At All Costs

by David Weber

  "Forgive me, Madam President, but that's not exactly the same thing as saying you didn't authorize it."

  "No, it isn't, is it?" Pritchart smiled. "I'd forgotten for a moment that you're used to moving at the highest level of politics in the Star Kingdom. You have a politician's ear, even if you are 'only a naval officer.' However, I'll be clearer. Neither I, nor anyone else in my administration, ordered or authorized an attempt to assassinate Duchess Harrington."

  It was Henke's eyes' turn to narrow. As Pritchart said, she was accustomed to dealing with Manticoran politicians, if not politics per se. In her time, she'd met some extraordinarily adroit and polished liars. But if Eloise Pritchart was another of them, it didn't show.

  "That's an interesting statement, Madam President. Unfortunately, with all due respect, I have no way to know it's accurate. And even if you think it is, that doesn't necessarily mean some rogue element in your administration didn't order it."

  "I'm not surprised you feel that way, and we here in the Republic have certainly had more than enough experience with operations mounted by 'rogue elements.' I can only say I believe very strongly that the statement I just made is accurate. And I'll also say I've replaced both my external and internal security chiefs with men I've known for years, and in whom I have the greatest personal confidence. If any rogue operation was mounted against Duchess Harrington, it was mounted without their knowledge or approval. Of that much, I'm absolutely positive."

  "And who else would you suggest might have a motive for wanting her dead? Or the resources to try to kill her in that particular fashion?"

  "We don't have many specific details about how the attempt was made," Pritchart countered. "From what we have seen, however, speculation seems to be centering on the possibility that her young officer-a Lieutenant Mears, I believe-was somehow adjusted to make the attempt on her life. If that's the case, we don't have the resources to have done it. Certainly not in the time window which appears to have been available to whoever carried out the adjustment. Assuming that's what it was, of course."

  "I hope you'll forgive me, Madam President, if I reserve judgment in this case," Henke said after a moment. "You're very convincing. On the other hand, like me, you operate at the highest level of politics, and politicians at that level have to be convincing. I will, however, take what you've said under advisement. Should I assume you're telling me this in hopes I'll pass your message along to Queen Elizabeth?"

  "From what I've heard of your cousin, Admiral Henke," Pritchart said wryly, "I doubt very much that she'd believe any statement of mine, including a declaration that water is wet."

  "I see you've got a fairly accurate profile of Her Majesty," Henke observed. "Although that's probably actually something of an understatement," she added.

  "I know. Nonetheless, if you get the opportunity, I wish you'd tell her that for me. You may not believe this, Admiral, but I didn't really want this war, either. Oh," Pritchart went on quickly as Henke began to open her mouth, "I'll freely admit I fired the first shot. And I'll also admit that given what I knew then, I'd do the same thing again. That's not the same thing as wanting to do it, and I deeply regret all the men and women who have been killed or, like yourself, wounded. I can't undo that. But I would like to think it's possible for us to find an end to the fighting short of one of us killing everyone on the other side."

  "So would I," Henke said levelly. "Unfortunately, whatever happened to our diplomatic correspondence, you did fire the first shot. Elizabeth isn't the only Manticoran or Grayson-or Andermani-who's going to find that difficult to forget or overlook."

  "And are you one of them, Admiral?"

  "Yes, Madam President, I am," Henke said quietly.

  "I see. And I appreciate your honesty. Still, it does rather underscore the nature of our quandary, doesn't it?"

  "I suppose it does."

  Silence fell in the sunlit hospital room. Oddly enough, it was an almost companionable silence, Henke discovered. After perhaps three minutes, Pritchart straightened up, inhaled crisply, and stood.

  "I'll let you get back to the business of healing, Admiral. The doctors assure me you're doing well. They anticipate a full recovery, and they tell me you can be discharged from the hospital in another week or so."

  "At which point it's off to the stalag?" Henke said with a smile. She waved one hand at the unbarred windows of the hospital room. "I can't say I'm looking forward to the change of view."

  "I think we can probably do better than a miserable hut behind a tangle of razor wire, Admiral." There was actually a twinkle in Pritchart's topaz eyes. "Tom Theismann has strong views on the proper treatment of prisoners of war-as Duchess Harrington may remember from the day they met in Yeltsin. I assure you that all our POWs are being properly provided for. Not only that, I'm hoping it may be possible to set up regular prisoner of war exchanges, perhaps on some sort of parole basis."

  "Really?" Henke was surprised, and she knew it showed in her voice.

  "Really." Pritchart smiled again, this time a bit sadly. "Whatever else, Admiral, and however hardly your Queen may be thinking about us just now, we really aren't Rob Pierre or Oscar Saint-Just. We have our faults, don't get me wrong. But I'd like to think one of them isn't an ability to forget that even enemies are human beings. Good day, Admiral Henke."

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The pinnace drifted slowly down the length of the spindle-shaped mountain of alloy. Honor, Nimitz, Andrew LaFollet, Spencer Hawke, Rafael Cardones, and Frances Hirshfield sat gazing out the armorplast viewport as the small craft reached the superdreadnought's after hammerhead and braked to a complete halt, like a tadpole beside a slumbering whale.

  Hard-suited construction workers, robotic repair units, and an ungainly webwork of girders and work platforms, all arranged with microgravity's grand contempt for the concept of "up and down," clustered about the ship as she floated against the stars. Powerful work lamps illuminated the frenetic activity of the repair crews and their robotic minions, and Honor frowned thoughtfully as she watched the bustling energy.

  "Looks pretty terrible, doesn't it, Your Grace?" Cardones said, and she shrugged.

  "I've seen lots worse. Remember the old Fearless after Basilisk?"

  "Or the second one after Yeltsin," Cardones agreed. "But it's still like seeing your kid in the emergency room." He shook his head. "I hate seeing her in this shape."

  "She looks a lot better than she did, Skipper," Hirshfield pointed out.

  "Yes, she does," Cardones acknowledged, glancing at his executive officer. "On the other hand, there was a lot of room for improvement."

  "The important thing is that the yard dogs say you can have her back in another six days," Honor said, turning away from the viewport to look at him, "and that's good. Captain Samsonov's been perfectly satisfactory, but I want my flag captain back."

  "I'm flattered, Your Grace. But even after I get her back, we're going to need some pretty serious exercises to blast the rust off."

  "Oh, I've been keeping an eye on you, Rafe," Honor said with a smile. "You and Commander Hirshfield here have kept your people hopping in the simulators the entire time the ship's been down. I'm sure you will need a few days, at least, but I doubt you've let too much rust accumulate."

  "We've tried not to," Cardones admitted. "And it's helped that we didn't have to completely shut down. Just being able to keep our people on board helped, and we've been able to drill regularly with the forward weapons mounts, at least."

  "I know. I wish I'd been able to stay, myself. Unfortunately-"

  Honor shrugged, and Cardones nodded in understanding. Honor could, theoretically, have remained on board Imperator, since the repair techs had been working primarily on exterior sections of the hull and, as Cardones had said, the rest of her crew had never had to leave her. Unfortunately, Imperator had been thoroughly immobilized, and if any emergency had turned up, Honor would have required a flagship capable of moving and fighting.

  "Still," she w
ent on, "I'm looking forward to moving back aboard. Mac is looking forward to it, too." She grinned. "Actually, he's got at least half my stuff already packed up!"

  "We're ready whenever you are, Ma'am," Cardones told her.

  "Unless the yard dogs manage to break something new, I think I'll make the move in about four days," Honor said. "I'll start then, anyway. It's going to take at least a couple of days for Mac to get everything moved and settled back into place, and I need to make another run to Admiralty House this week, anyway. I think I can schedule it to overlap with the move and let Mac get everything arranged while I'm on Manticore."

  "That sounds fine to me, Your Grace," Cardones said, and Hirshfield-who, as Imperator's XO, was actually in charge of all such housekeeping details-nodded in agreement.

  "Good," Honor turned away from the viewport. "In that case, let's get back over to Yeltsin. We'll just about have time for lunch before the staff meeting if we hurry."

  * * *

  "We're calling the new operation 'Sanskrit,'" Andrea Jaruwalski told the assembled admirals, commodores, and captains in HMS Second Yeltsin's flag briefing room. "'Cutworm,' unfortunately, got leaked to the newsies, and it's been bandied about quite a bit over the last several weeks. Besides, we're going to be adopting an entirely new operational approach, so a new designation makes sense from a lot of perspectives."

  She looked around the big compartment, and Honor reached up to gently rub Nimitz's ears while she listened. The next best thing to eight weeks had passed since Task Force 82 limped back into Trevor's Star, and as she'd feared, Eighth Fleet's reinforcement had taken a heavy hit in the wake of the Zanzibar disaster. Despite the fact that there was nothing left, really, to defend in the Zanzibar System, it had been politically impossible to refuse to station a powerful defensive force to keep an eye on the ruins. And Alizon, in particular, had been vociferous about the need to bolster its defenses. It was fortunate that over forty Andermani superdreadnoughts had finally completed their refits to handle Manticoran missile pods and reported for duty. But even with that reinforcement, finding the sheer number of hulls required had been extraordinarily difficult.

  Now, though, things were beginning to look up. An entire division of Invictuses had arrived just yesterday, and two more superdreadnought divisions, all pod types, were anticipated before the end of the week. If things stayed on schedule, Eighth Fleet would have three entire squadrons of SD(P)s-eighteen ships-on its order of battle within the next two weeks. Additional battlecruisers, including the next five Agamemnons, had also come in, and Admiralty House was promising her three more Saganami-Cs, as well. And while all that had been going on, Alice Truman and Samuel Mikl¢s had been reorganizing their carriers' LAC wings, incorporating twice as many Katanas into their orders of battle.

  "This, of course," Jaruwalski continued, "is only a preliminary meeting. Her Grace wants us to be sure we're all thinking in the same direction. At the moment, we're planning on an execute date nineteen days from today. The preliminary operations plan, based on our anticipated units, will be drafted over the next ten days. At the end of that time, we'll conduct a dress rehearsal in the simulators. Any problems that come up will be discussed, and we'll draft a revised ops plan over the next three or four days. At that time we should know definitely what our unit availability will be, and we'll make any adjustments necessary. We'll run the revised plan through the simulator at X minus three days."

  One or two of the people sitting at the table looked less than delighted at the timetable's tightness. In fact, Honor sensed several spikes of emotion which verged on consternation, and she couldn't blame the officers who were feeling them.

  She looked up at Jaruwalski and made a tiny gesture with her right hand. The operations officer immediately turned to face her, and every other eye followed hers as if by magnetic attraction.

  "I realize we're cutting things tight, people," Honor said, when she was sure she had everyone's attention. "That's particularly true for the new ships just joining us. And for those of you who've been with us from the beginning, it seems even more rushed, I'm sure, after our relative inactivity over the last couple of months.

  "The problem is that we don't have a lot more time. Intelligence reports indicate the Havenites have been doing a lot of the same things we've been doing. They've been analyzing and considering what happened at Solon and Zanzibar, and they've also been adding new construction to their fleets. Those same reports strongly suggest they're getting ready to uncork a new offensive of their own. It's imperative that we get our punch in first and force them to worry about their rear areas again. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to do any definitive planning of our own because we simply haven't known what we'd have available at the time. And, frankly, because the operational change Commander Jaruwalski has already referred to required a substantial reinforcement of our wall of battle.

  "The ships we need are finally becoming available, and the instant I have sufficient hulls to launch Sanskrit, it goes. I want that clearly understoodt. This operation must proceed as expeditiously as possible. ONI's latest estimate gives the Havenites over five hundred SD(P)s; the Alliance at this moment has less than three hundred. It's quite possible," her brown eyes were very level, "that the fate of the Star Kingdom may depend on our ability to make the Havenites anxious enough about their rear areas to divert heavy forces to protect them."

  The compartment was very quiet, but Honor felt a sense of satisfaction as she tasted her subordinates' emotions. Concern still colored several individual mind-glows, but determination predominated, and she nodded.

  "Andrea?" she said.

  "Thank you, Your Grace."

  Jaruwalski also surveyed the officers around the huge conference table, then keyed a holographic star map. It appeared above the conference table, and she tapped keys on her control pad, dropping a cursor into the map. It singled out a star, and Honor felt a fresh stir of surprise.

  "Lovat, Ladies and Gentlemen," Jaruwalski said. "The system Admiral White Haven would have taken if High Ridge hadn't swallowed Saint-Just's bait hook, line, and sinker. We're going back there."

  * * *

  "You're confident you can do it with just three battle squadrons?" Admiral Caparelli asked.

  "As confident as I can be," Honor replied, a bit more calmly than she actually felt.

  She sat in a conference room deep inside Admiralty House, at a conference table surrounded by comfortable chairs, most of them empty at the moment. Honor herself was flanked by Mercedes Brigham on her right and Andrea Jaruwalski on her left. Nimitz lay stretched across the back of her chair, and Andrew LaFollet stood directly behind her.

  Caparelli faced her across the table, flanked by Captain Dryslar, his chief of staff, and Patricia Givens. Admiral of the Green Sonja Hemphill was also present, along with Commander ColemanHennessy, her chief of staff, but Hamish Alexander-Harrington was conspicuously absent. Technically, this was a matter for his uniformed subordinates, and he'd been extraordinarily careful ever since becoming First Lord to avoid stepping on those subordinates' toes, but under other circumstances he might have attended, anyway.

  "This isn't going to be like Cutworm," Honor continued. "We're going to do to Lovat what Tourville did to Zanzibar. We're going to strike directly at one of the nodes they strengthened heavily post-Buttercup, and we're going to do it in a way which makes a declaration. Were going to tell them that they really, really don't want to screw around with us."

  "That sounds like a very good idea, Your Grace," Admiral Givens said. "My only concern is how badly you may get hurt in the process of attempting to pull it off."

  "We're not going to 'attempt' anything, Pat," Honor said flatly. "We're going to do it."

  "Run through it for us again, please," Caparelli requested.

  "A lot of our planning revolves around Admiral Hemphill's newest toys," Honor said, nodding respectfully to the BuWeaps CO. "The rest is predicated on three basic assumptions. First, that the Havenites are likely to
believe our scouting destroyers are simply more of the misdirection we've been using to cover up our inability to mount actual operations. The second is that they know we've been forced to divert large numbers of wallers to thicken the defenses of Alizon, Zanzibar, and our other minor allies. And the third is that we established an operational pattern in Cutworm of operating in relatively light strength against relatively lightly defended star systems, and that they'll expect to us to continue it.

  "Obviously, we can't absolutely rely on any of those premises, but we believe they should all hold true. In particular, although they've got to be concerned about the security of Lovat, we've consistently shied away from hitting targets that hard. That ought to generate at least some sense of false security, no matter how good they are.

  "We know from our operations over the last sixty days that they've been reacting vigorously to our scouting operations. It's pretty obvious they've been trying to identify the systems we're likely to hit and stationing forces in hyper to cover them.