“I believe that will be all for now, Admiral. Please hold yourself in readiness for additional consultation, however. I don’t anticipate having any more questions this afternoon, but I could be wrong.”
“Of course, Mister Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” the analyst murmured. He gathered up his minicomp and his record chips, stood, bowed to the briefing room’s other occupants, and withdrew.
Silence lingered as the door closed behind him. Then Nathan MacArtney cleared his throat.
“May I assume, Admiral Kingsford, that you concur with Admiral Gweon’s analysis?”
“Admiral Gweon’s analysis is my analysis, Sir,” Kingsford replied a bit coldly.
“What I meant to ask,” MacArtney said, making an obvious effort to control his own tone, “is if you concur with the implications of his analysis.”
“I think his conclusions are well reasoned,” Kingsford said, clearly choosing his words with care. “Assuming our intelligence sources from Beowulf are accurate—and I should, perhaps, point out that Admiral Gweon’s been involved in managing those sources for quite some time, which puts him in the best position to evaluate their reliability—then so far as I can tell, his logic is irrefutable and I endorse it fully. If, however, you’re asking me what I think we should do about those implications, I’m afraid that’s a question I can’t answer.” His eyes circled the conference table and the men and women seated around it. “As I’ve said from the beginning, any direct action against Beowulf will inevitably have political consequences I’m in no position to assess. Even the military consequences are impossible to predict with any degree of certainty, given the fact that virtually all of our intelligence is from human sources. We don’t have hard sensor data to confirm any of it, I’m afraid. That doesn’t mean it’s inaccurate; it simply means it’s impossible for me to verify it from any other source. And that, of course, means it might be inaccurate.”
MacArtney’s nostrils flared. He didn’t use any words like “weaseling” or “arse-covering,” but it was clear what he was thinking, and Kingsford’s expression tightened.
“Believe me, Admiral Kingsford,” Kolokoltsov intervened firmly, shooting a warning glance MacArtney’s way, “all of us appreciate the limitations of the information available to you. You’re our senior uniformed officer, though. Based on what Admiral Gweon’s said, would Fabius be a viable operation?”
Kingsford sat back, folding his hands on the conference table before him, and considered his next words even more carefully. Kolokoltsov, MacArtney, and Agatá Wodoslawski had now been fully briefed on Hasta and its capabilities. Abruzzi and Omosupe Quartermain had only a more general understanding of the new system, but they, too, grasped its extraordinary reach and stealthiness.
That limited his ability to temporize—assuming that was what he decided to do—and that was always dangerous. Civilian understanding of military capabilities invariably seemed to come in only two flavors. Either they completely misunderstood the capability in question, or else they thought they understood it and believed—usually erroneously—they were then qualified to evaluate its effectiveness. And far more often than not, they overestimated that effectiveness rather than exercising a modicum of prudence and underestimating it.
He had little doubt where MacArtney fell on that spectrum. He was less positive about Abruzzi, and he couldn’t hazard a guess which way Quartermain would come down.
Doesn’t matter, he told himself. Bottom line, they’re the civilian government and you’re the Navy officer. All you can do is give them your very best estimates and advice and then go out and try to keep their decisions from shooting all of us in the foot. Or someplace more fatal than that.
“Assuming Admiral Gweon’s sources are correct,” he began “this new area-defense system, ‘Mycroft,’ will come online in Beowulf sometime in the next eight to twelve T-weeks, which severely limits the time window in which we might act. We can expect losses on any deep penetration of the system to be catastrophic even without the new control stations; with them, any attack will be suicidal. So, even with Hasta, I’d have to unequivocally recommend against Fabius after ‘Mycroft’ is operational. Whatever the potential gains of such an operation, our losses would be catastrophic. Because of that, I could support Fabius only in the window before ‘Mycroft’ goes operational.
“In that timeframe—before ‘Mycroft’—it’s possible, perhaps even probable, Hasta would permit a successful strike on the Beowulfan missile production facilities. It’s not possible to realistically assess the Grand Alliance’s ability to detect Hasta after launch. The best we can do is use our ability to detect it as a meterstick, and, assuming the Grand Alliance’s ability is no greater than ours, the probability of their seeing Hasta incoming in time to take effective counter actions is low. I’m not prepared to quantify how low, because no one can. But, given a detection capability approximately equal to our own, I would have to rate the chance of Hasta getting through as excellent.
“The downsides are that we’re still likely to take severe losses, although we’ve been working on an approach that might minimize those—and the extreme range at which it would be necessary to launch. At that distance, the attack would be totally dependent upon Hasta’s internal targeting systems and software. Those systems and that software are far better than anything we’ve ever had before and we’ve spent months testing them—in both simulations and live fire exercises—but they’ve never actually been used in combat. That means all our projections for their effectiveness have to be theoretical. Moreover, there would no longer be a human element in the tactical cycle, no point at which a human could decide the attack needed to be aborted, and that significantly ups the probability of hitting unintended targets. I’d be lying if I said anyone in the Navy would be happy about the potential for disaster that could represent.
“And, in addition, I have to point out that the estimate on when ‘Mycroft’ is likely to come online is based on…tenuous information. It’s the best information we have, and given Admiral Gweon’s track record, I’m convinced it’s fundamentally accurate. But it’s by no means complete. It could contain all sorts of unpleasant surprises. In particular, I strongly urge that no one forget that the eight to twelve T-weeks of Admiral Gweon’s estimate is only an estimate. I believe we’d be far wiser to assume our window is no greater than four to six T-weeks and plan—or not plan—accordingly.
“Having said all of that, my considered opinion is that if the Grand Alliance’s ability to detect Hasta is no greater than our own and if we can mount the operation before ‘Mycroft’ goes operational, the chance of success would be high. I say that only with the understanding that there will be some degree of collateral damage in a strike at that range. How much there will be, I can’t predict, and the Navy will do all in its power to hold it to the barest possible minimum. But I want it clearly understood by whoever authorizes Fabius that collateral damage will occur, no matter how careful we are, and that with weapons as powerful as Hasta, any damage will be severe.”
* * *
“I wish just once we could have a military advisor who doesn’t qualify every single damned thing he says,” Nathan MacArtney groused some hours later. He sat in Innokentiy Kolokoltsov’s office and he waved a glass of whiskey for emphasis. “Couldn’t just one of them, just once, tell us what will or won’t work?!”
“Forgive me, Nathan, but wasn’t that precisely what Rajampet did?” Kolokoltsov’s tone was caustic. “I don’t believe that worked out all that well, did it?”
“Of course not,” MacArtney growled, his face coloring. “But, still, Innokentiy—! He spent way too damned much time putting out sheet anchors to make sure nobody could nail him if anything went wrong! What we needed was a firm recommendation. What we got was ‘yeah, sure, maybe, if only, well, it could work, but—’”
He rolled his eyes, his expression as exasperated as his tone.
Kolokoltsov frowned at the total unfairness of the criticism. It wasn’t part
icularly surprising, coming from MacArtney, but that made it no more pleasant to listen to. And for himself, Kolokoltsov couldn’t fault Kingsford’s caution. For that matter, it was one of the things he most valued about the admiral. Unfortunately, there were factors which mitigated against caution. Kingsford might know about some of them, but Kolokoltsov doubted the CNO knew about all of them.
He sipped his own whiskey, glowering out the windows at the Old Chicago sunset. Too many things were coming together too rapidly. There were too many threats and—conversely—too many opportunities…and too little time in which to examine any of them of them.
Every indication was that the Assembly would approve the amendment he, Quartermain, and Wodoslawski had drawn up. The panic the Mesa Atrocity had awakened among the delegates would be difficult, if not impossible, to overestimate. Few people would have shed any tears if something nasty happened to Manpower; several million dead civilians, the majority of whom probably had nothing at all to do with Manpower, was something else. And the fact that the Manties would openly violate the Eridani Edict, whatever they might claim to the contrary, was terrifying, especially given the dawning awareness that the Grand Alliance’s war-fighting technology was decisively superior to anything the SLN had. Under those circumstances, his argument that the Constitution wasn’t a suicide pact had found fertile ground. Whether or not the system governments which had sent those Assembly members to Old Chicago would feel the same way was another question, but it also didn’t matter. Once the amendment was approved, however it happened, getting rid of it again would be a monumental battle, and one in which the federal bureaucracy held all the advantages.
But on the other side of the ledger, there was Barregos’s defection and the fact that Kingsford had made it abundantly clear that if the Manties truly stood behind this “Mayan Autonomous Regional Sector Navy” abortion, there was nothing the Navy could do about it, at least in the short term. Nor was Maya the only spot in the Protectorates where unrest was brewing. And, perhaps even worse, it was becoming evident Manticore and the Grand Alliance wouldn’t be the only magnet pulling Verge and Fringe star systems out of OFS’s grasp and into competing political units. He still had few details, but an entire cluster of independent Verge star systems had proclaimed a new entity that sounded a lot more like a star nation than the simple “collective security association” it claimed to be. His analysts—even Brandy Spraker—were scrambling to put together the details about this “Renaissance Factor,” but the name seemed ominous. And everything his people did know about it at this point suggested the Republic of Mannerheim was the driving force behind the Renaissance Factor’s emergence. That was worrisome, especially in light of the fact that the Mannerheim System-Defense Force was far more potent than most Verge navies. That meant the Renaissance Factor could provide the sort of regional security umbrella only OFS had previously provided.
And a government run by their neighbors, people from their own region, has to be more attractive to neobarbs in the Protectorates than OFS ever was, he thought sourly, glancing at MacArtney. And I’ll bet Barregos and what’s his name—Hurskainen—are only the first snowflakes of winter. If we don’t get a handle on this situation soon, prove our navy’s still the eight hundred-kilo gorilla, despite any temporary setbacks, the process will only accelerate. For that matter, some of the member systems that don’t like the new tax amendment are likely to go looking for safe havens outside the League to avoid paying up. And if we haven’t established that we can compel them to behave…
And then there was Gweon’s projection of Manty missile production numbers. If they could get in, take out the missile lines, knock the Grand Alliance back on its heels militarily the same way Gold Peak’s monumental fuck-up was already knocking it back in terms of public opinion, buy a little time for more developments like Hasta to level the playing field…
“I realize Kingsford wasn’t as enthusiastic over Fabius as you’d like him to be, Nathan,” the permanent senior undersecretary for foreign affairs said. “For that matter, I’d prefer for him to radiate confidence myself, assuming that confidence was justified. Since we don’t know that it is, I’m just as happy to have him tell us we don’t, rather than promise us the galaxy on a platter.
“Having said that, though, I don’t think we have a choice.” He inhaled deeply, his expression bleak, as MacArtney twitched upright in his chair. “Assuming he can mount the operation within his time window—that is, within the next six T-weeks, when we can be confident ‘Mycroft’ isn’t online—I think it may be our best—perhaps our only—option. Mind you,” he raised his right hand, an admonishing index finger extended, “I’m not saying we will launch it. Not at this point. But I’m going to instruct him to begin planning for a modified Fabius, with an execution date no later than the first week or two of January. If we don’t start organizing it now, we won’t have the option of launching it in that time window, and we can always cancel if that seems advisable when we get closer.”
“Of course we can!” MacArtney’s tone was as hearty as his expression, but Kolokoltsov wasn’t fooled. The permanent senior undersecretary of the interior understood full well that once an operation was committed to, standing down again was always problematical.
And the hell of it, Innokentiy Arsenovich Kolokoltsov thought grimly, is that the worthless son-of-a-bitch is right.
HMS Tristram
Visigoth Terminus
and
HMS Artemis
Tenth Fleet
Mesa System
“Theseus authorizes us as number one in the departure queue, Ma’am,” Lieutenant O’Reilly announced.
“Thank you, Wanda,” Commander Kaplan replied and glanced at Hosea Simpkins, her Grayson-born astrogator. “Take us in, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am,” Simpkins replied, and Kaplan leaned back in her command chair as HMS Tristram nosed into the Visigoth Terminus.
I wonder if Hosea feels as…strange about taking astro control data from Theseus as I do? she wondered, watching Master Chief Andrew Dawson ease her destroyer delicately into the terminus’s complex gravitic tides. Not that Countess Gold Peak had any choice about it, I suppose.
Rear Admiral Shulamit Onasis’s Reliant-class battlecruiser flagship floated with the remainder of BatCruRon 106.1, three and a half light-hours from the K8 primary of the Visigoth System, holding station on the Visigoth Terminus. The battlecruisers were dwarfed by the freight and traffic control platforms clustered about the wormhole, but there was no trace of the bustling commerce those platforms should have served, and the majority of the platforms themselves were as empty as the vacuum around them.
There was a reason for that.
Visigoth System Control had flatly refused to cooperate with the RMN in any way after the “Mesa Atrocity,” which probably shouldn’t have surprised anyone. It certainly hadn’t surprised Admiral Gold Peak, unfortunately for Visigoth.
Although the Visigoth Terminus hadn’t been on the original list for Lacoön Two, Gold Peak had realized she couldn’t leave it in anyone else’s hands. If she’d ever entertained any that’s about that, the Mesa Atrocity would have changed her mind, and she’d politely but firmly taken possession of the terminus within twenty-four hours of dispatching her initial report to Manticore. Now Onassis’s squadron, supported by Rear Admiral Gunnar Malbois’s BatCruRon 19 of the Republic of Haven Navy, hovered watchfully over the platforms from which the Visigoth System government had evacuated every living human in protest. A constellation of FTL-capable sensor platforms covered a sphere two light-hours across, centered on the terminus, two Hydra-class CLACs backed up the battlecruisers, and a pair of six million-ton missile colliers waited to deploy pods at the first sign of a Solarian attack.
Not that even Sollies are stupid enough to try anything like that, Kaplan reflected as the icons of a squadron of LACs arced across her plot, headed out to relieve the outer shell of manned platforms at ninety light-minutes. Even they have to realize nobody
’s getting through this terminus without our permission.
She didn’t like the reason that was true, but, under the circumstances, she could live with it.
The first queasy outriders of a wormhole transit tiptoed through her midsection, and she snorted in amusement as another thought struck her.
I so wish I could be aboard Artie when the Admiral and “Firebrand” come face-to-face at last!
* * *
Damien Harahap reached up to stroke Fire Watch’s ears gently as the treecat shifted on his shoulder. The ’cat hadn’t liked his person’s insistence that it would be wiser to leave his pulser aboard Tristram just this once, but that wasn’t the reason his muscles quivered with so much tension. It wasn’t difficult for Harahap to guess why they did, however, and he concentrated on thinking soothing thoughts.
That would have been easier if he hadn’t been so aware of the attitude of the red-haired, green-eyed lieutenant at the lift car’s control panel. Young Lieutenant Archer was not one of Damien Harahap’s admirers, and it seemed likely her flag lieutenant’s attitude mirrored Countess Gold Peak’s. That could be…unfortunate.
Fire Watch made a very soft hissing sound, and Harahap shook his head.
None of that, he thought as hard as he could. We need to make a good impression on the lady. Trust me on that.
Fire Watch couldn’t “hear” him. He knew that. But he hoped the treecat would absorb the “taste” of his “mind-glow.” He still had problems visualizing how all of that worked, but the comforting presence glowing just beyond his grasp in the back of his own mind proved it did. Now he opened to that glow, embracing it, and marveled once again at the awareness that there was at least one being in the galaxy who truly and simply loved Damien Harahap despite knowing exactly who he was…and exactly what he’d done with his life.
Until Fire Watch had given him that priceless gift, he’d never once allowed himself to realize how desperately—or for how long—he’d wanted it. He didn’t expect anyone who hadn’t been adopted to understand how the bond worked. For that matter, he didn’t understand it, himself. But he knew he would die before he allowed himself to fall short of that loving presence’s expectations.