Storm from the Shadows-OOPSIE

by David Weber

  "None," Alquezar said grimly. "Or not at least if there really was any sort of an investigation involved."

  "I think we can take it as a given that there was no need for any investigations," Michelle Henke put in from her place to Khumalo's right, and her husky contralto was far grimmer than usual.

  Medusa glanced at her, and the baroness didn't exactly like what she saw. Michelle had been back in Spindle for less than a T-month, and it was obvious to Medusa that the horrendous casualties the Navy had suffered in the Battle of Manticore had hit her especially hard.

  Well, of course they did! Medusa told herself scoldingly. How many of those people did she know personally? How many close friends were killed? And even leaving all of that out of the equation, she's an officer in the Queen's Navy. The Navy that was supposed to keep anyone from ever doing something like that to the home system.

  And even if none of the rest of that had been true, the baroness reflected, Michelle Henke was Tenth Fleet's commanding officer. That organization had been officially activated following the arrival of Aivars Terekhov—Sir Aivars Terekhov, she reminded herself—and his cruiser squadron at Spindle, and as Tenth Fleet's CO, Vice Admiral Gold Peak was only too well aware of how the savage losses the Royal Manticoran Navy had suffered were going to affect force availability here in Talbott, as well. It was entirely possible—indeed, almost inevitable—that many of the ships she'd been scheduled to receive were going to be delayed or even permanently diverted to other duties as the Admiralty tried frantically to fill all the holes the Battle of Manticore had blasted into its order of battle.

  All of which made the timing on the New Tuscans' little operation, whatever it was, even more . . . inconvenient.

  "It's almost like they already knew about what happened in Manticore, isn't it?" Terekhov mused out loud, like an eerie echo of Medusa's thoughts. He sat in a comfortable armchair at one corner of her desk, the new, blue-and-white ribbon of the POV heading the "fruit salad" on the breast of his tunic.

  "Let's not get carried away giving them credit for arcane powers, Aivars," Michelle said.

  "Oh, I'm not, Ma'am." Terekhov smiled briefly. "It's just particularly frustrating to have this happening right now."

  "Now that's what I'd call a masterful piece of understatement, Sir Aivars," Bernardus Van Dort put in wryly.

  "Put it down to my years of Foreign Office experience," Terekhov replied. "But while you're doing that, those same years of Foreign Office experience are ringing all kinds of alarm bells over this one. As Gregor just pointed out, this whole thing stinks to high heaven. It's got 'Put-Up Job!' painted all over it in great big, glowing letters, and I don't like any of the reasons I've been able to come up with for why that is. You and Joachim know these people a lot better than I do, Bernardus. Are they stupid enough to think we wouldn't even notice the timing involved in their ability to get their note to us this damned quickly?"

  "Well, obviously they were stupid enough to send Andrieaux Yvernau to the Constitutional Convention, which has to raise at least some questions, don't you think?" Van Dort pointed out. "If they really expected to get a constitution out of it, then that wasn't exactly what anyone would consider an inspired choice. But in answer to the question you're really asking, no, none of them—except probably Yvernau—is that stupid. They have to realize there's no way in the galaxy we're going to miss the timing on this. Which means they frankly don't care about that. The entire note isn't for our benefit at all; it's for someone else's."

  "Exactly," Terekhov said, and his blue eyes swept the table for a moment before coming back to Joachim Alquezar and Baroness Medusa.

  "It's Monica all over again," he said flatly. "I don't know exactly how all the pieces are supposed to fit together this time, but New Tuscany's the door knocker for someone else, exactly the same way Monica was. And as Bernardus says, the way these incidents are being stage-managed is for someone else. Does anyone in this room doubt who that someone else is?"

  "Of course it's the Sollies, Commodore," Alquezar said. "Whatever else they have in mind, the New Tuscans are obviously planning on calling in some 'impartial outside power' to . . . mediate in the crisis which the Star Empire has clearly provoked for sinister reasons of its own."

  "I'm beginning to wish now that we'd gone ahead and sent Chatterjee out to relieve Denton as soon as he got here with his Rolands," Khumalo said frankly, running the fingers of his right hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic, harassed gesture.

  "I don't think it would have made any difference, Sir," Terekhov said.

  Khumalo looked at him, and Terekhov raised one hand and made a little throwing away gesture with it.

  "First of all, Sir, I don't see where you and Admiral Gold Peak had any choice but to freeze ship movements and deployments, at the very least until Admiral Gold Peak got back to Spindle, until you got a better feel for how what happened in Manticore is going to affect your force availabilities out here in the Quadrant. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I don't think any other decision was possible. But, secondly, whatever it is these people are up to, it's obvious they've been working to a detailed game plan from the very beginning. I really don't see them doing anything different just because Commodore Chatterjee was sitting there with half a dozen Rolands instead of Commander Denton with a single over-the-hill tin-can."

  "Unless having half a dozen Rolands sitting there would have convinced them of the unwisdom of their actions," Michelle pointed out.

  "With all due respect, Ma'am," Terekhov said, "if they can count to twenty without taking their shoes off, they already know the New Tuscan Navy in all its glory does not want to piss off the RMN. Putting more destroyers in Pequod wouldn't have changed any perceptions of the real balance of force in New Tuscany."

  Michelle nodded slowly. He was right, of course, and the fact that he was only made her even happier to have him and his judgment back here in the Quadrant. Not that she felt particularly "happy" about anything else at the moment.

  "All right," Medusa looked around the conference table as her quietly firm tone gathered up everyone else's attention. "What I'm hearing is a consensus that New Tuscany is acting as a front man for some party or parties unknown, although I suspect we could all put a name on at least one of the aforementioned parties if we really tried. And I think we're all also in agreement that at the moment they have the advantage of knowing what the hell it is they're trying to do while we don't have a clue. Unfortunately, I see no option but to respond rather firmly to what they've already done."

  "I'd like to insert a word of caution, Milady," O'Shaughnessy said. She nodded for him to go on, and he continued. "I can't disagree with anything you've just said, but I think we need to bear in mind that responding forcefully may be exactly what they want us to do."

  "It may be," Medusa agreed. "On the other hand, I see no other choice. We certainly can't ignore it, when their prime minister is sending us formal notes accusing one of our pinnaces of having deliberately fired upon and destroyed a New Tuscan merchant ship with all hands—and, by implication, accusing us of lying about it rather than admitting Commander Denton's responsibility. It's obvious from our analysis of the records that nothing of the sort happened, but nobody aside from us and the New Tuscans has any evidence to look at at all. Much as I hate it, that means this is going to be a battle for credibility, not something that can be resolved through the presentation of evidence in some sort of insterstellar court. And if that's the case, the last thing we can afford is to allow them to get their version of the facts established, unchallenged."

  All of the naval officers at the table nodded soberly. They'd run the sensor data Commander Denton had sent along with his report through their tactical computers and simulators, and those computers and simulators had been far more capable than anything aboard Reprise. Unfortunately, there were still limits. As Denton had warned, there was less of that data than they could have wished. Reprise was a single destroyer whose sensor platforms had been keepi
ng an eye on an entire star system. Nothing had warned her that she needed to be keeping a closer watch over Hélène Blondeau, and none of her platforms had been looking in the right direction at the right moment. What they had was almost entirely from her shipboard sensors, and they hadn't been focusing their attention on the New Tuscan merchant ship, either.

  Despite all of those disadvantages, however, it had become glaringly evident to the analysts that Denton had been correct. Hélène Blondeau had been destroyed by an internal explosion. Or, to be more precise, the freighter had been destroyed by a single explosive event consisting of eight—not the seven Denton had identified—simultaneous detonations equidistantly spaced throughout her volume. It hadn't been a sequence of explosions spreading, however rapidly, from a single initial site, which would have been the case with almost any conceivable "natural" catastrophe . . . and would definitely have been the case if they had been the result of energy fire or a missile strike impacting on the hull. The only way that so many detonations could have occurred simultaneously throughout the volume of a ship that size was as the result of very carefully placed scuttling charges. There was no question in the analysts' minds; the New Tuscans had blown up their own ship.

  "I'm not about to go to the newsies and hand them our analysis," Medusa continued. "I have every confidence that it's accurate, but saying 'They did it themselves' isn't going to play well with the 'faxes. It's the kind of 'He said; she said' defense that sounds weak at the best of times, especially when it's based on the disputed analysis of sketchy information or data. And, frankly, whoever thought this up obviously realizes how our diplomatic squabbles with Haven—which haven't gotten any better, now that we're accusing them of sabotaging the summit and they're denying they had anything to do with any assassination attempts—is going to make that particularly true in our case.

  "Nonetheless, it's equally imperative that we clearly and unequivocally maintain that we were not in any way responsible for what happened. We can certainly provide our own sensor data, as well as the results of our own internal inquiry, to support our own innocence without necessarily making any allegations of guilt on anyone else's part. We need to do just that, to be sure our side of the story is presented as clearly and as forcefully as their version of events. And we also have to proceed in the way any innocent star nation acting in good faith would proceed. Which means we must respond directly to Vézien's note."

  "In what way, Milady?" Alquezar asked.

  "By presenting a note to them in reply. One which makes it very clear that we reject their accusations, and one which describes—in detail, using Commander Denton's recordings as corroboration of our description—what's really been going on in Pequod and demands an explanation for their increasingly provocative behavior."

  "Are you thinking about sending it through normal diplomatic channels, Milady?" Michelle asked, and Medusa gave her a distinctly shark-like smile.

  "They sent their official government dispatch boat all the way here to Spindle to make sure we got our mail, Admiral. The least we can do is to make sure they get our reply equally promptly. I think Amandine Corvisart would make an excellent representative, and I think Commodore Chatterjee would make an impressive postman."

  "That could be viewed as a provocative action, Milady," O'Shaughnessy pointed out. Medusa looked at him, and he shrugged. "They sent a single unarmed dispatch boat. If we send an entire destroyer squadron, or even a single destroyer division, to deliver our response, it could easily be construed as some sort of 'gunboat diplomacy.'"

  "A threat that they'd better shut up if they don't want us to blow their miserable little star system to pieces around their ears, Mr. O'Shaughnessy?" Khumalo said just a touch frostily. "Is that what you mean?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes, Admiral," O'Shaughnessy replied unflinchingly. "I'm not slamming the Navy when I say that, either. As a matter of fact, I think gunboats or the occasional cruiser—or even the occasional battlecruiser squadron," he added, smiling crookedly at Michelle "—are legitimate diplomatic tools. I'm simply pointing out that in this particular case, we're looking at someone who's already obviously trying to provoke us. Someone who's presenting the destruction of one of their freighters as a consequence of our actions. If we appear to be overtly threatening them, we could be playing into their hands."

  "I considered that, Gregor," Medusa said before Khumalo could respond, "and you may well have a point. On the other hand, I think this is one of those occasions when a small show of force is indicated. I'm sure Commodore Chatterjee will be professional and nonconfrontational, and I know Amandine will be firm without descending into overt threats. But there's no way we or any other genuine interstellar power wouldn't accompany the delivery of this sort of note with at least a modest show of force. However we choose to phrase it, we're accusing them of deliberately provoking an incident between our star nations, and if they seriously claim we destroyed their freighter and killed its entire crew, they're accusing us of an overt act of war against New Tuscany. If we don't respond with enough force to warn them there's a line they'd better not cross, then we're stepping outside those normal—and accepted—parameters of a major power's response in a case like this."

  "And if their 'game plan,' as Commodore Terekhov described it, was designed on the assumption that we'd react within those normal and accepted parameters, Milady?"

  "I can't read their minds, Gregor," the imperial governor said. "So if I'm not simply going to sit here and let myself be paralyzed by double-think and triple-think, I'm just going to have to do the best we can. And as long as we're operating within those normal and accepted parameters, without waving great big clubs around, on the one hand, or letting ourselves look like we're running scared, on the other, we'll be in the best position we can be in if and when this thing finally goes to the court of public opinion. That may not be much, but to be brutally honest, it's about the best we can do. If they're determined to go on pushing this, we can't stop them. And if it comes to some kind of genuine violent incident as a result, then it's going to come to some kind of violent incident, and we'd best all accept that now. In the meantime, we'll conduct ourselves as a civilized star nation dealing with a preposterous allegation. It certainly can't hurt anything, and, who knows, it might even help."

  "I think you're right, Milady," Michelle said, and her expression hardened. "I don't want any kind of 'violent incident' with New Tuscany, and God knows the last thing we need is some sort of replay of Monica!" She quirked a taut smile at Terekhov and Khumalo. "I think the two of you did remarkably well at Monica—don't get me wrong about that. But I think all of us also know how ugly things would have gotten if a Frontier Fleet task force had come translating into Monica with blood in its eye. That would have been bad enough before Haven hit the home system. Now, when we're so completely off-balance strategically, the term 'disastrous' comes to mind.

  "Despite that, though, or maybe even because of it, I think we need to make it very clear to the New Tuscans that, as the Governor says, there's a line they don't want to step over. It might not be a bad idea to remind them that no matter how badly a 'second Monica' might work out for us in the long term, it would work out one hell of a lot worse for them in the short term! And I think it's equally important that we make it clear to the Sollies that we intend to be the mistress of our own house. Let's not forget that all of these incidents they're accusing us of fomenting are taking place in Pequod, and Pequod is part of the Star Empire of Manticore, the last time I looked. They inserted one of their warships into sovereign Manticoran territory, and they're informing us of the conclusions of a New Tuscan court of inquiry held on events occurring in a Manticoran star system, and one at which none of our witnesses or investigators were even present. That's a clear infringement of our sovereignty, on several levels, and I don't believe we can let that stand. Especially if whoever is orchestrating this thing has Frontier Security lurking in the background."

  "I think those are both very good points,
Admiral," Medusa said. "Of course, that may be because they'd already occurred to me! At any rate, that's how I want to proceed. I'll leave it up to you and Admiral Khumalo to structure Commodore Chatterjee's orders. That's your area of expertise, not mine. I would like a briefing on his instructions before he departs for New Tuscany, however. In the meantime, I'll sit down with Amandine. I don't intend to be overtly confrontational in my note to Vézien, but I do I intend to make the point—firmly—that New Tuscany is dealing with the Star Empire of Manticore, not with the independent star system of Pequod, and not with some problematical political entity which may come into existence at some point in the future. He's dealing with something that already exists, and something he really, really doesn't want to turn into an overt enemy."

  Chapter Forty-One

  @Abigail Hearns sat at her station on HMS Tristram's bridge and concentrated on radiating a sense of calm. It wasn't easy.

  Abigail had never put much faith in the notion of some sort of intuition or "second sight." Not where she was concerned, at least; she'd seen and heard enough about Steadholder Harrington not to discount it in the Steadholder's case. Some other officers she'd served with, like Captain Oversteegan, had seemed to possess something very like those reputed psychic powers, as well, but Abigail Hearns' psychic antennae had always been absolutely devoid of any sort of warning signals. Which was why she felt particularly nervous today, because something was definitely twisting her nerves into a solid, singing knot of tension.

  She didn't know why, couldn't have explained it to a soul, but it was true. And she wasn't the only one who felt it, either. She'd seen it in several of her fellow officers, both on the bridge and off it, and she knew all of them were trying to project the same calm she was . . . and wondering how well they were doing it.