Ali was wrong about the fleet being ready to go. Or Jess guessed it was more accurate to say Admiral North had been. The twenty-five minutes came and went twice over and still the fleet wasn’t ready to leave.
At first the excuses for delays seemed reasonable. Engines suffering overloads after so much time fighting on the run followed by a long downtime, repair work which had been started before the Wanderer returned and needed to be patched so it could be finished with quickly. Crew out of position, again because the Wanderer’s arrival had been unexpected.
The excuses were reasonable but Jess was starting to get angry at the fact so many of them hinged on the Wanderer’s sudden arrival. He and Ali were on the flight deck but Clay was elsewhere in the ship, so Jess only had Ali to ven
