"Thank you, Your Majesty," he got out in a strangled voice. "With your permission?"
He bowed considerably more deeply to her, and she watched with pitiless, unflinching eyes as he withdrew.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
"How do you think we did back home, Sir?" Captain DeLaney asked quietly as she and Lester Tourville rode the lift car towards RHNS Majestic's flag briefing room.
"Well, that's the million-credit question, isn't it, Molly?" the admiral responded with a tight grin. His chief of staff gave a small grimace of agreement, and he chuckled. "I admit I've done the odd bit of speculating myself," he confessed. "And despite my irritating conclusion that there's absolutely no way to be certain, I also have to admit that I feel fairly confident. Assuming that the NavInt estimates in the sitrep Starlight brought out with her are as accurate as they've tended to be for the last couple of years, First Fleet should have pinned the Manties' ears back. Now," his expression sobered, "whether or not all of this was a good idea or a bad one is another question, of course."
DeLaney looked sideways at him, faintly surprised even after all these months by his pensive tone. It was easy for even Lester Tourville's own staff to sometimes confuse the always aggressive public persona with the reality, but she'd been with him for the better part of three T-years now, and she knew him better than most.
"Did we really have a choice, Sir?" she asked after a moment, and he shrugged.
"I don't know. I feel certain President Pritchart did her damnedest to find an alternative short of this one, and from Starlight's dispatches, it's obvious the diplomatic situation got even worse after we'd been sent out. And I feel as confident as I imagine anyone could that Operation Thunderbolt is going to—has already, I suppose I should say—succeed in its immediate objectives. And if we're going to be completely honest, I suppose I want revenge on the Manties as much as the next man.
"I'm a little more doubtful about our whole end of the operation," he admitted, not really to DeLaney's surprise, "but if our estimates of Sidemore's strength are accurate, we should be able to pull it off. And I have to agree that the potential advantages of doing that, from a political and a morale standard, as well as a purely military one, make it worth the risk. I can't quite avoid the suspicion that we're being just a little too cute, a little too clever, about it all, but as some ancient wet-navy type from Old Earth said a long time ago, it's a natural law that those who refuse to run risks can never win. On the other hand," he smiled again, tightly, "there's always the fact that we're talking about attacking Honor Harrington."
"I know she's good, Sir," DeLaney said with an ever so slightly pronounced air of patience, "but she's really not a reincarnated war goddess. She's good, granted, but I've never quite understood why the newsies—theirs, as well as ours—fixate on her the way they do. It's not as if she'd ever commanded in a real fleet engagement, even at Yeltsin's Star, after all. I mean, compare her actual battlefield accomplishments to what someone like White Haven has done to us, and he doesn't get anywhere near the press she does!"
"I never said the lady was a 'war goddess,' " Tourville replied, then chuckled out loud. "On the other hand, that might not actually be all that bad a description of her, now that I think about it. And I know she's not invincible, although the only time anyone on our side has ever actually beaten her, she was just a tad outnumbered, you know."
DeLaney nodded, and actually felt herself blush a bit at the reminder that Lester Tourville was, in fact, the only Havenite admiral ever to defeat Honor Harrington.
"The truth is, though," Tourville went on more seriously, "that she's very probably the best—or, at the very least, one of the two or three best—tacticians the Manty navy has. Nobody on our side has ever come close to taking her in an even fight. Just between the two of us, I think from some of the things Admiral Theisman has said that he probably could have beaten her at Yeltsin's Star after Operation Stalking Horse fell apart. But even if he'd destroyed her entire force, it still would have been a strategic victory for her. She hasn't had a chance yet to show what she can do in 'a real fleet engagement,' and, frankly, that's one reason I feel a little nervous about this whole thing. I don't want to be the one who lets her notch up her first win on that scale. As to why the newsies 'fixate' on her, I guess it has to do with her way of always beating the odds. The fact that she looks damned good doesn't hurt any, of course. But the truth is, I think even the newsies sense something about her. Something you have to meet her in person to really understand . . . as much as anyone can."
DeLaney looked a question at him, and he shrugged.
"She has the touch, Molly," he said simply.
"The touch, Sir?"
"The touch," Tourville repeated, then shrugged again. "Maybe I'm an incurable romantic, but it's always seemed to me that there are just some officers who have that little bit extra. Sometimes it's just charisma, but usually it's a combination of that and something else. Esther McQueen had it, in a way. Everyone always knew she was ambitious, and no one who wasn't on her side ever really trusted her, but I think every officer who ever served directly under her would have followed her anywhere . . . until her luck ran out, at least. McQueen could convince you that she could do anything, and that you wanted to help her do it. But Harrington . . . Harrington makes you believe you that you can do anything, because she believes it . . . and then dares you to do it with her. McQueen convinced people to follow her; Harrington just leads them, and they follow her on their own."
"You admire her, don't you, Sir?" DeLaney's question was really a statement, and Tourville nodded.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, if I'm going to be honest about it, I do. Probably of all of the officers on our side, Admiral Theisman comes closest to matching her ability to lead, and to draw the best possible performance out of her personnel. And I think he's probably as good a tactician as she is. But much as I respect and admire him, I think she still has that little bit more than he does. The touch. I can't think of anything else to call it.
"And the other thing she's had has been a positive gift for being in the right place at the right time—or the wrong place, at the wrong time, from our perspective. As you just observed, most of her actions have been on a fairly small scale, compared to something like White Haven's offensive just before the cease-fire. But they've had an impact all out of proportion to their size. Which undoubtedly accounts for a huge part of her reputation. If you want to put it that way, she's been lucky, although to some extent it's been a case of making her own luck. Which is one reason why I personally think that sending us out here was the right idea, despite any reservations I may feel."
"It was, Sir?" DeLaney looked at him again, and he snorted.
"Molly," he said, and it was his turn to sound patient, "I'm perfectly well aware that you think I've been a bit Cassandra-like about this entire operation. That, however, is known as the determined but sober attitude of a responsible military commander." The chief of staff's blush was considerably darker this time, and he smiled at her. "I'd be more than human—and an idiot, to boot—if I didn't have huge reservations about taking a fleet this size this far away from any of our bases or support structure to attack an officer with Harrington's reputation. Even assuming that we completely defeat her, which I happen to think we will, we're going to take losses and damage, and it's a hell of a long voyage home from here. Having said all of that, the very fact that Harrington enjoys the reputation and stature that she does makes her a sort of military objective in her own right. Defeating her, hopefully decisively, at the same time Thunderbolt is crunching up the Manties' frontier systems, will be a body blow to the Manty public's confidence and willingness to fight. And depriving the Manties of her services if they don't decide to start negotiating with us in good faith wouldn't be anything to sneeze at, either. Although at least this time, if we manage to capture her again, I can damned well guarantee there won't be any trumped up charges or plans for executions!"
DeLaney started to reply,
but the lift car reached its destination before she could, and she stood aside to allow her admiral to precede her into the flag deck passage.
The rest of the staff was waiting, along with Captain Caroline Hughes, Majestic's CO, and Commander Pablo Blanchard, her exec. Second Fleet's task force and squadron commanders attended the meeting electronically, their faces floating in the quadrants of a holo display above the briefing room conference table. DeLaney knew that Tourville would really have preferred to have them aboard Majestic in the flesh for this final meeting, but that hadn't been practical. The fleet was squarely in the heart of a grav wave, bearing down on Sidemore, which made it impossible for any impeller-drive small craft to transport personnel back and forth between its units. For her own part, DeLaney was perfectly satisfied with the electronic substitute for an old-fashioned face-to-face meeting, but her boss was more of a traditionalist in that respect.
Those physically present stood as Tourville entered the compartment, then seated themselves once again after he'd settled into the chair at the head of the table. He tipped that chair back while he slowly and carefully prepared a cigar, stuck it into his mouth, lit it, and produced a cloud of fragrant smoke. He grinned through the fog bank of his own making, like a mischievous little boy, as the overhead air return sucked it away, and DeLaney hid a smile of her own. He was back on stage again, once more the hard-charging complete naval officer, ready, as the old cliché put it, to kick ass and take names.
"All right," he said briskly. "In about five hours, we're going to be dropping in on Sidemore without calling ahead for reservations." Several people chuckled, and his mischievous grin grew fierce. "When we do, there are going to be some people who won't be especially happy to see us. Which is going to be unfortunate . . . for them." A louder chuckle responded, and he nodded at his operations officer. "And now," he said, "Commander Marston is going to answer any last-minute questions you may have about exactly how we're going to make sure that it's unfortunate for them. Jeff?"
"Thank you, Sir," Commander Marston replied, and turned to face both the others present in the briefing room and the camera which connected the compartment to the holographic faces above the conference table. "I know all of you are familiar with our basic operational plan," he began. "Several of you, however, have expressed some concerns, particularly about the points covered in Annex Seventeen, so I thought, with your permission, Admiral, that we might start there."
He glanced at Tourville, who waved his cigar in an airy gesture of approval.
"Very well, then. First, Admiral Zrubek has raised a very interesting point in regard to the proper employment of our long-range recon platforms." He nodded respectfully to the holo quadrant filled by the recently promoted commander of Battle Squadron Twenty-One, which included eight of Second Fleet's twelve SD(P)s. "I've discussed the same point with Captain deCastries and Commander Hindemith," Marston continued, "and we've come to the conclusion that . . ."
Lester Tourville leaned back comfortably in his chair, listening with both ears, and half of his attention, to Marston's brisk, competent exposition. He would have paid more attention to the actual explanation if he'd had less confidence in the ops officer's ability and thoroughness. As it was, he was free to spend his time doing what, as far as he was concerned, was the true purpose of this meeting—taking the pulse of his command team's state of mind.
What he saw pleased him. One or two of them were obviously a bit on the anxious side, but he didn't blame them for that. Indeed, a certain edge of nervousness was probably a good thing, and there were enough others—like Zrubek and DeLaney—whose supreme confidence in the ops plan and, he supposed, in his own leadership, more than offset it. Yet however anxious or however confident any one of them might be, there was no hesitation. These people were as ready as anyone could possibly be for the task before them.
* * *
"Talk to me, Andrea," Honor said briskly but calmly as she arrived on Werewolf's flag bridge. Nimitz rode in her arms, once more in his own, custom-designed skinsuit, and she paused to park him on the back of her command chair. She gave his tufted ears a caress, then turned back to face her operations officer while the 'cat's nimble true-hands fastened the harness straps between his skinsuit and the chair.
"We still don't have positive confirmation, Your Grace," Captain Jaruwalski replied, "but I don't think there's much question. It's the Peeps."
"I tend to agree with Andrea, Your Grace," Mercedes Brigham put in from her own console, "but at the same time, I don't think we should positively rule out the possibility that this could be the Andies, instead." Honor looked at her, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I'm not saying that I believe it's the Andies, Ma'am. But until we know for certain, one way or the other, I think we'd better keep an open mind on the subject."
"That's a valid point," Honor acknowledged. "But whoever it is," she turned to consider the huge holo sphere of the master plot, "they look like they mean business."
"They certainly do that," Brigham agreed, and stood to join Honor beside the plot.
The unknown units were headed in-system on a course which would bring them to a zero-zero intercept with Marsh in just over six hours, assuming that they made turnover in three. And there were quite a few of them. In fact, it looked very much as if her "official" order of battle would have been outnumbered by at least fifty percent.
"We're getting light-speed emissions signatures now, Your Grace," George Reynolds reported. Honor turned towards them, and the intelligence officer looked up to meet her gaze. "They're not Andies," he said quietly. "We don't recognize some of them, but we've positively IDed at least eight Havenite battlecruisers."
Something like a not quite audible sigh seemed to run around the flag bridge, and Honor smiled thinly. She couldn't say she was glad to have her worst fears confirmed, but at least the uncertainty was over. She closed her mind resolutely to speculation about what might have happened closer to home, and nodded as serenely as she could.
"Thank you, George," she said, and glanced at Jaruwalski.
"CIC is trying to break them down by type, Your Grace," the ops officer said. "It's a bit difficult without better intelligence on whatever new types they've been building, especially since, as George just said, we don't recognize some of them at all. At the moment though, it looks as though they've brought along fifty or sixty superdreadnoughts, with twenty or thirty battlecruisers in support."
"Time of response to our sublight challenge, Harper?" Honor asked her com officer.
"If they respond to it immediately, we should be hearing something from them in another four or five minutes, Your Grace," Lieutenant Brantley told her.
"Thank you." Honor frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then returned her attention to Jaruwalski. "Any indications of CLACs?"
"No, Your Grace," the ops officer replied. "Which doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any."
"Your Grace, we're getting IDs on at least some of their superdreadnoughts from the remote platforms," Reynolds put in. "They're confirmed Peeps. We've got nine of them so far. All pre-pod designs ONI has good recorded emissions signatures on."
"That's about twenty percent of their total SDs," Brigham observed.
"True," Jaruwalski agreed. "On the other hand, it still leaves over fifty which could be SD(P)s."
Honor nodded once more, accepting Jaruwalski's caveat, then gave the plot another glance and reached her decision.
"It doesn't look like we're going to get a better chance for Suriago," she said, and looked at the com screen connecting her to Werewolf's command deck. "Get us underway, Rafe."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace," Captain Rafe Cardones replied crisply, and began passing orders.
* * *
"They're not trying to be very stealthy about it, are they, Sir?" Molly DeLaney remarked.
"No, they're not," Tourville agreed. He sat in his command chair, legs crossed, expression calm, while his right hand's fingers drummed very slowly and gently on its armrest. His eyes were
equally calm but intent as he studied the repeater plot deployed from his chair.
The defending Manticoran task force was headed to meet him. The range remained too long for real-time reports from light-speed sensors, but impeller signatures were FTL, and they blazed clear and strong in the plot, confirming what the first wave of recon drones had already reported. Thirty-one Manty superdreadnoughts, eleven dreadnoughts, four LAC carriers, and sixteen battlecruisers, covered by two destroyer flotillas and at least three cruiser squadrons accelerated steadily on almost a direct reciprocal of his own course. A cloud of LACs spread out to cover the axis of their advance and its flanks. It was much more difficult to get a drive count on units that small, but NavInt had reported that somewhere around four hundred and fifty LACs had been permanently based on Sidemore. It looked like Harrington had brought all of them with her, since CIC estimated her main combatants were accompanied by somewhere around eight hundred of them. Taking NavInt's highest figure and combining it with the six CLACs she was supposed to have gave her a maximum LAC strength of right on a thousand. She might have left a couple of hundred of them to cover the inner system against the possibility that the main attack was actually a feint to pull her out of position around Marsh, especially if she believed the Republican Navy still lacked any CLACs of its own.
And she was continuing to transmit her sublight challenges and demands that he identify himself as she came.
DeLaney's comment on Harrington's lack of stealth was a definite understatement, he reflected. And that made him a little nervous. One thing no one had ever accused Honor Harrington of was tactical obviousness. She had demonstrated repeatedly her willingness and ability to use the traditional Manticoran advantage in electronic warfare to deadly effect. Yet in the face of CIC's definite identification of her units, it seemed that this time, at least, she had disdained such tactics. She wasn't hiding or concealing a thing . . . which was the reason for his nervousness. "The Salamander" was at her most dangerous when an opponent was most certain he knew what she had in mind.