Storm from the Shadows-OOPSIE

by David Weber

  "Mr. President, frankness is unlikely ever to offend me. And I entirely understand your feelings. However, I believe I can explain why what happened to Monica most definitely will not be happening to New Tuscany."

  "Speaking for myself, as Minister of War, and, I'm sure, for all of us, I would be fascinated to hear that explanation," Nicholas Pélisard said, and his tone was even drier than Cardot's had been.

  "The most important single difference between what we're envisioning this time around and the Monican operation is that we've decided our biggest mistake in Monica was attempting to maintain too great a degree of deniability. We stayed too far out of the loop—and relied too heavily on Monica to 'front' for us—when we arranged to supply President Tyler with the battlecruisers he required for his part of the operation."

  "Which was?" Dusserre inquired mildly, and she looked at him. "We've heard several possible explanations. I was simply wondering which one—if any of them—was accurate?" the security minister added mildly, and he smiled.

  It was cynical, that smile, but behind it she saw something else. Something not even his years of calculation and power could hide. Dusserre was a player, someone who gravitated as naturally to power—and to his own position as New Tuscany's chief policeman—as a moth gravitated towards an open flame, yet she wondered if he was truly aware of the fear she saw behind that smile. The sense that the entire power structure of his homeworld was sliding inexorably towards collapse. . . .

  Albrecht and Isabel were right, Anisimovna thought. These people are desperate enough to save their little house of cards to be nicely receptive. What was it that Old Earth king said? Something about 'After me, the flood'? Well, these people already feel the water lapping around their ankles, don't they? That's good.

  "The objective," she said aloud, looking him straight in the eye, "was for Tyler to secure control of the Lynx Terminus of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. Commissioner Verrochio, of the Office of Frontier Security, was prepared to support his actions—completely impartially, of course—while the League arranged for a new plebiscite, under OFS supervision, to determine the validity of the original plebiscite returns in favor of seeking annexation by Manticore. I'm afraid the Commissioner anticipated discovering widespread fraud in the Manticoran plebiscite." She shook her head sadly. "If that had turned out to be the case, then obviously Frontier Security would have had no choice but to set those flawed results aside in favor of the results of its own plebiscite. Which would undoubtedly have led to the endorsement of a Cluster-wide government under the leadership and protection of the Monican Navy and recognized by the Solarian League as the legitimate government of the Cluster."

  She had the satisfaction of seeing even Dusserre's eyes widen slightly as she admitted the breadth and scope of the original plan. She'd thought it was an audacious but workable plan herself, when she sold it to Roberto Tyler in the first place. Of course, she hadn't realized then what the Alignment's real objective was. And she had absolutely no intention of explaining that real objective to these people, either.

  "I don't think New Tuscany would have liked that very much, Ms. Anisimovna," Honorine Huppé said after a moment, and Anisimovna chuckled.

  "I don't imagine you would have, Madam Minister. Of course, that wasn't exactly foremost in our thinking when we formulated the plan. And, for that matter, New Tuscany's unhappiness would all have been a matter of perspective, wouldn't it?" She smiled winsomely as several of the New Tuscans bridled. "After all, the perspective is always different, depending upon who's on the bottom and who's on the top."

  Boutin had been about to say something. Now the president paused, his expression arrested, and closed his mouth slowly.

  "Are we to understand, Ms. Anisimovna," Cardot asked just a bit caustically, "that you now propose to take us to the mountaintop and show us the same vista you offered to President Tyler?"

  "In general terms, yes," Anisimovna told the foreign minister calmly. "Except for a couple of minor changes."

  "What sort of 'minor changes'?" Vézien asked.

  "Instead of striking directly for the Lynx Terminus and using its disputed possession—plus, of course, the brutal repression of patriotic resistance groups spontaneously arising in reaction to the corrupt plebiscite—as the opening wedge for inviting Frontier Security to intervene to prevent additional bloodshed, we intend to demonstrate Manticoran vengefulness and arrogant imperialism to the galaxy at large," Anisimovna replied. "In particular, we're well aware of the fashion in which Baroness Medusa and Prime Minister Alquezar are already attempting to freeze New Tuscany out of the Cluster's new economic order. Alas, we have reason to believe this is only the first step in Manticore's attempt to punish New Tuscany for its principled stand against that bogus Constitutional Convention from which you withdrew your delegates. Worse, we feel confident, is still to come."

  "What sort of 'worse'?" Huppé asked, her dark eyes narrow.

  "Harassment of your shipping, violations of your territory, that sort of thing," Anisimovna replied with a sigh. "Indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that they've already been harassing your merchant shipping, trying to squeeze you out of the Cluster's markets."

  "And assuming we could provide you with documentation of such harassment, just what would you do with it?" Pélisard asked.

  "Why, we wouldn't do anything with it." Anisimovna widened her eyes innocently. "I'm sure, however, that if you were to draw these weighty matters to the attention of Commissioner Verrochio, he would feel constrained to take them most seriously. Especially after the fashion in which Manticore brutally assaulted the Union of Monica in time of peace. Under the circumstances, I feel positive that he would dispatch a significant force here to New Tuscany to fully investigate matters. And, should it transpire that your allegations of harassment are justified, that same significant force would be under orders to protect you from further infringements of your territoriality."

  "Forgive me for pointing this out," Pélisard said, "but the naval resources Commissioner Veroochio personally controls are quite limited. I'm afraid a handful of destroyers, or even a cruiser division or two, would scarcely constitute a significant deterrent to the Manticoran Navy."

  "No, they wouldn't," Anisimovna agreed. "However, a full squadron or two of Frontier Fleet battlecruisers would, I suspect."

  "A squadron or two?" Pélisard blinked.

  "Or even three," she said calmly. "I just happen to know that a Frontier Fleet task force has been dispatched to the Madras Sector to reinforce Commissioner Verrochio's OFS naval detachment. It's under the command of an Admiral Byng, I understand. And it just happens I have a small file on him with me." She extracted a data chip folio from her slender purse and laid it on the corner of Boutin's desk. "It's fascinating viewing, actually. Or I think so, at least. Admiral Byng would appear to be the sort of League officer who recognizes Manticoran arrogance and imperialism for what they are. The sort of officer who would be naturally disposed to at least listen to the complaints of some single-system star nation which finds itself being bullied and harassed by the 'Star Kingdom.' If Commissioner Verrochio—or, for that matter, your own government—were to request him to send a detachment here to New Tuscany to investigate matters personally, I feel confident he would agree."

  "And if it happened when he did that there was a . . . confrontation between him and the Manties . . . ." Pélisard's voice trailed off, and Anisimovna nodded.

  "Of course, by far the most likely outcome would be for the Manticorans to back down," she said. "They may have been willing enough to take on Solarian battlecruisers in Monican hands—after all, the Monican Navy had neither the experience to make full use of them nor the industrial power to replace them if they were damaged or destroyed—but I suspect they'd be far more leery of facing battlecruisers crewed by the Solarian Navy. And if they were foolish enough to do anything of the sort, I'm sure the SLN would make short work of them."

  Pélisard looked less than confident o
f that last sentence's accuracy. On the other hand, Anisimovna thought, he had to be aware of the enormous imbalance between the Solarian League's resources and those of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Ultimately, no other star nation had the wherewithal to resist the juggernaut might of the League. Which meant . . . .

  She could almost see the gears turning inside his head as he worked his way through the implications of what she'd just said. She could tell the exact moment when he reached the end of the process, because his eyes narrowed suddenly and he looked at her very intently.

  "In some ways, it would almost be a pity if they did back down, wouldn't it?" he observed slowly.

  "Well, it would mean the situation would remain . . . unresolved," Anisimovna agreed. "It's sometimes necessary to lance a boil to drain its poisons. It's seldom a pleasant experience, but that doesn't make it any less necessary in the long run. So, yes, it would be . . . suboptimal."

  "But if their local commander chose to be imprudent," Pélisard said even more slowly, "and if there happened to be some sort of shooting incident, then this Admiral Byng you've mentioned would almost be forced to take steps."

  "Not just a minute, Nicholas!" Dusserre said sharply. "'Shooting incidents' are all very well, I suppose. But I'm not at all happy about the thought of having one of them right here in New Tuscany!"

  "I don't blame you a bit, Mr. Dusserre," Anisimovna said calmly. "I wouldn't much care for the thought of having something like that happen in my star system, either. As I say, though, it would be unlikely for anything of the sort to happen if Admiral Byng were present in strength. I'm thinking—as I'm sure Mr. Pélisard was—more of an incident which occurs somewhere else. One that could be . . . suitably tweaked, shall we say, to demonstrate the ruthlessness and viciousness of the Manticorans. Say, one of your warships, badly damaged or even destroyed by an unprovoked Manty attack. The trick would be to time the incident properly. Ideally, we'd have Admiral Byng already in the vicinity when we complain about this atrocity to Commissioner Verrochio."

  "At which point he would presumably move that detachment you referred to to New Tuscany immediately," Pélisard said. "With orders not to allow any further Manticoran aggression. In fact, he'd probably sail straight to Spindle to demand an explanation, wouldn't he?"

  "Oh, I feel confident he would." Anisimovna smiled. "And I imagine the odds of an unfortunate confrontation between him and the Manties would be considerably enhanced when he did. Oh, and I suppose I should also mention that my sources tell me a sizable force from Battle Fleet is also in this general neck of the galaxy. Carrying out training exercises in the McIntosh System, I believe."

  It was very, very quiet in President Boutin's office. The McIntosh System was barely fifty light-years from Myers, and Myers was only a very little over three hundred light-years from New Tuscany. Which meant any task group carrying out exercises at McIntosh could reach New Tuscany in as little as thirty-two T-days.

  "Given McIntosh's proximity to Myers, I strongly suspect Commissioner Verrochio would send the Battle Fleet senior officer there a message, requesting her assistance, at the same time as he dispatched Admiral Byng—or one of the admiral's squadrons, at least—to New Tuscany to investigate your allegations. Which would mean, of course, that even if some Manticoran officer were foolish enough to fire upon New Tuscan units or anything of the sort, Admiral Byng would have ample forces in close proximity which he could call upon to . . . stabilize the situation once more."

  The quiet was more intense than ever, and as Aldona Anisimovna listened to it, she knew she had their complete attention.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Just under twenty-five T-days after leaving Spindle, Michelle Henke's flagship crossed the alpha wall into the star system of Monica. Michelle sat in her command chair on Achilles' flag deck, watching her displays and wondering what sort of reception she and her ships were likely to receive.

  The dispatch boat with O'Malley's orders had sailed directly from the Lynx Terminus to Monica, without detouring by Spindle. That had saved it the better part of eleven days in transit, and the boat which had brought copies of his orders to Spindle had arrived there three days before Michelle had departed. Which meant, by her math, that O'Malley's task group had received its marching orders just under two T-weeks ago. Assuming Hexapuma's and Warlock's repairs had completed on schedule, they should have been ready to head home even before that, which would have freed O'Malley from any concerns for their security if he withdrew immediately in response to his orders. So, assuming everything had gone the way it was supposed to, there would be no Manticoran warship waiting here in Monica to greet her.

  And somehow I don't really think 'President Tyler' is going to be particularly happy to see me, either, even if we are "treaty partners" now, she thought sardonically. So maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to sort of scout the area before I head in-system.

  The planet of Monica itself lay just over eleven light-minutes inside the G3 primary's 20.6-light-minute hyper limit, and Captain Conner's division's closing speed was barely two thousand kilometers per second. At maximum military power with zero safety margin on her inertial compensator, Achilles' maximum acceleration was better than 6.5 KPS2, which was a third again what any prewar ship of her tonnage could have turned out. Even at the eighty percent of maximum power which was the RMN's normal top acceleration, she could produce 5.3 KPS2, which was still the next best thing to half a kilometer per second better than the old-style compensators could have produced running flat out. Given the present . . . delicate state of affairs with the Solarian League, the Admiralty had decided it might be wiser not to flaunt all of the Navy's current capabilities where Solly warships might see them. According to ONI's best current appreciations, the Solarians remained unaware of many of those capabilities. Some people—including Michelle—took that appreciation with a certain grain of salt, although she had to admit it wasn't as preposterous as it might have been if they'd been talking about any other navy in space.

  It was obvious to anyone who'd ever had to deal with the Solarian League Navy that the SLN suffered from an extraordinarily severe case of professional myopia. The League's navy was divided into two primary components: Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet. Of the two, Battle Fleet was the bigger and the more prestigious, but Frontier Fleet actually did the lion's share of the SLN's real work. Given the League's enormous size, population, and industrial power, it was scarcely surprising that the SLN was far and away the biggest fleet in human history. Unfortunately for the League, the SLN knew it was the biggest, most powerful, most advanced fleet in human history . . . and at least one—and possibly two—of those well known facts were no longer true.

  The League's towering sense of superiority where any "neobarb" star nation was concerned, while scarcely one of its more endearing qualities, didn't normally constitute a direct threat to the League's security. When it's navy shared that same sense of superiority (and burnished it with the institutional arrogance of a service which had existed literally for centuries and never known defeat), that wasn't exactly the case, however. Despite the fact that several of the League's member planets had sent observers from their locally raised and maintained system-defense forces to both Manticore and Haven, the SLN itself, so far as Michelle was aware, never had. There was, after all, no reason for it to concern itself with what a couple of minor, neo-barbarian polities on the backside of beyond might be up to. Even assuming that Manticore and Haven hadn't been too busy killing each other (no doubt with the equivalent of clubs and flint hand-axes), both of them together couldn't possibly have built a fleet large enough to threaten the League, and the thought that two such insignificant so-called star nations could have appreciably improved upon the technology of the incomparable Solarian League Navy was ludicrous.

  No one at ONI doubted for a moment that the SDF observers had offered their reports to the SLN. The majority opinion, however, was that the SLN's institutional blinkers were so solidly in place that those reports had
been quietly filed and ignored . . . assuming they hadn't simply been tossed. The SDFs were only local defense forces, after all—the backup, second-string militia to the SLN's professional, first-string team. They were obviously going to be more parochial in their viewpoints, and, without the SLN's sound basis of training and vast experience, they were also likely to be unduly alarmist. Not to mention the fact that without the solid core of institutional and professional competence of the regular navy, their "observers" were far more prone to misunderstand—or even be deliberately misled by—what the neobarbs in question made sure they actually saw. Even if Solly naval intelligence was willing to grant their complete sincerity, the analytical methods already in place, relying upon tested and proven techniques, were bound to be more reliable than reports from what were little more than reservist observers who'd probably been steered to what the locals wanted them to see in the first place.

  That, at any rate, was how ONI read the SLN's current attitudes and decision trees, and the Sollies' failure to deploy any significant improvements in their own military hardware certainly seemed to validate that interpretation, although Michelle, for one, preferred not to invest too much confidence in that particular assumption. The mere fact that no new hardware was being deployed didn't necessarily mean it wasn't being developed, after all, and for all its arrogance and condescension, the fact remained that the League had the greatest pool of human talent and wealth of any political unit in human history. If the SLN ever got its collective head out of its ass, that talent and wealth could almost certainly make it just as scary as it already thought it was.