Probably not, though. He’d needed a certain…mental flexibility to handle the rapid-fire sequence of events which had snatched him abruptly out of captivity and made him once again the commander of Second Fleet (although it wasn’t the Second Fleet he’d brought to the Manticore System) and assigned that fleet as the Havenite component of what had become known as Grand Fleet.

The designation had been suggested by Eloise Pritchart, and Tourville supposed it made sense. It had been one way to avoid submerging any of its constituent fleets into subunits of someone else’s fleet. He didn’t think that would have bothered him particularly, but he knew it would have bothered quite a few Havenite officers. And it for damned sure would have pissed off any number of politicians back in Nouveau Paris. Especially the ones who figured they could make some sort of political capital out of being pissed off over it. Hell, enough of them were going to be offended that Duchess Harrington had been named to command it without even worrying about what the damned thing was called!

Hitting the ground running with that sort of an assignment had been no picnic, but at least he’d been permitted to keep his staff together during their stay in Manty custody, and its members had been kept busy dealing with his many responsibilities as the senior officer of the original Second Fleet’s surrendered personnel. (For that matter, he’d been the most senior Republican POW taken during the entire war, which he considered a somewhat dubious distinction.) As a result, it had remained a functional, well integrated team when he needed it, although getting all of its members used to the notion of fighting with the Manties, rather than against the Manties, hadn’t been the easiest thing he’d ever done. Which was fair enough. Getting himself used to the notion after so many years had taken some doing. In many ways though, Tourville suspected, Adamson’s lack of imagination had actually made it easier in the operations officer’s case.

“Signal from Commander Pruitt, Sir.” Lieutenant Commander Anita Eisenberg remained far and away the most youthful staff officer Tourville had ever had, but her promotion from lieutenant during her stay as a POW had been amply merited. He hadn’t had all that much need for a communications officer per se, yet she’d made herself invaluable in dozens of other ways. “Cantata’s initiating download now.”

“Thank you, Ace.” Tourville gave her a brief smile, then looked back at Adamson. “Any changes, Frazier?”