The young Andermani officer looked around the boat bay gallery. Like everything else about Pirates' Bane, the bay was perfectly maintained. It was also spotless, with freshly painted bulkheads and a deck which looked literally clean enough to eat off of. One look at the freighter's captain would have been sufficient to warn anyone that he ran an extraordinarily taut ship, especially for a trader here in Silesia, but this went beyond mere tautness. Pirates' Bane looked far more like a warship, or the naval auxiliary as which she had begun life, than she looked like any "normal" merchantman the lieutenant had ever boarded.
He returned his eyes to Pirates' Bane's captain and came briefly to attention. He wasn't in the habit of expending military courtesy on mere merchant spacers, but this one was different. And despite the oberleutnant's own awareness of the steadily escalating tension between his own navy and that of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, he recognized that difference.
"Well, Kapitän," he said, "let me repeat my Kapitän's expression of admiration. And I'd like to add my own to it."
"Thank you, Oberleutnant," Bachfisch replied gravely.
"And," the Andy assured him with a thin smile, "I believe you can be confident that you won't be seeing this particular batch of pirates again."
* * *
Todfeind accelerated steadily away from Pirates' Bane, and Bachfisch stood on his command deck, watching the visual imagery of the departing heavy cruiser. For just a moment, his eyes filled with a deep, naked longing, but it vanished as quickly as it had come, and he turned to his bridge crew.
"Well, we've wasted enough time doing our civil duty," he remarked dryly, and most of the people on the bridge grinned at him. Bachfisch might never lose his Manticoran accent, but he'd spent the last forty T-years in Silesia, and like most crews in Silesia, the one he'd assembled aboard the Bane was drawn from every imaginable source. It included Silesians, Andies, other Manticorans, Sollies, even one or two men and women who obviously sprang from the People's Republic of Haven. But the one thing every one of them had in common was that, like the crew of the Bane's sister ship Ambuscade, they'd signed on with the express assurance that their ships would never be surrendered to the raiders who plagued Silesia. It might be a bit much to call any of them crusaders, and certainly if they were knights at all, most of them were at best a murky shade of gray, but every one of them took a profound satisfaction in knowing any pirate who went after the Bane or Ambuscade would never make another mistake.
None of them were quite certain precisely what it was which had motivated their skipper to spend the past four decades amassing the financial resources to purchase, arm, and maintain what amounted to a pair of Q-ships of his very own. For that matter, no one—with the possible exceptions of Captain Laurel Malachi, Ambuscade's skipper, and Jinchu Gruber, the Bane's exec—had the least idea how the Captain had gotten his hands on the warrant as a naval auxiliary which let him evade the Confederacy's prohibition against privately owned armed vessels. Not that any of them cared. However curious they might occasionally be, what mattered was that unlike most merchant spacers in the Confederacy, they could be relatively certain when they set out on a run that they would reach the other end safely even if they did happen across a pirate cruiser or two in the process.
The fact that most of them had their own axes to grind where the brutal freebooters who terrorized Silesian merchant shipping were concerned only added to their willingness to follow Bachfisch wherever he led without any carping little questions. His demand that they submit to military-style discipline and weapons training, both shipboard and small arms—and the short shrift he gave anyone who came up short against the high standards he required—was perfectly all right with them. Indeed, they regarded it as a trifling price to pay for the combination of security and the opportunity to pick off the occasional pirate. And every one of them knew it was the fact that Bachfisch's ships always reached their destinations with their cargoes intact which allowed him to charge the premium freight rates which also allowed him to pay them extraordinarily well by Silesian standards.
Thomas Bachfisch was perfectly well aware that most naval officers would have been appalled at the thought of accepting some of the personnel who served aboard his ships. There'd been a time when he would have experienced profound second thoughts about allowing some of them aboard, himself. But that had been a long time ago, and what he felt today was a deep pride in how well his disparate people had come together. Indeed, he would have backed either of his crews against most regular warships of up to battlecruiser tonnage, not just against the typical pirate scum they usually encountered.
He looked back at the visual display for a moment, then glanced at his tac officer's plot and frowned. In keeping with her armed status, Pirates' Bane boasted a sensor outfit and weapons control stations superior to those aboard most official Confederate Navy warships, and his frown deepened as he noted the data sidebar on the plot.
He stepped closer and looked over the tac officer's shoulder. She sensed his presence and turned to look up at him with a questioning expression.
"Can I help you, Skipper?" she asked.
"Um." Bachfisch rested his left hand lightly on her right shoulder and leaned forward to tap a query on her data pad. The computer considered his inquiry for a nanosecond or two, then obediently reported Todfeind's tonnage. Lieutenant Hairston looked down at the fresh numbers blinking on her own display, compared them to the acceleration sidebar, and pursed her lips.
"They'd appear to be in a bit of a hurry, wouldn't they?" she observed.
"I suppose that's one way to put it, Roberta," Bachfisch murmured.
He straightened and rubbed his chin gently while he gazed intently at the plot. Todfeind wasn't the very newest ship in the Andy inventory, but her class had been designed less than ten T-years ago, and she massed right on four hundred thousand tons. At that tonnage, her normal maximum acceleration should have been around five hundred gravities. Since the Andermani Navy, like every other navy in space, normally restricted its skippers to less than the maximum acceleration available to them under full military power, she should have been accelerating at no more than four hundred or so. But according to the tac officer's sensors, she was pulling just over four-seventy-five.
"They're right on the edge of their compensator's max performance," Hairston observed, and Bachfisch glanced at her. He started to say something, then shrugged, smiled at her, patted her shoulder once more, and turned to the exec.
"I know the contract specifically allows for delays in transit occasioned by piratical activity, Jinchu," he said. "But we've lost a bit more time than I'd wanted to, even to swat another pirate. I think we can make it up if we can talk Santerro into letting us jump the transshipment queue in Broadhurst, but I don't want to dawdle on the way there."
"Understood, Skipper," Gruber replied, and nodded sideways at Pirates' Bane's astrogator. "I've had Larry working an updated course ever since we diverted to deliver our 'guests.' "
"That's what I like to see," Bachfisch observed with a smile. "Conscientious subordinates with their noses pressed firmly to the grindstone!" Gruber chuckled, and Bachfisch waved at the main maneuvering plot.
"We've got a long way to go," he observed. "So let's be about it, Jinchu."
"Yes, Sir," the exec said, and turned to the astrogator. "You heard the Captain, Larry. Let's take her out of orbit."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the astrogator replied formally, and Bachfisch listened to the familiar, comforting efficiency of his bridge crew as he walked slowly across the deck and settled into his own command chair. No one could have guessed from his demeanor that he was barely aware of his officers' well-drilled smoothness as he leaned back and crossed his legs, but most of his attention was someplace else entirely as he considered Todfeind's acceleration numbers.
It was always possible Hairston's explanation was the right one. High as that acceleration rate might be, it was still within the safe operating envelope of most navies' inertial compensators.
But not by very much, and the Andies were just as insistent about avoiding unnecessary risks or wear on their compensators and impeller nodes as the Royal Manticoran Navy. So if Todfeind's captain had elected to push the envelope that hard, then logically he must be in a very great hurry, indeed.
But what Bachfisch knew that Hairston didn't was that the Andermani captain had invited Bachfisch and his senior officers to supper aboard his ship. The IAN didn't extend that sort of invitation to mere merchant spacers every day of the week, and Bachfisch had been sorely tempted to accept it. Unfortunately, as he'd just finished remarking to Gruber, the detour to deliver the captured pirates had put Pirates' Bane well behind schedule, so he'd been forced to decline the invitation. But if Kapitän der Sterne Schweikert had seen fit to issue one in the first place, then he'd obviously planned on hanging around long enough for the meal to be served.
Which suggested that he wasn't in any particular hurry. Which, in turn, suggested that he wasn't pushing the envelope on his compensator.
Which suggested that the Andermani Navy had cracked the secret of the improved compensator efficiency which had been one of the RMN's major tactical advantages over the Peeps for years.
Thomas Bachfisch had visited his native star nation no more than half a dozen times over the past forty T-years. Most of his old friends and associates in the Star Kingdom had given up on him decades ago, sadly writing him off as someone who had "gone native" in Silesia, of all places. And, he admitted, there was at least some truth to that verdict. But that didn't mean he'd failed to stay abreast of the news from Manticore, and he had a shrewd notion that the Queen's Navy would not be happy to discover that the increasingly resentful Imperial Andermani Navy's ships were now just as fast as its own.
Assuming anyone at the current Admiralty was prepared to believe it, at any rate.
Chapter Five
Admiral Sir Edward Janacek (retired), Royal Manticoran Navy, looked up from the report on his desk terminal and hid a frown as his yeoman secretary ushered Reginald Houseman into his office. He hid it because the First Lord of Admiralty of the Star Kingdom of Manticore wasn't supposed to greet one of his fellow lords with a grimace. But despite almost thirty T-years as a civilian, he continued to think of himself as a naval officer, and any naval officer would have regarded Houseman with distaste. Houseman rarely even attempted to conceal his own deep and abiding contempt for the Star Kingdom's military, and when he did make the attempt, he failed. Worse, Houseman and his entire family were hopelessly inept and politically naive in Janacek's view . . . to put it mildly. The fact that they were exactly the sort of Liberal Party idiots Janacek had left the Navy in order to oppose more effectively made the current situation more ironic than he cared to contemplate, but there it was. Houseman and his allies among the Liberals were absolutely essential at the moment, which was what made it politically impossible for Janacek to allow his distaste to show.
"The Second Lord is here, Sir," the secretary announced unnecessarily, in the obsequious voice he kept on tap especially for Houseman's visits. Like many who not so secretly despised the military, Houseman reveled in any opportunity to extract subservience from it.
"Thank you, Christopher." Janacek nodded dismissal to the secretary, then stood and extended his hand to Houseman. "It's always good to see you, Reginald," he lied smoothly. "Should I assume you have those projections for me?"
"Edward," Houseman replied, shaking the proffered hand with a smile Janacek felt certain was at least as false as his own. The First Lord waved for his visitor to seat himself, and Houseman settled into one of the comfortable chairs facing Janacek's desk.
"I do, indeed, have the numbers you requested," he went on, and produced a chip folio. He leaned forward to place the folio on the corner of Janacek's blotter, then leaned back once again. "And they support your conclusions rather well, actually."
"Good." Janacek managed to conceal his irritation at the edge of condescension in Houseman's tone. It wasn't easy, even for someone with his decades of political experience, but he made it look that way. And it wasn't as if Houseman's attitude was a surprise. Even though Janacek was now a civilian, the fact that he'd ever been a naval officer was sufficient to contaminate him—in Houseman's eyes—with the automatic ineptitude and stupidity of all officers. Which made any evidence of competence or imagination on the First Lord's part perpetually surprising and unexpected.
Of course, Janacek reflected, the fact that the Navy's officers in general—and one of them in particular—have made their opinion of him crystal clear probably has a little something to do with the strength of his feelings. Pity it's the only thing I'll ever agree with that lunatic Harrington about.
"Assuming that we freeze construction on all units not at least sixty-five percent completed, scrap about twelve percent of our older ships of the wall still in commission, mothball another sixteen percent of the wall to go with them, and put the yard space we won't need anymore into inactive controlled storage, we can implement your plans and still reduce naval spending by approximately fourteen percent of the currently budgeted funds," Houseman continued, and this time there was a pronounced note of approval in his voice. "That amounts to the better part of two trillion dollars we can divert to far more useful ends."
"I'm glad to hear it," Janacek replied, and he was. Not, perhaps, for the same reasons which had produced Houseman's obvious pleasure, but he'd long since accepted that politics made strange bedfellows. His toleration of Houseman as Second Lord, the civilian lord in charge of the Admiralty's fiscal policy, was certainly proof of that! On the grander scale, the liberation of so much cash for the Government to use primarily on projects of which Janacek himself heartily disapproved was yet another. He understood the logic behind the strategy, and intellectually he approved of it, but that made it only marginally more palatable.
He extracted Houseman's datachip from its folio and plugged it into his own console, then brought up the file header. He advanced to the first page of the report summary and scanned the first few paragraphs while Houseman adjusted his own memo pad in his lap and keyed its display.
"As you'll note in paragraph two," the Second Lord began, "we can begin by listing the entire King William-class for disposal. After that . . ."
* * *
"So you agree we can safely reduce military spending," Lady Elaine Descroix observed in that bright, cheerful tone which always set Baron High Ridge's teeth on edge. Descroix was a small, sweet-faced woman who took great pains to project the image of everyone's favorite aunt, and he reminded himself yet again not to forget the armor-plated pseudocroc behind her smile.
"Within limits, Elaine," the Prime Minister of Manticore cut in smoothly before the First Lord could respond to his Foreign Secretary. "And that assumes the situation in the People's Republic—excuse me, the Republic of Haven—remains effectively what it currently is."
High Ridge made himself return her smile with one of his own. One with a carefully gauged edge of steel. Pseudocroc or not, Descroix wasn't in charge of this meeting. He was, and the sun-bright spaciousness of his luxurious woodpaneled office was the outward sign and confirmation of his ascendancy. The antique clocks which had cluttered its shelves, coffee tables, and credenzas during the Duke of Cromarty's tenure had disappeared, replaced by his own knickknacks and memorabilia, but this was the same office from which four T-centuries of prime ministers had governed the Star Kingdom, and his smile reminded her of the power he represented.
"Oh, I think we can assume the situation will remain unchanged," Descroix assured him. Her eyes acknowledged his expression's message, but even as they did, her own smile showed a decided complacency. "We can keep them talking for as long as we need to. After all, what else can they do?"
"I'm still not convinced we should have completely ignored their last proposals," another voice said, and High Ridge turned to consider the third member of the quartet which had assembled in his office to await Janacek's arrival. Marisa Turner, Countess of New
Kiev and Chancellor of the Exchequer since the last Cabinet reorganization, looked troubled. Then again, she often looked troubled. It wasn't that she didn't understand political necessity when it looked her right in the eye, but she sometimes found pursuing that necessity . . . distasteful.
Which has never prevented her from pursuing it anyway, he reminded himself cynically.
"We didn't have much choice, Marisa," Descroix assured her, and shrugged when New Kiev looked at her. "If we're going to be completely honest," the Foreign Secretary continued, "on the surface, their proposal was much too reasonable. If we'd accepted it, certain elements in Parliament would probably have insisted that we seriously consider using it as the basis for a formal treaty. Which would have opened the door to the territorial concessions from us which were also part of their new proposals. And which, of course, would have required us to give up far too much of all that our courageous Navy won for us."
New Kiev's expression flickered for an instant, but High Ridge noticed that she raised no objection to Descroix's explanation. Which underscored her willingness to do what pragmatism required, however unpleasant she might find that, because she understood the subtext of the explanation as well as anyone else in the office.
In the final analysis, everyone in the present Government understood all the reasons not to bring the war against the Peeps to a formal conclusion. There was no real need, given the Star Kingdom's overwhelming technical superiority. The Havenite Secretary of War, Theisman, obviously understood just how helpless his forces were in the face of that superiority. Even if he hadn't, in High Ridge's private opinion, he'd never have the nerve to resort once more to open military action against a star nation which had so decisively defeated his own. If he'd come equipped with that sort of testosterone supply, he would never have supinely surrendered the absolute power which had lain in his grasp to someone like Pritchart!