“But if you had warned them, it might have made a difference,” Erickson insisted.
“It might,” Tambu admitted. “But I don’t think so. Remember that the warning I would have issued would have been against ground installations, not armed ships. One of the things I neglected to mention was that Blackjack’s ship was one of those lost on the first day–and he had been warned.”
“What happened? Was he caught unaware?”
“Again, the answer is yes and no,” Tambu replied. “He saw an armed ship in his vicinity, but he wasn’t expecting to be attacked. As a matter of fact, he was on the viewscreen asking me for instructions when the Alliance ship opened fire on him.”
“You seem surprisingly unmoved by the memory.”
“Do I? That’s a strange criticism coming from someone who was just appalled at the Zarn incident.”
“Both examples show a callousness to loss of life,” the reporter countered.
“True enough,” Tambu acknowledged without rancor, “but you must try to see my side of things, Mr. Erickson. In the course of my career I have lost ships, men, and close friends. I feel their loss, but for self-defense I must keep my distance emotionally. If I didn’t, I would go insane.”
Erickson refrained from comment.
“So the Alliance’s threat was felt from the first day on,” he said instead.
“You flatter the Alliance with your word choice. The Defense Alliance has never constituted a serious threat to my fleet-then or now.”
“But you just said they destroyed five of your ships!”
“Five out of nearly two hundred,” Tambu remarked pointedly. “I’ll also admit they’ve downed several of our ships since-just as we’ve destroyed several of theirs. I tend to attribute their victories to shortcomings in my own captains rather to any brilliance or competence on their part.”