The Havenite dispatch boat made rendezvous with Haven One as the official interstellar transport of the Republic’s president swept peacefully about the planet Manticore in its assigned orbit. The fact that the tiny vessel was allowed to make its approach without having to take aboard a Manticoran helmsman to enfore the “two-man” rule which had become the norm for near-planet traffic in the Star Empire said volumes about how the relationship between Haven and Manticore had changed in a single T-month.
The high security dispatches from Nouveau Paris were hand-transferred to Haven One, where they then sat for just over three hours while President Pritchart completed her current meeting with Empress Elizabeth, Protector Benjamin, and Planetary Director Benton-Ramirez y Chou in Mount Royal Palace. Partly, that was because the meeting was too important to interrupt, but there was more to it, as well. Eloise Pritchart was not a cowardly woman, yet in her circumstances, only a superwoman wouldn’t have felt at least a tingle or two of trepidation at the thought of mail from home.
Nonetheless, when she arrived back aboard her ship, she went immediately to her private quarters, accessed the security locks on the files, braced herself, and began to read.
* * *
“No, actually I think I agree with Aretha on this one, Roger,” Empress Elizabeth said. “I realize it’s your wedding—well, yours and Riva’s!” she went on, smiling warmly at Rivka Rebecca Rosenfeld. “And if you insist, we can do it your way. But under the circumstances, I think involving the Navy is probably a good idea.”
“I’m not disagreeing with that part of it, Mother, but it’s a wedding not a political statement.” Crown Prince Roger Gregory Alexander Timothy Winton tried (mostly successfully) to keep exasperation out of his voice. “And unlike Uncle Mike or Michelle, I never actually served in the Navy. I’d feel…uncomfortable calling them in for my wedding, especially after what’s just happened. It’s not my place to use my status as Heir to order a bunch of uniforms to turn up for the wedding when they’ve got a lot better things to be doing. And I especially don’t want to look like I’m trying to steal any of the…well, the glory, darn it, the Fleet’s earned to make me and Rivka look more important!”
It was obvious only filial respect had kept him from using a somewhat more vigorous expletive, and Elizabeth was forced to smother a smile stillborn.
“That’s not what Aretha has in mind,” she began once she was sure she had the smile under control. “She’s—”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Rivka said, “but whether it’s what Dame Aretha actually intends or not, I think what she’s proposing could look that way.”
The young woman who was about to become Crown Princess of the Star Empire of Manticore was attractive, in a dark, understated sort of way. She was also quiet, almost bookish, but there was a brain behind those big brown eyes. And some intestinal fortitude, too, Elizabeth reflected. It couldn’t be easy for a young woman who wouldn’t be twenty-two T-years old for another eleven days to argue with not just her future mother-in-law but her monarch. That was one of the many reasons Elizabeth approved so heartily of Roger’s choice.
“I think what bothers Roger,” Rivka went on, “is the notion of turning out all those naval personnel in uniform to line the approaches to King Michael’s Cathedral. I mean,” she smiled slightly, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to convince everyone they were all invited to the wedding and just couldn’t fit into the cathedral. It’s going to look like they were ordered to attend.”
“It’s going to look like that because that’s what they’re going to be,” Elizabeth pointed out. “It’s standard procedure for the military to be represented at royal weddings, baptisms, and funerals, Rivka.”
“I realize that, Your Majesty. I’m just saying that I think that’s why Roger feels the way he feels.”
“Mother, I don’t object to the Navy being represented,” Roger said. “I just don’t want to turn it into a situation where for all intents and purposes only the Navy is represented. Don’t get me wrong—I think the Navy has every right to be represented. God knows it does if anyone does! I just don’t want to look like we’re…trading on how popular the Navy is right now. Maybe it’s silly, and maybe it’s only because I was never commissioned, but that’s the way I feel.”
“I see.” Elizabeth gazed at him for a moment, then cocked an eyebrow at his fiancée. “Do you feel that way, too, Rivka?”
“Maybe not as strongly as Roger does, Your Majesty. On the other hand, it’s his wedding, too.” Rivka shrugged. “All of this is still new to me, but it does seem to me that ‘our wedding’ is going to be a huge public event. I realize that goes with marrying Roger, and I’m not complaining, really. But if there’s any way we can cut down a little bit on the intrusion of politics and do something that will make Roger feel a little more comfortable at the same time, I’m in favor of it.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly, impressed once again with her future daughter-in-law’s levelheadedness. She’d always thought the Manticoran Constitution’s requirement that the heir to the throne marry a commoner had been one of the Founders’ best ideas. Over the years, it had created its share of heartache and unhappy marriages, which was probably inevitable. And she knew from her own experience that every handsome (or beautiful) fortune hunter in the Star Kingdom was willing to take a shot at the Heir. She could have picked any of two or three dozen stunningly handsome boy-toys, but she hadn’t. She’d picked Justin, and she was eternally thankful the Constitutional requirement had brought them together. One or two of the young women who’d done their best to hover around Roger had worried her, but she was delighted with his final choice. Indeed, she strongly suspected that Rivka was going to prove as strong a support for Roger as Justin had proven for her.
“All right,” she said. “How about a compromise? You’re right that the Navy deserves to be represented, Roger, so suppose what we do is alternate personnel from the various branches of the service? What about Navy-Queen’s Own-Marines-Palace Security-Navy, and repeat? If we run out of the Queens Own, we could fill in with regular Army. Otherwise, the Queens Own will represent the Army contingent. Could you live with that?”
“I think so,” Roger agreed, then looked at Rivka as she laughed suddenly. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I was just thinking that the Navy’s going to be pretty well represented, anyway,” she explained. “Your uncle’s going to be present in uniform, and so is Admiral Truman, Earl White Haven, Admiral Caparelli, Admiral Givens, and Admiral Hemphill. Then there’s Admiral Theisman, Admiral Tourville, Admiral Yu, and High Admiral Yanakov for the foreign contingent.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Elizabeth agreed with a smile, not mentioning the one flag officer Rivka hadn’t named and who was not going to be in uniform. Honor Alexander-Harrington had agreed to serve as one of Rivka Rosenfeld’s matrons of honor, but she would be present in her persona as Steadholder Harrington, not Admiral Harrington.
Well, technically she’ll also be present as Duchess Harrington, I suppose, Elizabeth thought. On the other hand—
“Excuse me, Your Majesty, but President Pritchart is on the com.
Elizabeth turned to the footman who’d spoken, and he bowed with a slightly apologetic air. None of the Mount Royal staff liked to interrupt the royal family when they actually had time to spend as a family.
“She’s on the secure terminal in your study, Your Majesty,” he murmured.
“Thank you, Isaac,” she acknowledged with a smile, then turned back to Roger and Rivka. “All right, you two win this one on points. But I warn you, I’m going to be more adamant about the cake topper!”
She glowered at them ferociously, and Rivka laughed as Roger cowered in mock terror. Elizabeth chuckled, shook her head, scooped up Ariel, and headed for her study.
She sat down at her workstation and pressed the acceptance key.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Eloise. I’ve discovered that arranging my son’s wedding is just a littl
e more complicated than arranging interstellar treaties with lifelong enemies.”
“Funny you should mention treaties with lifelong enemies,” Pritchart replied with a somewhat peculiar smile. “It just happens I’ve received dispatches from Nouveau Paris. The reception of our treaty proposals wasn’t quite what I anticipated.”
“Oh?” After forty T-years on the throne, Elizabeth Winton’s face said exactly what she told it to say. It was a bit harder than usual to keep it that way at the moment. “In what way?”
“Remember how I told you I’d expected all along that Leslie was going to have trouble pounding them through the Senate, especially without me to back her up?”
Elizabeth nodded. There’d been strong arguments in favor of Pritchart’s taking the proposed treaty home and personally presenting it to the Havenite Congress, but there’d been countervailing arguments as well. The necessity for her, as Haven’s head of state, to personally oversee the delicate and difficult business of effectively coordinating the Republican Navy with the Royal Manticoran Navy after so many years of hostility had loomed large among them. But another, although Pritchart and Elizabeth had never explicitly discussed it, was that by remaining in Manticore, Pritchart could force a de facto acceptance of the treaty, in the short term at least, whatever the Senate ultimately decided.
“Well, it turns out I was wrong about the treaty’s prospects,” Pritchart went on now. “According to Leslie’s dispatch, she never got a chance to pound it anywhere. The Senate jumped all over it. It was approved with a fifty-six-vote margin over and above the two thirds majority requirement. There were only eleven dissenting votes!”
The president’s face blossomed in a huge smile, and Elizabeth felt herself smiling back.
“That’s wonderful news, Eloise!”
“I think the Senate’s as tired of locking horns with you people as Thomas Theisman is,” Pritchart said, shaking her head. “And according to Leslie, the fact that we not only get out of this without paying reparations, despite Giancola’s games with the diplomatic notes, but that it looks like we’re going to become the Star Empire’s biggest trading partner in the not so distant future didn’t hurt one bit. The probability that Giancola was working for Mesa the entire time and that we’re on the same hit list you people are didn’t hurt any, either, Leslie says. And neither did the fact that nobody in the Republic is especially fond of the League, for that matter.”
“Completely off the record—and I’ll deny it if you ever quote me—but I’d just as soon go pick on someone who isn’t as tough as you guys for a change, myself,” Elizabeth told her, marveling even now at how close she’d become to the president of the star nation she’d hated with every fiber of her being for four standard decades.
“There are still some questions at the Nouveau Paris end, of course,” Pritchart went on in a more sober tone. “As they say, the devil is always in the details. With your permission, now that the original treaty’s been approved at both ends, I’d like to go ahead and get Admiral Hemphill’s mission off to Bolthole as soon as possible. I think that would help put a lot of those questions to bed with a shovel.”
“Tom and Hamish are still having to knock a few heads together over at the Admiralty,” Elizabeth said with an off-center smile. “I don’t think there’ll be any major snafus, though.”
I hope to hell there won’t be, anyway, she added mentally. She truly didn’t expect any, but she’d been surprised upon occasion before. And she supposed it was inevitable that the more conservative members of the Royal Navy would be…uncomfortable about sending the entire surviving R&D staff of HMSS Weyland off deep into Havenite territory to share all of the RMN’s technical secrets with its traditional enemies. In fact, there were times Elizabeth expected to wake up with a terminal drug hangover any moment now.
But crazy as it sounds, it actually makes sense—a lot of sense, she thought. We’re pretty sure that if we couldn’t figure out where Bolthole was, the Sollies—and probably the Alignment—don’t know either. God knows we had a lot more incentive to find it than either of them did! So tucking our R&D projects away where no one with any invisible starships is likely to drop by to clean up what she missed the first time around strikes me as a very good idea. And from what Theisman and Eloise have shown us, Bolthole’s going to be a damned good place to start putting all that new hardware into production on a really large scale quickly, once we’ve made a few upgrades.
There’d been arguments in favor of using Beowulf, instead. For one thing, Beowulf’s basic technology was considerably in advance of the Republic’s as a whole—or even of Bolthole’s, for that matter. In theory, Beowulf would be better placed to hit the ground running and improve upon the existing research more rapidly than the Haven could. But there was a difference between basic technology and war-fighting technology, and an even bigger difference between the mindsets required to successfully push military and civilian R&D. There was no doubt in Elizabeth’s mind—or that of any serving Manticoran officer, for that matter—that Shannon Foraker fully deserved her reputation. The staff she’d put together had done miracles to close the gap between Manticore and the Republic. With the destruction of Weyland and its Grayson equivalent at Blackbird, there was no one in the galaxy better qualified to push the bleeding edge of hardware development.
Besides, Beowulf was already busy doing other things.
Horrific as the casualties of the Yawata Strike had been, it had actually killed only a relatively small percentage of the total Manticoran workforce. But it had killed a critical percentage—the technicians, the logisticians, the supervisors, and the managers responsible for building the Star Empire’s starships, military and civilian. The smelters and the resource extraction platforms were still there. Much of the system’s consumer manufacturing still existed, although a frightening percentage of it had been wiped away with the space stations, as well. The service personnel who’d manned the service and repair platforms associated with the Junction were still intact, still available. But the Yawata Strike had destroyed the workforce whose skill set had made it the most efficient shipbuilding powerhouse in the explored galaxy. It had destroyed the heavy fabrication units, the skilled personnel who oversaw final component manufacture and assembly, the shipfitters and the ordnance specialists, the nano-farms that produced the critical manufacturing nanotech, the armorers and life support technicians, the planners who kept at all moving smoothly. They were all gone, and their disappearance had eliminated the very skilled work force needed to rebuild the hardware, the infrastructure, they’d once manned, as well. It was a case of the chicken and the egg; to build the one, you needed the other.
As Baroness Morncreek and Countess Maiden Hill had pointed out at that first dreadful cabinet meeting after the strike, they could rebuild and retrain. They still had at least some of the people they needed, once they could be recalled or transferred from other critical sectors of the economy. And the repatriated work force from Grendelsbane had been a godsend. For the matter, there were plenty of Manticorans who could acquire the necessary skill sets. The problem was how to do all of that quickly enough…and how even the Star Empire of Manticore could afford the price tag.
It looked like the answer was going to be Beowulf and the Republic of Haven. The loss of revenues Operation Lacoön had inflicted on the Old Star Kingdom would have been close enough to catastrophic under normal circumstances. Under the post-Yawata Strike circumstances, it came one hell of a lot closer. But when Lacoön was first formulated, no one had anticipated having the Republic of Haven available to step in as a full trading partner. Nor had it counted on Beowulf’s becoming for all intents and purposes a full ally against the Solarian League.
Haven offered enormous business opportunities for the Star Empire. It wasn’t going to come remotely close to replacing everything Lacoön had shut down, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to help a lot. And with Beowulf’s open alignment with Manticore, its economy had become part of the Grand Allian
ce’s dynamo, as well. Beowulfers had always been heavily invested in the Old Star Kingdom; now they were actually lining up to buy Manticoran war bonds.
Nor was that all Beowulf was doing. Dozens of Beowulfan repair and service ships had already streamed through the Junction, and the nuclei of new space stations were already taking shape—two each, this time, around Manticore and Sphinx. They were going to be different this time, too; built to a carefully thought out plan that allowed for systematic expansion rather than simply growing as need required. And with powerful self-defense capability, as well. There really was truth to the old saw about the burned hand teaching best, Elizabeth reflected grimly.
The tectonic shift represented by the Grand Alliance’s unexpected formation had hugely reduced even the most optimistic Manticoran estimates of how long it was going to take to rebuild the Old Star Kingdom’s industrial muscle. Which wasn’t to say it was going to happen overnight, even now. The process was still going to take T-years, and everyone knew it.
That was why Beowulf was already establishing its first MDM production lines. It had no pod laying superdreadnoughts of its own, but it’s basic technological capabilities required far less tweaking than Haven’s would to begin producing the mini-fusion plants and the miniaturized gravitic components required to build something like the Mark 23-E. So for the foreseeable future, Beowulf would be the primary missile supplier for the Grand Alliance. For that matter, if things worked out the way the planners were anticipating, in the next several T-months Beowulf would begin building Keyhole-Two platforms to be installed in purpose-built Havenite SD(P)s constructed in Bolthole and sailed to Manticore for final installation of the Beowulf-built components.
Just thinking about it could make Elizabeth’s head swim, but Honor and Hamish promised her it would work. As long as Beowulf remained intact, at least, and the two hundred pod-laying superdreadnoughts stationed there to protect the system suggested it would.
“Well, anyway,” Pritchard said, “it looks like this is actually going to work. I have to admit, there’ve been times when I wasn’t is confident of that as I hope I looked.”