by David Weber
“In short, it is the undersigned officer’s opinion that Lieutenant Commander Long is one of the most competent—if frequently infuriating—and valuable officers with whom she has been privileged to serve. He is unreservedly recommended for independent command at the earliest possible moment.
“Trina Miranda Clegg, Captain, Royal Manticoran Navy.
“Commanding officer, Her Majesty’s Ship Casey, CL-01.
“19 Tenth, 75 AL.”
Admiral Carlton Locatelli finished reading aloud, laid the memo board on his desk, and leaned back in his chair.
“And there you have it, Clara,” he said. “Since you were never a serving officer and thus never had the opportunity to make Captain Clegg’s acquaintance, you’ll just have to take my word for it that getting an efficiency report like that out of her…” He shook his head wryly. “Let’s just say she’s not noted for the effusiveness of her praise.”
“That’s exactly my point.” Countess Calvingdell leaned forward in her own chair and tapped her index finger emphatically on his desktop. “Exactly my point.”
Locatelli shook his head. “Out of the question,” he said. “It’s going to take a while for Her Majesty and Dapplelake—and Harwich, of course—to get it rammed through Parliament, but after what Gensonne did to us, the Navy’s got to be updated. And not just our hardware. Hell, not even primarily our hardware.”
He raised his hands shoulder high, then lowered them, his expression hardening. “We’ve got some good people—some very good people—but you know from your time as Defense Minister that we’ve also got a lot of deadwood that needs clearing away. And I hate to say this, but not even our best people really know their jobs the way they ought to.”
“Yourself excepted, I assume?”
“Myself not excepted,” Locatelli conceded. “It’s not their fault, really. The point is that before we can start teaching ourselves to do our jobs properly we’ve first got to figure out what it is we don’t know. That’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of sweat.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“And a lot of people like Lieutenant Commander Long.”
“If you need him so badly, why is he still just a lieutenant commander?” Calvingdell countered.
Locatelli snorted out a half-laugh.
“You know the answer to that, My Lady. Politics, of course. You know even better than I do how that gets in the way every damn time we turn around. Long’s brother’s association with Breakwater has always left him in a sort of limbo.”
“As far as I can tell, Long is about as apolitical as it’s possible for anyone to be,” Calvingdell pointed out.
“I agree,” Locatelli said. “But who’s going to believe that? No one in the Navy, let alone Parliament, can ever forget who his brother is. So every single time he’s nominated for a decoration or a promotion board thinks about him, the political implications of decorating or promoting Winterfall’s brother loom up in everyone’s mind.”
He scowled. “Including mine. That’s the only damned reason he hasn’t already gotten the recognition he deserves, and if I could figure out a way around that, I’d already have taken it. So far I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean I can justify letting an officer—especially a tactical officer—of his proven capability be frittered away as a spook when we’ve got such a deep hole to dig ourselves out of.”
“I might point out that Commander Long and Chief Townsend are the only reason we know as much as we do about the Volsungs,” Calvingdell reminded him tartly. “Let me also point out that this recent mission clearly indicates the two of them as a team are greater than the sum of their parts.”
“As long as they have Special Order Seven to trot out?”
Calvingdell made a face.
“Fine—I deserved that. Much as I hate to admit it, in retrospect I agree completely with Clegg’s original objections to that order. By the same token, her own report makes it clear that it was only Long’s willingness to overrule her that led to the Andermani cooperation against Walther and the capture of Gensonne’s backup data base. You may need tactical officers to figure out how to fight the enemy, Carlton, but I need superior intelligence assets to figure out who the hell the enemy is.”
“I’m not giving him up,” Locatelli said flatly. He smiled crookedly. “On the other hand, I’ll concede your point about the team of Long and Townsend. Actually, I’m more than half inclined to insist that Townsend come back to regular service, too.”
“Dream on, Carlton,” Calvingdell said, returning his smile. “You’re not getting Townsend back, so don’t even go there. You’ll need a better lever than that to pry Long out of Delphi’s grip.”
“Except that he’s not officially in Delphi’s grip,” Locatelli pointed out. “Technically, he’s just on loan to Delphi, which means I can take him back anytime I want.”
For a handful of seconds they just looked at each other. Then, Calvingdell shrugged.
“Fine. If that’s your final word, I suppose I’ll just have to go over your head.”
Locatelli snorted. “Dapplelake? Seriously, Clara. When you were Defense Minister, how did you react when a couple of your senior subordinates behaved like kids fighting over a sandbox toy?”
“Not well,” the countess conceded.
“Exactly,” Locatelli said. “I doubt the Earl will react any better than you did. Besides, the First Lord’s already made his opinion clear.”
“Cazenestro’s made the call?” Calvingdell’s eyebrows arched. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I said he’s made his opinion clear,” Locatelli said. “I didn’t say he’s decided who gets Long.”
“And what exactly would that opinion have been?”
“That he doesn’t want an argument over ONI’s and Special Intelligence’s spheres of authority,” Locatelli said. “His exact words were ‘Earl Dapplelake doesn’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to hear about it, and—trust me—neither of you want Her Majesty to hear about it.’ So unless you’re planning to appeal to God, it looks like you’ve run out of options for appeal.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Calvingdell said reluctantly. “Cazenestro isn’t exactly in a position to give us direct orders, but I can see his point. The last thing any of us want is to turn intelligence-gathering into a political food fight in the Lords.”
“With everybody and his brother sticking a spoon into the soup,” Locatelli said sourly,
“Exactly,” Calvingdell said. “So if we don’t want that, we need to work out the relationship between ONI and Delphi ourselves. Seems to me the simplest solution is for me to just take Long off your hands.”
Locatelli snorted. “My Lady, I am a senior officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy,” he said sternly. “Senior officers of the Navy do not simply strike their wedges and surrender.”
“Then just how do you suggest we work this out, Admiral?”
“After much thought and mature consideration,” Locatelli said, unfolding his arms and sliding a hand into his tunic pocket, “I’ve come up with what I believe is the only possible solution.”
“Which is?”
“This,” he said gravely, drawing his hand from his pocket. He held it out towards her across the deck and opened it to show the small, gleaming disk on his palm.
“Since you’re the peer of the realm, My Lady,” he told her, “the choice is yours. Heads or tails?”