Harrington’s judicial murder, but the fact that Tourville had captured her in the first place, coupled with his crushing victory in the Adler System, had further enhanced his already high professional stature. Of course, none of Giscard’s staffers would find themselves required to ride herd on an officer whose reputation for tactical brilliance was matched only by his reputation as a flamboyant, guts-and- glory adolescent who refused to grow up. But they clearly regarded his assignment to their fleet command structure as a sign that Fleet HQ truly did consider Operation Icarus as vital as HQ said it did, and that wasn’t always the case in the People’s Navy.

Personally, Giscard had a few private reservations. Not about Tourville’s capabilities, but about all the reasons for his assignment to Icarus. There had to have been a reason Tourville and his flagship had been detached from his previous command to escort Citizen Secretary Ransom to the Cerberus System, and he doubted somehow that it had been because Ransom wanted Tourville’s opinion on what color to paint her quarters aboard Tepes. But no one would ever know for certain now. Giscard was one of only a tiny handful of Navy officers who knew what had happened to Tepes —and Citizen Secretary Ransom—and he knew only because he had certain avenues of information very few serving officers could match.

Ten months had passed since Tepes’ destruction, and he often wondered when the official news of Ransom’s long overdue demise would be made public (and exactly how the circumstances of her departing this mortal vale would be structured by PubIn for foreign and domestic consumption). But the people at the top had to realize she’d had a specific reason for dragging Tourville to Cerberus. So did the citizen admiral’s continued existence, not to mention employment on a highly sensitive mission, indicate that Ransom’s fellows on the Committee of Public Safety questioned her judgment and were less than devastated by her departure? Or that Esther McQueen had managed to protect him because she recognized his value? Or possibly that the success of Operation Icarus was not, in fact, regarded as being quite so vital as McQueen and Bukato had implied?

Any or all of those were certainly possible... and if Fleet HQ was setting Tourville up as a fall guy in case this Icarus also flew too close to the sun, might it not be doing the same thing with another officer who had only recently reemerged from the disgrace of a busted operation in Silesia?

'—with at least one light cruiser flotilla and a substantial but probably understrength destroyer screen,' MacIntosh was continuing his listing of the resources committed to Icarus, and Giscard shook off thoughts about Tourville in order to concentrate on the ops officer’s briefing once more. 'All of those numbers are tentative at this point, which is going to make our planning even harder. I have been informed, however, that we may regard the superdreadnought, dreadnought, and battleship numbers as minimum figures. The Octagan will be trying to pry still more of each class loose for us. Given that they haven’t said the same thing about battlecruisers and how strapped we are for them, I would suspect that BCs are where we’re most likely to come up short,' MacIntosh went on. 'At the same time, however, we’re as strapped for light forces as for ships of the wall right now, and pulling together our battleship component will only exacerbate that situation in some respects. The systems we pull them out of will have to be covered by someone—' for, he did not add, political reasons '—and it looks like HQ will be tapping tin cans and light cruisers for that, which will cut into what might have been made available to us.

'On the logistical side,' he nodded at Citizen Lieutenant Challot, who looked less than delighted to be