“I hope you’re right,” Webster said. He stood and swept the chips back into his desk drawer, then clapped Alexander on the shoulder. “I really do hope you’re right, Hamish, because whether you are politically or not, you and I both know you are from the service’s viewpoint.”

He looked at the wall chronometer and grinned.

“I see it’s about lunch time. Care to join me in the flag officer’s dining room? I think two or three good stiff ones should just about take the taste of politics out of my mouth.”

Chapter Thirteen

“COMING up on final mark. Stand by to fire.” Lieutenant (JG) Rafael Cardones’s voice was soft, his eyes intent, as he watched his targeting display with narrow eyes. His right hand crept out, forefinger resting lightly on the big, square button at the center of his weapons console while his senior rating’s hand hovered over the backup panel.

“Firing… now.”

Cardones’s finger stabbed downward, and his display blinked bright as the master fire key went flat. A second passed, and then the screen lit again, this time with an estimate of fire on target.

He leaned back and wiped sweat from his forehead, shoulders tight and aching with the tension of the last forty-five minutes’ tactical exercise. He was almost afraid to check the results, but he steeled his nerve and made himself look—then blinked in surprise. Eighty-three percent for the energy weapons, by God! And almost as good for the missiles—three hits out of five fired!

“Nicely done, Mr. Cardones,” a soprano voice said, and he twisted round in his chair to find the Captain standing at his shoulder. He still wasn’t quite used to how quietly she moved, and he hadn’t had the least idea she was there. Yet she was, and her brown eyes were thoughtful as she tapped a key at his senior tracking rating’s station. The complex, corkscrewing vectors of Cardones’s painstaking approach replayed themselves at high speed, and the Captain nodded.

“Very nice, indeed, Guns,” she said, and Cardones managed, barely, not to preen with pride. It was the first time the Captain had awarded him the accolade of that ancient informality, and that was worth every minute of concentration—and every grinding hour of practice which had led up to it. It was certainly a far cry from the miserable day he’d had to admit he’d botched the sensor drone deployment programs.

“However,” the Captain went on, running Tracking’s record back, “what about this maneuver?” She froze the display, tapping a finger on the screen, and her treecat cocked his head as if to study the tangled lines of light, then looked at Cardones curiously.

“Ma’am?” Cardones asked cautiously.

“At this point, you pulled a three hundred-gee level-plane heading change to oh-three-five,” she said. He relaxed just a bit. There was no bite in her voice; instead, she sounded like one of his Academy instructors. “It got you around to the heading you wanted, but look here.” Her finger moved to the range and bearing readouts at the top of the display. “See where his main battery was pointed?”