by David Weber
“Sorry—talking to myself,” Marcello apologized. “I was just thinking that it’s lucky we got here with two days to spare. If we hadn’t, the Danakans would still be dragging their feet.”
Lisa nodded wearily. “Yes, Sir. That they would.”
Nobody had told the Danakan government that its star system was about to be turned into a battlefield, and System President Nelson’s response to Commodore Charnay’s news had been far less than happy.
And extremely less than cooperative.
Danak’s population was still extremely small, most of it centered on Danak Alpha, the larger of the system’s twin planets. At any given moment, though, at least a third of that population was distributed out in Bergen’s Ring, an asteroid belt notable for its density and rich resources, its relatively short transit distance to Alpha, and the fact that it lay well inside the system’s hyper limit. That meant the limit was a less-than-optimally long haul from the shipyard and mineral extraction platforms the Jerriais Consortium was busily building, but at the same time it also offered a certain degree of military security, since any potential attacker had at least a four-hour transit time even at two hundred gravities’ acceleration. For a zero-zero solution, that went up to over five hours, which—in theory, at least—should give a defender time to respond.
It also gave time for the civilians in an invader’s path to refugee out. Quite a few of them, Lisa noted, had done exactly that over the past eighteen hours.
The Jerriais shipyards and orbital mining facilities were the real reason for the system’s development. Major concentrations of manufacturing, shipbuilding, and repair platforms would eventually be established in twelve equidistant nodal positions around the Ring, but at the moment only two were fully operational. A third was in the process of spinning up, however, and the initial hab module for a fourth had just been brought online. Danak was on its way to being one of the galaxy’s success stories, which probably explained President Nelson’s lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of entertaining such energetic visitors.
In fact, for almost twenty-four hours, she’d flatly refused to go along.
Her initial response had been to instruct Danak Traffic Control that Swenson was to be informed that he was not welcome, that Danak contained no missiles or upgraded launchers for his ships, and that a Havenite squadron was prepared to open fire upon him if he violated the system hyper-limit. The thought of what might happen to the Baird family had clearly weighed upon her, but her overriding responsibility was to the citizens of her own star system, not to the family of a Solarian merchant.
For some reason, no one in the Republic of Haven—or aboard HMS Damocles—had considered the possibility of such a thoroughly rational attitude on the Danakan government’s part. Obviously, they should have, and changing Nelson’s mind had required all the persuasiveness Commodore Charnay, Captain Katura, and Jerriais representative Weissman could bring to bear.
It must have been an interesting discussion, Lisa thought. From all accounts, President Nelson was a stubborn woman, and she’d had a lot of good reasons on her side.
The decisive point had probably been Charnay’s argument that it was in everyone’s interests to take a pirate force this powerful out of play. His appeal to the collective security treaty between the Republic and Danak had played its part, as well, although Lisa suspected Weissman’s position as the home office representative of what was Danak’s major employer and an official member of the Republic’s government had played a rather larger role than any sense of interstellar obligation on Nelson’s part.
As for Katura, after recounting Max Baird’s desperate situation to the president, he’d left it to Weissman and Charnay to convince her to go along while he took Pacemaker to the gas refinery complex and refueling station orbiting Helier, Danak’s innermost gas giant.
In wasn’t an unreasonable request—after all the high-speed running around he’d done, his ship had needed reactor mass badly. Still, Lisa wondered if his prime motivation had been to get away from the discussion. He’d made his personal anguish over the Baird family’s situation clear enough, and sitting on the sidelines while it was all hashed out yet again couldn’t have been easy on him.
In the end, however, President Nelson had agreed that Traffic Control would cooperate in Operation Embuscade.
If Embuscade worked as designed, no one would be firing off missiles anywhere near important system infrastructure. That had been another factor in Nelson’s decision to cooperate. But she’d flatly refused to commit any of the Danak System Navy’s handful of lightly-armed corvettes to the battle. Instead, she’d ordered her naval commander to hold them in a covering position for Danak Alpha.
If anyone was getting killed in the Danak System, she clearly intended for the casualties to be incurred by the people who’d brought this trouble to her citizens in the first place.
Lisa Donnelly understood Nelson’s attitude. But that hadn’t made her any happier about it.
“I guess the important thing is that Nelson came onboard in the end,” she said.
“Agreed,” Marcello said. “I wish Massingill and her people had had a little longer to get settled in at Three, though. Still, she seems confident that everything’s in place.”
Lisa hissed softly between her teeth. “I hope she’s right, Sir.”
“Yes. So do I.”
* * *
“…Master Rowbtham had hoped Jerriais could accommodate you at Bergen One,” Danak Traffic Control said, “but I’m afraid they’re swamped right now. They can’t clear any of their slips for at least a T-week, possibly two. It’s our understanding your navy needs this upgrade expedited, correct?”
Gensonne ground his teeth. Of course he wanted it expedited.
But what was this about not being able to clear any slips for at least a week? Some last-minute play of Llyn’s?
He forced back the reflexive flicker of suspicion. He was in control here, and Llyn knew it.
“Correct,” he confirmed. “So what exactly are you saying? That Jerriais can’t accommodate us?”
“Oh, no, Admiral, Jerriais can certainly accommodate you,” Traffic Control said after another twenty-minutes lag. “They just can’t take your ships at Bergen One. Most of the heavy work is going to have to be done at Bergen Two instead. Unfortunately, Two is still in its expansion phase and its capacity is considerably lower than One’s. But all that means is that they’ll only be able to handle four of your ships at a time. Or only three, if the first round includes both of your battlecruisers.
“However, Jerriais understands you need to expedite, and so they’ve arranged to undertake some of the preliminary work at Bergen Three. They can’t install the full suite of systems you require there, but they can strip out the old systems and offload your old ordnance, which would get that part of the installation out of the way. Secretary Charnay and Ms. Dostoyevsky have run the numbers and concluded that if you send one battlecruiser and one heavy cruiser to Three it would ultimately cut the time for your second set of refits at least in half.”
Gensonne frowned as he studied his navigation plot, where Astrogation had brought up the icons of the new destinations. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was bad enough. Bergen 2 and Bergen 3 were on almost opposite sides of the primary, Bergen 3 laying roughly 16.2 LM to port of Odin’s current vector, Bergen 2 laying 23.27 LM off the Volsungs’ starboard bow as the Volsungs continued heading for Bergen 1.
He didn’t like putting that much separation between his units, especially since he hadn’t planned on splitting them up at all. On top of that, he knew how local governments and shipyards functioned out here, especially with someone they expected to be a one-time visitor. One of their favorite ploys was to surreptitiously damage or incapacitate critical systems and then charge through the ceiling to fix the damage their techs had fortuitously discovered.
It would take a lot of nerve to try to gouge an Andermani fleet that way. But the Empire was a long way from
Danak, and the locals might just think they could take even Uncle Gustav’s money and run.
He swiveled toward the com screen he had tied to Banshee’s bridge. “You heard?”
“Of course,” Llyn said. “Doesn’t sound all that unreasonable to me.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the one being told to split up his fleet,” Gensonne growled. “Who’s this Secretary of Industry Charnay, anyway? One of the people you’re going to have to bribe?”
“I told you, there was no way to be sure who it would be,” Llyn said with clearly strained patience. “The last time I was here, the Secretary of Industry was a woman named Bradshaw. But that was a long time ago. According to my records, though, there was a Charnay—I don’t have a first name—as an under-secretary in that department.” He dropped his gaze to something off screen. “He’s apparently a trained engineer with a strong background in shipbuilding.” He looked up again. “Does sound like he’s our guy.”
“I’m not real fond of sounds like,” Gensonne said warningly.
“Don’t worry about it,” Llyn advised. “Remember what he said about relaying the President’s welcome? That’s the kind of thing someone says when they want a face-to-face. A quiet face-to-face.”
“So that they can collect their credit chip?”
“Exactly.”
Gensonne frowned. Still, the analysis sounded reasonable. Of course, it didn’t say anything one way or the other about the locals’ possible avarice.
On the other hand, if he played his cards right he might have a way to find out before they got their hands too deeply into his pockets.
“I would prefer to continue keep both my battlecruisers together and under my supervision while the work is being carried out,” he said into the com microphone. “However, Ms. Dostoyevsky’s suggestion for expediting the prep work sounds reasonable. Therefore, I propose…”
* * *
Llyn’s computer pinged. Listening with half an ear to Gensonne’s response to DTC, he checked the display.
His slightly-out-of-date records indicated that Adelaide Bradshaw was still Secretary of Industry in the Danak System Government. There was no mention of an undersecretary named Charnay.
But the records did list a Captain Gustav Charnay of the Republic of Haven Navy.
He huffed out a silent sigh of relief. He’d known that Katura had come through the minute Traffic Control greeted “Winterfeldt” as an expected arrival. Now, if the Charnay DTC had named was the same one as in his database, it would appear Haven had bought the kidnapping story and decided to respond with force.
Whether they’d responded with sufficient force remained to be seen. But they probably wouldn’t have come if they didn’t think they had it under control.
Though this ploy to split up Gensonne’s force didn’t sound promising. If they needed to divide the Volsungs into more bite-sized pieces—
“Sir?” Rhamas’s voice murmured from the intercom. “We have a burst transmission from Pacemaker.”
Llyn peered at the plot and the caret marking the transmission’s sender. The ship showed no ID code, but it was well to port of the Volsungs’ current vector, about two minutes inside the hyper-limit on a heading for Danak Alpha from the vicinity of Helier.
Or, rather, it had been heading for Danak Alpha. Now, suddenly, the ship had stopped accelerating and was actively decelerating, obviously hoping to stay clear of any possible confrontation.
It also meant that, assuming the diversion to Bergen 2 worked and Pacemaker held her current heading, Katura was going to land in almost exactly the right spot to complete his part of the operation.
Things could still go south in a major way, of course. But between Katura’s smooth competence and Gensonne’s obsessive punctuality, all the pieces on the board seemed to be where Llyn wanted them.
Hopefully, Haven had sent along enough firepower to take care of the Volsungs once and for all. If not, Llyn himself would be able to make sure that whatever Gensonne knew about Axelrod and its interest in Manticore, that information would go no further.
“Decrypt?” he asked Rhamas.
“Coming through now, Sir,” Banshee’s captain said, and fresh text appeared on Llyn’s display.
Even transmitting over a relatively short distance and from well to one side of the Volsung formation, there was always the chance that a burst transmission over a tightly focused com laser might find unintended ears. But Katura knew that, and had chosen an encryption similar to the ones the Jerriais Consortium used for their own internal communications. Anyone who noticed it would probably assume it was routine traffic.
Havenite force under Commodore Gustav Charnay. One BC, three CAs, five DDs, one FG. Also attached one Manticoran DD.
So Charnay had been promoted to commodore since Llyn’s last file update. Not really surprising.
What was surprising was that the Havenite force had a Manticoran destroyer in the mix.
Llyn scowled. And if there was one RMN ship, were there others? Maybe even a whole fleet that Katura didn’t know about?
Probably not. Still, it was a possibility Llyn couldn’t reject out of hand. Gensonne’s after-action report had indicated that the RMN he’d left behind had been considerably more mauled than the RMN that Llyn had encountered a couple of weeks later. He’d downplayed that discrepancy in his conversations with the Volsung admiral, but it was a puzzle he hadn’t yet sorted out.
Llyn had detected five battlecruisers; Gensonne had insisted he’d left behind only three. That meant two of them must have been visitors, almost certainly Havenite, no matter what their transponders had said.
So far that was the best sense he’d been able to make of the puzzle. Still, it fit with the Republic’s efforts to establish a collective security arrangement in what was coming to be known as the Haven Quadrant. Granted, their presence at that particular time had been annoyingly fortuitous, and there was still the matter of the Manticoran transponder codes.
Still, what mattered was that Manticore surely wouldn’t have risked sending any of its own heavy ships away from the home system when they had no way of telling when their attackers might return. Detaching one or two lighter units for joint operations with Haven, on the other hand, made a great deal of sense.
In a way, that was too bad. Llyn would have preferred Haven to have a crushing force advantage, and a horde of Manticoran ships supporting them would have been a welcome addition.
On the other hand, the presence of an unexpected Manticoran ship could prove problematic. Gensonne had disguised himself a bit—at Llyn’s insistence—but it was a quick and rudimentary disguise, not nearly up to Llyn’s own standards. A sharp-eyed Manticoran might be able to see past the Prussian-style mustache and prominent cheek scar, and a sharp-eared one might recognize the voice of the man who’d invaded their space and called for their King’s surrender. If that happened, the Manticorans might be able to persuade the Havenites to offer Gensonne his life in exchange for information.
Fortunately, thanks to Hester, Llyn still held the hole card.
“Sir, Imbar is signaling the rest of the Volsung force,” Rhamas reported. “He’s warning them to keep a close eye on us and be ready in case we make a run for it. Apparently, Gensonne doesn’t trust us.”
“I’m so very disappointed. Any replies?”
“Copperhead and Fomalhaut report they each have their laser manned and a missile prepped for launch,” Rhamas replied. “Imbar’s warning them not to paint us with active targeting, lest Danak wonder why they’re targeting their own freighter. Fomalhaut is offended that Imbar feels the need to point out the obvious…Copperhead seconds that opinion, but with more profanity.”
Llyn smiled. And Hester probably still thought all of the little jobs he’d given her over the past few months, such as hacking Gensonne’s com encryptions, had been just busy work.
“I think we can trust them to hold their fire, at least for now,” he told Rhamas. He looked at the master plot, watching as v
ectors and projected arrival times began to shift. “It looks like about three and a half hours until Exodus.”
“Yes, Sir,” Rhamas said. “I’ll be sorry to see her go.”
“You’ll get over it,” Llyn assured him. “And don’t worry. I’ll get you an even shinier toy when this is done.”
* * *
“However, Ms. Dostoyevsky’s suggestion for expediting the prep work sounds reasonable,” the pirate admiral’s voice came from Damocles’s bridge speaker. “Therefore, I propose a compromise. My main body is altering course for Bergen Two now, but I’ll be detaching three of my cruisers—Mollwitz, Burkersdorf, and Rossbach—to Bergen Three. Three heavy cruisers should be about the same workload as one battlecruiser and one heavy cruiser, and that would allow me to personally supervise Winterfeldt and Boyen’s refits.”
“Damn,” Marcello murmured, looking across at Lisa.
Lisa nodded. She’d already pulled up the ship list Captain Katura had provided, but she didn’t really need it. Like her captain, she’d committed it to memory, and Mollwitz, Burkersdorf, and Rossbach were more properly known as Adder, Copperhead, and Mamba, Swenson’s three Thu’ban-class ships.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Marcello continued. Lisa nodded again, wondering how Brigadier Massingill and her commandos were going to handle this one.
Bergen 3 consisted of two active platforms and two more still in the process of construction. Massingill’s operations plan had divided her troops evenly between the operational platforms, under the assumption that she would face only two ships. Three of them would not only spread her available combat power thinner on at least one platform, but it also offered a greater opportunity for the timing to go awry.
Still, as Commodore Charnay had pointed out, if anyone could handle that situation it would be Massingill and the 303rd. Heavy cruisers were also less likely than battlecruisers to have sizable ground combat components aboard, which should offset some of the brigadier’s dispersal problems.
“I assume you heard that, Captain Marcello?” Charnay said from the captain’s com display.
