The rest of the staff was waiting, along with Captain Caroline Hughes, Majestic’s CO, and Commander Pablo Blanchard, her exec. Second Fleet’s task force and squadron commanders attended the meeting electronically, their faces floating in the quadrants of a holo display above the briefing room conference table. DeLaney knew that Tourville would really have preferred to have them aboard Majestic in the flesh for this final meeting, but that hadn’t been practical. The fleet was squarely in the heart of a grav wave, bearing down on Sidemore, which made it impossible for any impeller-drive small craft to transport personnel back and forth between its units. For her own part, DeLaney was perfectly satisfied with the electronic substitute for an old-fashioned face-to-face meeting, but her boss was more of a traditionalist in that respect.

Those physically present stood as Tourville entered the compartment, then seated themselves once again after he’d settled into the chair at the head of the table. He tipped that chair back while he slowly and carefully prepared a cigar, stuck it into his mouth, lit it, and produced a cloud of fragrant smoke. He grinned through the fog bank of his own making, like a mischievous little boy, as the overhead air return sucked it away, and DeLaney hid a smile of her own. He was back on stage again, once more the hard-charging complete naval officer, ready, as the old cliché put it, to kick ass and take names.

“All right,” he said briskly. “In about five hours, we’re going to be dropping in on Sidemore without calling ahead for reservations.” Several people chuckled, and his mischievous grin grew fierce. “When we do, there are going to be some people who won’t be especially happy to see us. Which is going to be unfortunate… for them.” A louder chuckle responded, and he nodded at his operations officer. “And now,” he said, “Commander Marston is going to answer any last-minute questions you may have about exactly how we’re going to make sure that it’s unfortunate for them. Jeff?”

“Thank you, Sir,” Commander Marston replied, and turned to face both the others present in the briefing room and the camera which connected the compartment to the holographic faces above the conference table. “I know all of you are familiar with our basic operational plan,” he began. “Several of you, however, have expressed some concerns, particularly about the points covered in Annex Seventeen, so I thought, with your permission, Admiral, that we might start there.”

He glanced at Tourville, who waved his cigar in an airy gesture of approval.

“Very well, then. First, Admiral Zrubek has raised a very interesting point in regard to the proper employment of our long-range recon platforms.” He nodded respectfully to the holo quadrant filled by the recently promoted commander of Battle Squadron Twenty-One, which included eight of Second Fleet’s twelve SD(P)s. “I’ve discussed the same point with Captain deCastries and Commander Hindemith,” Marston continued, “and we’ve come to the conclusion that…”

Lester Tourville leaned back comfortably in his chair, listening with both ears, and half of his attention, to Marston’s brisk, competent exposition. He would have paid more attention to the actual explanation if he’d had less confidence in the ops officer’s ability and thoroughness. As it was, he was free to spend his time doing what, as far as he was concerned, was the true purpose of this meeting—taking the pulse of his command team’s state of mind.