“We can’t have just anyone blabbing all over Hamilton about this or that and get away with it. That’s plain dumb,” he said, arms folded across his chest. Oh, that is a winning argument!
“You’re right,” agreed Venn. “We can’t have that. So how do you prevent it completely? There’s a trade-off when you start clamping down on things like that. We could seal off the science and engineering communities from the outside world, but that would make them miserable. When it gets out that you cut off your talent from the rest of society so nothing escapes their lips, few people will want to sign up to work on projects with military connections. Overly-tight security will be self-defeating. You’ll slow development by scaring away the brains you need.”
“I’m not looking to put anyone in a prison!” Howell snapped.
“A prison would keep them from talking,” said Chandler. “There you have it. The problem is not solvable with threats of punishment. Not entirely. The citizens of Halifax have to be animated by something in addition to fear. They have to know not to do something. Clearly, a few have failed, but most haven’t. I think they understand what is at stake.”
“So you think that problem isn’t as bad as I think it is?”
“My guess is that three or four may have let slip something, but not many more. No way to tell, of course.”
A soft chirp announced the imminent arrival of a holographic presence. Materializing beside them was Admiral More. Howell noticed how tired he looked. The strain of carrying on a naval guerilla war with little support from the wider RHN was taking its toll. Not that Howell had any illusions that he looked any better than his cousin. He was certain that a lack of sleep and a too-heavy workload had harmed his own dashing good looks.
"What are you laughing about?" inquired More.
"Oh, nothing," Howell said quickly. "I'm not playing hooky, you know. I'm off-duty."
"I figured. I had begun to wonder why it was so quiet on the Albacore. No chief engineer to belly-ache about the stress I'm putting on the reactor and DP drive."
"I almost wish I was back on the Cordelia."
"That's saying something," replied More. "On to business. I need Lieutenant Chandler on Albacore as soon as possible. Come to think of it, it might be useful to have you around too, Julius."
"You're planning something. I know that look. It makes me uncomfortable."
"Maybe. We will discuss this in person. More out."
More's holo blinked to nothingness, leaving the three alone again.
Chandler smiled. "Best to get going soon. Are you going to finish your pie?"
*****
Howell found himself around a tactical board inside the Combat Information Center on Albacore within the hour. Flanking him were Admiral More and Captain Ariana Kim. Captain Matt Heyward of the Steadfast, Captain Tommasina Carey of the Kestrel, and Captain Inigo Yao of the Kongo stood on the other side of the table. With him also were Chandler and his intelligence counterparts from the other ships. He recognized Lieutenants Harlan Tsai of the Kestrel and Birgit Mucci of the Kongo, but the young ensign from the Albacore was new to him. It was unusual to have such a junior officer handling such duties. Apparently she also oversaw Albacore’s bridge comms. The RHN must be very short-staffed.
“We’ve had a good run in Aquitaine, destroying thirty-four enemy transport vessels in thirty-one days,” More began. “A rate of destruction of one ship per day is excellent, phenomenal even, and we’ve exceeded that. We could have done better, but because we’ve had to be careful not to linger too long in any one place, so that we don’t get caught by the DN’s hunter-killer groups, we’ve never been able to knock off as many ships as we might.”
“Too often we’ve had to jump away before we can finish the job properly,” complained Carey. “If we spend more than five minutes pursuing enemy ships, the DN will have received word by then and displace to our location.”
“It’s been a constraint on us, to be sure,” More said. “We’ve been doing very well anyway, but the situation looks like it is about to change. There’s a strike fleet forming above Pessac. This is a grouping distinct from the ships that are conducting the blockade of the world. We believe that they are planning an attack.”
“How certain are you?” asked Carey.
More nodded to the Albacore’s intelligence officer. “Ensign Hu? Why don’t you explain?”
Hu cleared her throat. “Thank you, admiral.” The ensign summoned a ledger of Ajaxian comms traffic with a brisk wave. It hovered above the table, shining in bright greens and ambers. “When enemy cargo ships are in transit to Pessac, they put out calls for protection as soon as we arrive. After we hit them and have displaced out, our leave-behind observer drones would report the arrival of displacing DN warships, usually within ten minutes of the dispatch of those messages. Lately, their calls are not being answered at all. The drones have not reported any displacements of Ajaxian vessels after we’re gone. At the same time, the Pessac fleet’s signals traffic has become much more intense, and the number of warships observed there has similarly increased. It stands to reason that the hunter-killer groups are being held back. This could have had a number of causes. For example, a month of high intensity operations, coupled with the losses that the DN suffered at the inception of the Aquitaine campaign, could have compelled the enemy to take a breather for maintenance and repairs. The 34th itself is overdue for such maintenance. Our own drives have been pushed to the limit because of all the shortjumping we’ve had to do.”
“Tell me about it,” Howell said with an exasperated sigh. He suddenly felt all eyes on him, and he flushed, feeling very much like the civilian that he really was. “Oh, I, uh, hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Sorry.”
More rolled his eyes. “Let’s avoid editorializing. Please continue, Ensign Hu.”
“There’s a more likely alternative,” she said. “We’ve been able to obtain quality intel about the ships in the vicinity of Pessac via our own assets and the images taken by the blockade runners bringing supplies to sustain the Aquitainian surface forces. One band of enemy ships has been collecting above the northern pole of Pessac, but taking no part in the operations there. Almost all of these vessels were once components of the H-K task groups that the DN had set to chasing us. ”
“A period of rest and refit while they reconsider their strategy?” suggested Heyward. “I’m surprised it has taken them this long to revise their tactics.”
“They haven’t bothered to convoy their ships,” added Yao. “That would be an elementary move.”
“Their failure to institute a convoy probably has psychological origins,” Chandler said. “From what we know of the mindset of the typical DN officer, a bellicose posture is preferred in almost all circumstances. Convoy protection is the opposite of that.”
“They’re just not interested in convoy duty?” asked Yao.
“Most likely, captain,” Chandler said.
“That is also my conclusion,” added Hu. “The assembly of the H-K group over Pessac must represent an alteration of some kind to DN strategy. Not for the purpose of convoy protection, however. That isn’t their way. I believe that those ships will conduct an attack on Arles within the next five days. The DN is aware that it’s our primary base in the system, and that taking it off the board would force us to retreat to more distant planets. That would relieve much of the pressure we’re putting on them at Pessac, if not remove it altogether.”
“Might it be headed elsewhere,” asked Heyward.
“That is possible, but not probable,” More said. “There isn’t any higher-value target in Aquitaine for them.” He summoned a holographic image of the outer-system orbital. “It’s been a long time in coming.”
“They’ve had their hands full with Pessac and in searching for us,” Carey said. “They didn’t expect the fight they’ve got on their hands on that planet.”
“I think they’ve been pulling their punches there,” answered More. “They are more than willing to c
ommit mass murder, but the resources available in Aquitaine, especially on Pessac, are such that they are trying to win the system with a minimal amount of collateral damage.”
“They were going to kill everyone on Arles with those neutron emitters,” reminded Carey.
“They aren’t humanitarians,” More replied, calling up a list of natural resources found in the system. “They wanted the reactors and didn’t need the people on the orbital. But see here? Pessac is a granary, and the Ajaxians will need people to do their farming for them. They can’t ruin the planet. So they are fighting a conventional war on the surface.”
“Only because they value agricultural produce more than the people,” Heyward scoffed. “So typically Ajaxian.”
“That’s right,” agreed More. “The Ajaxians want the system back, and on some level, they think it's theirs, snatched away by us when we helped the Aquitainians win their freedom. They don’t want to lay waste to it the way they did Corinth Station or Leiden. They need agricultural laborers, so they’re willing to spare some civilians, for now. This hesitation has given us the opportunity to tie down DN forces in space, but we could never expect their delay to be unlimited. Their strategists have likely surmised that there’s no great relieving fleet on the way to lift the siege, and that the 34th is merely fighting a holding action here while the RHN’s attention is elsewhere, fighting the Armada of Tartarus.”
“We don’t have enough on hand to do more than harry them,” mourned Heyward. “With another squadron, we could shut down in-system traffic to Pessac completely.”
“I’ve put in a request for reinforcements,” More said. “Another two Garnets like Albacore. I haven’t heard back.” There was a depth of disappointment in his cousin’s voice that Howell had never detected before. He was more troubled by this than he let on.
Yao frowned. “What do you think will be the Admiralty’s answer?”
“I’m not optimistic. The Armada is putting up a stiff fight in a half-dozen systems, including Memnon. There are Tartarean-backed insurrections in Dora and Praha, too, which require an RHN presence. The Gulf front has also seen a strong increase in raiding activity.”
“Stirred up by the Sphinx, no doubt,” Carey said.
“No doubt,” More agreed. “We’d be able to deal with any one of these threats separately, but taken together, we are struggling to hold our own.”
“The loss of Galicia Base hurt us worse than High Command cares to admit,” said Heyward.
There was a pregnant pause. Left unspoken, Howell, and the captains at the table all understood, was that the attack on Tartarus’s Victory Base had done much to restore the naval balance in the Great Sphere, and yet they dared not take collective credit for the strike since it had landed them and their commanding officer in such hot water. Howell was glad they had done it, even if the whole episode had scared him so. He shuddered to think what the war might be like if the RHN had to face off against an intact Armada.
“There are a hundred thousand civilians on Arles,” Chandler noted. “They’ve already tried to kill everyone on it. If the Ajaxians are looking to eliminate the orbital, they won’t hesitate to try to kill everyone again.”
“We’ve already set in motion an evacuation plan,” said Kim. “Most of the civilians have already left the station, but many remain. A flotilla of civilian vessels is shuttling the population to the outer worlds under Aquitainian control. This will be completed over the next one hundred-forty-four hours.”
“Six days? Why so long?” queried Heyward.
“We’ve had a logistical snafu,” More answered. “We were looking to have it completed in ninety-six, but there aren’t enough ships around to move them off that fast. So that’s the timetable we’re working with.”
“If and when the evac is completed, the station will be empty. Will we stay to defend it?” asked Carey.
“We won’t. We’ll be protecting the civilians. When they are gone, we leave Arles Station too,” said More.
“There won’t be much to stop them from striking at the outer system worlds next. We can’t defend them all,” Heyward pointed out.
“No, but the Aquitainians have better defenses further out. Arles has always been something of an outer-system backwater, and was never gifted with substantial defenses. The outer planets, on the other hand, with our support, can more ably fend for themselves.”
“And?” Carey tilted her head to one side. “You have that look you get when you’ve got an op in mind.”
More summoned a recon holo snapped of the DN strike fleet above the northern pole of Pessac. “We hit the DN fleet before it hits Arles.”
“Hmm,” Carey said, studying the holo. “To think that I’ve been called belligerent. There’s over a hundred DN ships in orbit around it, including a battleship. We have four ships, the largest being a heavy cruiser. That’s a terrible mismatch.”
“Yes, it is,” More allowed. The admiral turned to Hu. “Please continue with your briefing.”
“The polar fleet is growing larger by the day. We estimate that it will eventually total thirty-plus vessels. Waiting for the DN to launch its attack will grant the enemy the opportunity to gather its full strength for it.”
“This will not be much more than a spoiling attack,” Carey observed. “We dare not fight for more than a few minutes or else we’ll be grist milled by retaliatory fire.”
“We will not be there for long,” More said. “We do enough damage to set them back by a week, or more, if we are lucky. We’ll purchase Arles more time to finish its evac.”
Heyward folded his arms. “Eventually the Ajaxians will recover, and we will have to face down the DN when it finally moves, either against Arles or a more distant world.”
More exhaled unhappily, glancing quickly at Ensign Hu, then back to Heyward. “There’s no endgame in Aquitaine. We are just keeping the enemy off-balance.”
“Then we are only delaying the inevitable,” said Carey, exasperated. “This is a bare-bones war, and we don’t have sufficient resources to do enough except to lose it over the long term.”
“We can’t not fight this,” countered Kim. “If we don’t fight the DN here it will be around Aramis next time.”
More was somber. “My orders are to conduct operations in Aquitaine until I can’t anymore.”
Again, Howell was taken aback by how depressed his cousin looked.
“The people of Aquitaine face a bleak future unless we can alter the balance of power in the system. That won’t be happening for some time, if ever,” Heyward said.
“We’re playing for time,” said More. “The longer it takes for Ajax to conquer this system, and digest it, the more costly we make it for them, the longer it will be before it can move against another. We fight in Aquitaine so that we don’t have to deal with attacks on Republican systems. What we are doing here is part of a larger war effort.”
Howell could find little that could be said against that. It was only natural for naval officers to focus on their own operational areas, and seek to achieve victory in them. Sometimes, however, the necessary resources could not be committed, and their job was to tie down as many enemy forces as possible so that they could not be used elsewhere. Still, a sideshow, as such theaters of lesser importance were often called, had its share of death and destruction, and the knowledge that one’s sacrifices were being made less for the direct, tangible benefits to be had than for the purpose of securing victory elsewhere rankled. The captains around the holotable had taken part in one of the most daring military operations in centuries and succeeded. Now they had been tasked with harrying a second-rate navy in a campaign they were bound to lose eventually.
Carey held her arms folded, her skeptical posture mirroring that of Heyward. “I suppose you have some sort of brilliant gambit that will accomplish this. Does it involve getting us all killed?”
“Probably not,” grinned More. “But give me some more time and I will see what I can do.” He swiped upward, floating a w
orld of blue and green above the table. “We’ve got to go about this a little differently. . .”
*****
Captain Kedge Falk watched his monitor with growing anxiety. He had marshaled his own ship, the Inerrant Courier, a munitions transport, alongside three other freighters. It had taken longer than he’d planned. Though the four ships had jumped from Ajax to Aquitaine together, their displacements were less accurate than any of their captains had hoped, and three hours had elapsed before they could discover each other and rendezvous. He’d alerted DN forces in the system to their arrival, and asked for protection. The request had not been denied. It had been ignored.
Falk was making his fourth jump into Aquitaine. He’d gotten lucky so far. He’d never run into any RHN ships as so many others of his kind had, and that was the cause of his mounting disquiet. His luck was bound to run out. It was statistically inevitable that, if he ran the gauntlet to Pessac, eventually he’d be hit by some RHN marauder. That he was on a ship filled with enough explosive material to level a city did nothing to alleviate his distress.
The other freighters were carrying less volatile cargoes. The Noble Barque was bringing food, in the form of nine million individual rations, to the Imperial troops on the planet. Obedient Helot held mostly medical supplies, while the Dutiful Servant carried a mixture of items, mostly spare parts for the myriad ships and vehicles that the Domain’s armed forces were operating in Aquitaine. If they were hit, the crews would most probably be able to get off in escape pods.
Not so for either him or his men on the Inerrant Courier. Whether it was the cryogenic hydrogen tanks, the hundreds of thousands of artillery shells filled with heat and pressure sensitive warheads, or the hydrogen-fluorine canisters he wished he’d never been commanded to carry, his ship was a pile of dessicated tinder waiting for a match.
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