Operation Corona Headquarters
Angela Jaruzelska sat, as she did every morning, nursing a cup of tea at the back of the massive strategy simulation building’s main combat information center.
For her, it was the best time of day.
It was too soon for the pressure of other people’s agendas to clutter up her thinking but not too early to put the new day into the proper perspective. A good time, she always found, for thinking through the issues the day would bring while below her the pace of activity began to pick up as the operations and planning staff got themselves organized for the first formal event of the day, the daily operations conference otherwise known as morning prayers.
“Admiral, sir.”
“Yes, Bian?”
Jaruzelska’s flag lieutenant, who she would have sworn got younger by the day, nodded nervously. Jaruzelska was well known for treasuring the first part of the day as her thinking time, and interruptions had better be for something important.
“Flash message from DLS-387, sir. Can I forward it to you?”
Jaruzelska nodded. Seconds later, the message popped into her neuronics, its old-fashioned format and extreme brevity marking it out as a pinchcomms message.
As she read it through, Jaruzelska had to restrain herself forcibly from leaping to her feet. At last, she thought, at long last. 387 had found the crew and passengers of the Mumtaz. Now her staff could fine-tune the operations plan for Corona and begin the final simulation exercises before the battle group deployed.
Comming her chief of staff to come to her office as soon as he arrived, she turned her attention back to her cup of tea. Finally, she thought exultantly, finally, things were coming together.