“You’re right about that,” Harahap agreed, and glanced at his chrono. “Give me a half hour to hand over here and I’ll be there.”
“Great! See you then.”
* * *
It was actually closer to forty-five minutes before the ex-Army ground car deposited Harahap at Tobolinski Field’s South Annex. The SIM sentries outside the enormous, crystoplast-walled building recognized him and grinned as they waved him inside. He smiled back at them, and felt another ripple of that bittersweet regret.
“Talisman said they’ll be waiting for you in Concourse Five,” one of the sentries said, pointing at the right slidewalk.
“Thanks.”
Harahap nodded to the woman and stepped onto the slidewalk. It swept him off through the vast terminal’s air-conditioned interior, and he watched the freestanding sculptures and the art decorating the marble walls as they passed. The murals would need extensive remodeling, he reflected as the recently deceased Jacqueline McCready gazed back at him, flanked by radiantly smiling schoolchildren, but the terminal itself was completely undamaged.
The fighting for the north side of Tobolinski had been far fiercer, and the North Annex was going to require complete rebuilding. That was where Tillman O’Sullivan and Anderson Bligh had made their last stand, probably because they’d seen the spaceport as their only way off-world. They hadn’t even been able to retreat to the space station, because the cops aboard it had gone over to SIM, as well. By the end, their last real hope had been to hold out in Toblonski long enough for the inevitable response from Krestor, Cordova, or OFS to rescue them.
Unfortunately for them, they’d run out of time. Bligh was in custody; O’Sullivan was in the morgue. Harahap was almost—almost—prepared to believe the Scags’ commander had chosen to die fighting, but he wouldn’t lose any sleep over the possibility that his demise had been less than voluntary.
The slidewalk delivered him to Concourse Five, and he stepped off as Indiana turned and waved to him.
“So, what’s this surprise?” Harahap asked, shaking hands with him, and Indy chuckled.
“Oh, believe me, you’re gonna love it,” he promised. “Come on. Someone you have to meet.”
He turned, leading the way to one of the lounges, and Harahap listened to the soft music playing over the terminal’s speakers as he followed. Looking out across the shuttle pads he saw at least a half-dozen heavy-lift and passenger shuttles which had been caught on the pads with nowhere to go, and reminded himself—again—that he needed to get started on that trip “to get help” as soon as possible. It couldn’t be too much longer until someone turned up from the Sollies’ side, after all.
He stepped into the lounge and felt something pluck at his waist. It happened so quickly and smoothly it took even him by surprise—mostly, he realized later, because he’d never seen it coming. His head turned, eyes widening in surprise, and Indy stepped back with the pulser he’d just extracted from Harahap’s holster.
“Like I said,” the younger man said, his voice suddenly colder than Harahap had ever heard it, “you’re gonna love this, Firebrand.”
Harahap’s brain raced, trying to figure out what that coldness portended. Then it stopped racing and froze in shock as a small, dark-featured man with blue eyes stepped into the lounge through a side door. He was flanked by two much larger, hard-eyed men in black tunics and green trousers, both carrying flechette guns as if they knew what to do with them, but he himself wore a black and gold uniform with four golden cuff bands, a single golden planet on its collar, and a golden, winged beast, rampant, on a five-sided red patch, on its right shoulder.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Firebrand,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time now. My name’s Zavala—Jacob Zavala.” He smiled thinly. “I understand you represent the Star Empire of Manticore…too.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
“Well,” Gloria Michelle Samantha Evelyn Henke murmured to herself, “I suppose we’re entitled to at least one or two good surprises.”
The Countess of Gold Peak was tipped back in her favorite chair, her feet—in their fuzzy purple treecat slippers—propped on her desk as she studied the recorded message from Craig Culbertson which had just arrived. It was almost four T-weeks old, but it certainly made…interesting viewing.
A million more ground troops? I knew Augustus and I were onto something when we recommended organizing the Quadrant Guard, but I never thought they’d be able to turn up that many fully equipped troops!
She thought about it some more, then snorted.
There are a dozen star systems in the Quadrant, Mike, and their populations average right at two-point-five billion. If only ten percent of that many people are potentially available for military service, that’s a pool of over three billion warm bodies. Probably shouldn’t be all that surprising Augustus and Krietzmann could shoot a measly million of them your way!
That was certainly true, she reflected, and her surprise probably said something about the fact that she’d seen the Quadrant primarily as a military liability—something to be defended, people to be protected, a deadly serious responsibility to distract her from taking the fight to the enemy—rather than as an asset. The troop numbers in the dispatch which Culbertson had forwarded to her, however, were a sobering reflection of how the Talbott Quadrant’s annexation had increased the Star Empire of Manticore’s population and hence its deployable military manpower.
Of course, it also underscored just how hideously the Solarian League’s enormously greater population and industrial power out-classed that of the entire Grand Alliance. That, however, was a calculation she’d already fully internalized, she thought grimly.
She sipped from the coffee cup in her right hand while the fingers of her left hand slowly and rhythmically stroked the belly fur of the enormous Maine Coon cat draped across her lap. Actually, it would be more accurate to describe him as draped along her lap…and also along her thighs and her shins. The deep rumble of his purr, absolutely distinct from the buzzing sound of a treecat, vibrated through her, and she paused to smile down at him—albeit with a certain degree of resignation—before she returned her attention to the information in Augustus Khumalo’s dispatch.
The timing, she thought, was ironic.
It was barely three weeks since the Myers System had surrendered, having shown unusual wisdom—for Sollies—by not forcing her to fire a shot. And despite a certain vengefulness where Solarians in general were concerned, Michelle Henke was just as happy not killing anyone she didn’t have to.
The other star systems of the Madras Sector had taken their cue from the capital, surrendering as soon as a few cruisers or destroyers arrived. In the space of less than a month, she’d taken the entire sector—the first time the Solarian League had ever lost control of even one star system to a hostile power. But that success had brought problems of its own.
Here in Meyers, the government of King Lawrence looked like providing a sound basis for a legitimate, local, independent constitutional monarchy. Michelle knew she was constitutionally—she winced at her own unintentional double entendre—biased in favor of constitutional monarchies, but she also genuinely believed Lawrence represented the best shot for Meyers.
The sector’s other systems were more problematical. Without a good local mechanism for establishing self-government, and without support from the Foreign Office (she felt a fresh pang of regret for Amandine Corvisart’s death), she felt highly unqualified to muck around in their internal affairs. So she’d settled for scrapping the handful of light warships and the fixed local defenses which had surrendered to her and left the current civilian administrations on notice that the Star Empire would get around to all of them, in the fullness of time. The best she could hope for was that they’d take her at her word and do their very best to avoid any actions to which the Star Empire might object.
She hoped that worked out less disastrously than it potentially could, but in the meantime, it had freed h
er hands and she’d intended to move immediately on the Mesa System. In fact, her operational plans called for her to depart Meyers for Mesa less than twelve hours from this very moment.
Plans were always subject to change, of course, she reminded herself dryly.
She never doubted that quite a few people back home had been horrified by her proposal to broaden the Grand Alliance’s war against the Solarian League, but sometimes too much caution was more dangerous than too much audacity. Against something the size of the League, the Alliance couldn’t afford to “play safe.” Besides, Mesa wasn’t a member of the League. It would be interesting to see if this Mesan Alignment had sufficient clout with the Mandarins to deploy the League to defend its home star system, but she doubted that was likely to happen. It was always possible, however, which was the reason she’d dictated and sent off her message to Empress Elizabeth. It not only informed her cousin of her intentions—and the reasons for them—but also gave Elizabeth all she would need to disavow the consequences of her decision if that became necessary.
Very noble of me it was, too. Her lips twitched in a wry smile. I hope Beth properly appreciates me! But I have to admit this changes things a bit.
The one aspect of attacking Mesa which had most concerned her was her critical shortage of Marines. Her intelligence on the Mesan Navy and the system’s fixed defenses was thinner than she’d have liked, but she had at least a general notion of what she’d face there, and she was confident her ships of the wall and range advantage would be more than enough to deal with it. The situation on the ground was quite different, however. She had no qualms about her Marines’ ability to take over all of Mesa’s spaceborne infrastructure (assuming any of it survived her arrival), but this was a star system which kept two thirds or more of its total population in involuntary servitude. That meant the other third had to be heavily militarized. No doubt much of that coercive capacity was concentrated in police and paramilitary forces of one sort or another, but they had to be backed up by a formal military organization with real combat capability, and Tenth Fleet didn’t begin to have enough Marines to go down there and take their planet away from them, if they did. Not unless she was prepared to resort to the sort of kinetic bombardment missions it would take to “shoot” them onto their objectives.
Which I can’t do without killing several million helpless slaves, she thought grimly. That would sort of defeat the purpose of liberating them, I suppose.
But a million more ground troops…that was the proverbial horse of a different color, indeed.
She sipped more coffee, then set the cup down and poked the cat currently using her for a hammock.
“Hey, you! Time to get up. Somebody’s got to go back to work.”
Dicey’s eyes slitted open. The fact that he’d deigned to lie on his back to graciously permit her to scratch his tummy meant his head was upside down in her lap, and he looked suitably absurd gazing up past his muzzle at her.
“You heard me, monster,” she said more firmly, poking a bit harder, and he stretched luxuriantly, briefly accomplishing the impossible feat of being twice his normal hundred and sixteen centimeters of length. Then he rolled onto his side and flowed down onto the decksole with a solid thump.
“Thanks,” she told him. “Now go find Chris! He’s the one who technically owns you, so mooch something off him for a change.”
He blinked at her, then yawned, turned and ambled away. She watched him go with a smiling headshake, then let her chair come upright and pulled it closer to her workstation.
All right. Khumalo and Krietzmann’s numbers for theoretically available manpower were impressive, and even equipped with only the export versions of Solarian planetary combat equipment, they’d be a formidable force. With her starships to provide fire support, that should be more than enough to deal with any challenge Mesa’s military might present. Unfortunately, actually deploying those numbers depended on finding transport for them. From the analysis Khumalo and Loretta Shoupe had appended to the dispatch, it looked to her as if they’d probably be able to—it was for damned sure the Admiralty would pull out all the stops to provide it as soon as it found out Khumalo wanted it…and digested the fact that she intended to attack Mesa—but there was going to be at least some inevitable delay. And since he clearly hadn’t known about her plans to attack Meyers, he intended to send them to her at Montana, which happened to be approximately two hundred and nineteen light-years from her present location.
She began entering notes on her terminal. First, she had to sit down with Cynthia Lecter, her chief of staff, and Dominica Adenauer, her operations officer, and reconsider her original plans. Second, she had to get at least some of the Quadrant Guard’s personnel transferred to the Madras Sector to back up the destroyers, LACs, and missile pods she’d earmarked to cover the systems against Solarian nuisance forces…and remind those governments she hadn’t displaced of the fact that they were under new management. Third, it would make a lot more sense to hold the reinforcements at Montana, divert her own routing from the straight line course to Mesa, and return to Montana en route to collect them. Fourth, she really ought to…
She went on entering notes, frowning thoughtfully as her mind flitted busily through the possibilities and options.
* * *
“You know, just the other day I was thinking we were entitled to some good surprises for a change,” Admiral Gold Peak said whimsically. She stood on HMS Artemis’ flag bridge, gazing at the detailed three-dimensional map of everything within two hundred and fifty light-years of her flagship. Captain Lecter, Commander Adenauer, and Captain Veronica Armstrong, Artemis’ chestnut-haired flag captain, stood helping her gaze at it. “I have to admit, though, that some surprises are surprisingly more surprising than other surprises.”
“That’s a little redundant, Ma’am,” Lecter pointed out.
“Saying that something is ‘a little’ redundant is redundant, Cynthia,” Michelle Henke informed her trim, blond chief of staff severely. “It’s either redundant, or it’s not redundant.”
“My point stands,” Lecter said respectfully.
“It’s known as hyperbole—you know, exaggerating for effect?” Gold Peak shook her head. “And don’t tell me you don’t agree with the sentiment!”
“Oh, I think you can take that as a given, Ma’am.” It was the chief of staff’s turn to shake her head as she gazed at the side display’s impressive list of tonnages. And the even more impressive, to Manticoran eyes, names on that list.
“It certainly came as a surprise to me, too, Ma’am,” Armstrong said. “To be honest, I was surprised as hell when they offered to help us defend the Binary System. I never expected to see this much of their fleet clear out here!”
Gold Peak nodded slowly, her eyes distant as she considered how this was likely to shred her plans for Mesa all over again.
But shred them in a good way, Mike, she reminded herself. Remember that. And under Lester Tourville, too. That’s likely to be…interesting. From all reports, the two of you have quite a bit in common. Now that’s a scary thought for the rest of the universe!
“All right,” she said out loud, turning away from the display and shoving her hands into her tunic pockets. It was an inelegant pose, perhaps. Her mother had always told her it was, anyway. But it also helped her think, and she began pacing a slow circle around the freestanding display while she did just that.
“According to Tourville’s dispatch, Admiral Khumalo and Governor Medusa are going to dig up enough transport to get at least three quarters of the available planetary forces forward to us. At the moment, they’re still planning on sending them to Montana, not here, but that could change.”
She paused to glance at the others, and Lecter nodded. Their dispatch direct to Spindle announcing Meyers’ capture—and requesting additional ground force support—had gone off to the Quadrant capital three and a half weeks ago. At the moment, it was just under seventy percent of the way there.
“By the
same token, though, it might not.” Gold Peak resumed her pacing. “The same dispatch will tell them I plan on hitting Mesa, and they’ll realize I need all the ground forces I can get for that. In addition, they’ll know Tourville went direct to Montana and that he was bound to stay there until he could inform me of his arrival and find out where I needed him. Given all that, Admiral Khumalo’s smart enough to realize Montana’s still the logical rendezvous point and send his transports there.”
She paused again, and this time all three of her subordinates nodded.
Funny, she thought for a moment. Honor always used to tease me about my “harem” of male bridge officers, and here we are, not a single man amongst us. Ah, those were the days!
“All right,” she said again. “How many dispatch boats do we have left?”
“Counting the one that just brought in Admiral Tourville’s messages, I make it eleven,” Adenauer replied, and Michelle grimaced. Any admiral who ever thought she had enough dispatch boats should probably be locked up somewhere before she hurt herself. Still, if Tenth Fleet had eleven of them, it was far better off than altogether too many other Manticoran fleets had been.
“One of them goes to Spindle,” she said, “but not until we’ve gotten one off to Tourville.”
Adenauer nodded and Gold Peak looked back at Lecter.
“Hitting Mesa with Tourville in support won’t just give us more platforms, Cynthia.” She shrugged. “We already had more than enough firepower to punch out anything Mesa might put in our way. But his presence should make it crystal clear to the Sollies that this isn’t just the Star Empire—or yours truly—going off on a wild hair. I imagine it’ll send a message about how serious we are about this, too. And it should emphasize the same message to the Alignment, as well, although it’ll be just but more pointed in Mesa’s case.”
“Ma’am,” Lecter said feelingly, “the thought of Manticoran and Havenite warships operating together against a sovereign star nation full of genetic slavers and other bottom feeders on the other side of the League should send just about all the messages you’d like to everyone concerned.”