“Very well,” he said finally. “Inform the Royal Equerry that I will see His Majesty within the hour.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ASHER DALES
“This is the Admiralty?” Kat stared at the small building in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yep,” William confirmed. “What do you think?”
Kat found herself lost for words. The Admiralty on Tyre was a massive building at the center of the city, only a few minutes’ walk from the Houses of Parliament. The Admiralty on Asher Dales was tiny, really no larger than the average family house on Tyre. She was surprised they hadn’t used a prefabricated building or even set up the offices in one of the dumpsters that had brought the original colonists to the planet. And yet, there was a certain charm about the stone building that was undeniable. It certainly had less room for uniformed politicians who’d never seen, let alone commanded, a starship.
“It’s . . . small,” she said finally.
“It’s big enough for us,” William said. Kat sensed, more than heard, Tanya sniff in disapproval. “And it’ll be a long time before we need more than a handful of administrative staff. Right now, I can do nearly everything in my head.”
Kat looked at him as they stepped through the door. “What happens if you die?”
“The staff will take over,” William said. “I’m planning to rotate officers between staff billets and starship postings, once we get properly organized. There won’t be anyone here who hasn’t had at least some real experience.”
“I wish that was possible on Tyre,” Kat said, honestly. “There are too many people back home who don’t understand the practical realities.”
William nodded in agreement, then led her on a tour of the small building. There were a handful of offices, a meeting room, and a pair of datacores, hidden below the building. Kat guessed there was a third datacore somewhere nearby, twinned with the original two and kept well out of sight. William wouldn’t be fool enough to let a lucky hit put his entire organization out of business. There’d be someone who knew where to find it once the enemy retreated too, unless the entire planet was rendered uninhabitable. The planetary government seemed to take the threat very seriously.
“And this is the dining room,” William finished. “It’s very basic . . .”
“But efficient,” Kat said. A wooden table, three chairs, and very little else. “I like it.”
She smiled. She’d sat through Admiralty dinners that were more about making contacts and networking than plotting the latest offensive. They’d be even more tedious now that the war was over. Here, there was no room for networking.
“Food will be served in a moment,” William said, motioning for her to take a seat. “Did your techs find anything useful?”
“Nothing directly useful,” Kat admitted. “They swept the captured ship from top to bottom, then started to take the datacores apart, but they found very little. No navigational data, certainly. We still don’t know where they’re based. And yet, we did find some things. Their missiles were heavily modified by someone.”
William leaned forward. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Kat said. “It would take a full-fledged shipyard to do the work.”
“Maybe they built a mobile shipyard,” William said. “We know they built all sorts of boondoggles.”
“Perhaps,” Kat said. “But you know how hard it was for us to produce a workable mobile shipyard. They’re still incredibly inefficient. I can’t see them actually succeeding.”
“True,” William agreed. “So who helped them?”
“We may never know,” Kat admitted. “The missiles might have been modified, but all the modifications were based on freely available technology. There’s nothing that points to a single source.”
“And the crewmen probably didn’t even keep diaries,” William said. “A shame none of them survived to be interrogated.”
“Don’t blame yourself for it,” Kat said. She grinned at him. “Someone back home will be happy to do it for you.”
“I know,” William said.
He looked downcast, just for a second. Kat felt a pang of sympathy. William had escaped official censure for being the victim of the first mutiny on a naval starship, but his career had practically stalled anyway. He would have been sidelined completely if he hadn’t had connections to the Falcone family. And yet . . . she was morbidly sure that someone back home would blame him for not taking prisoners. A half-wit who knew nothing of the realities of interstellar war would probably convince himself that William had deliberately killed everyone on the enemy ship.
“We didn’t find any personal writings among the crew,” Kat said. “They probably weren’t allowed to write anything.”
“It would be a security nightmare,” William agreed quietly. “And they’d be able to enforce it too.”
Kat nodded. There was no way to prevent naval officers from keeping private journals, if they wished. They’d been warned, time and time again, not to include anything the enemy might find useful, but it was hard to tell what the enemy might find useful. A note of transit times between two points might seem harmless, yet it might tell the enemy where the ship had been and what it had done. There were security officers who’d probably prefer to ban personal records altogether. Kat understood their thinking even though she disagreed with it.
She looked up as a uniformed server wheeled a tray into the room and started to unload the contents onto the table. Cold chicken, beef, and ham, served with bread, butter, and sliced vegetables. A strikingly simple meal compared to what she would have eaten on Tyre, but she didn’t mind. William indicated that she should tuck in, and she did.
“I take it you never caught the attackers,” Tanya said. There was a faint hint of hostility in the woman’s tone. “Or anyone else?”
Kat concealed her amusement. Tanya had a crush on William, she was sure, just as she was sure William hadn’t noticed. It was hard to be sure that Tanya had noticed her own feelings. She might see Kat as a rival without ever quite realizing why. Perhaps nothing would come of it, perhaps . . .
“No,” she said, dismissing the thought. William’s private
