by David Weber
There's always that "yet," isn't there, Abigail? she thought, remembering a conversation in Nuncio with Ragnhild Pavletic. There's always that hunger to test yourself, to prove you're just that little bit better than the next person. Or—let's be honest here—than anyone else.
She glanced at the captain's chair, where Naomi Kaplan sat looking even calmer than any of her subordinates. Unlike anyone else on Tristram's bridge, however, Abigail had seen Commander Kaplan sitting in the tactical officer's chair. She'd seen Kaplan's pre-battle face before, and she knew what she was seeing now.
"Excuse me, Skipper," Lieutenant O'Reilly said. "We have a com request from the flagship. It's the Commodore for you, Ma'am."
"Put it on my display, Wanda," Kaplan responded. There was an almost infinitesimal delay, and then she smiled down at her small private com screen.
"Good afternoon, Commodore. What can I do for you?"
Commodore Ray Chatterjee, commanding officer, Destroyer Squadron 301, smiled back at her from the flag bridge of his flagship, HMS Roland. His smile might have been a little more tense than hers, but, then again, he was responsible for all four ships of his first division (Captain Jacob Zavala and Chatterjee's second division had been sent straight to Pequod to relieve Reprise when Lieutenant Commander Denton returned to Spindle to give Admiral Khumalo and Admiral Gold Peak his firsthand impressions of the situation in Pequod), whereas Kaplan had to worry about only Tristram.
"I've been thinking, Naomi," the commodore said, "and while that's always a somewhat risky occupation in my case, I think I may have hit on something this time. Specifically, I've just as soon keep at least one or two of our cards tucked firmly up my sleeve. Just as a precaution, you know."
"Sir, given what's been going on in Pequod, I'd be in favor of keeping a pulser or two tucked firmly up our sleeves. And preferably one in each boot, as well!"
"Well, that might be a little overkill," Chatterjee observed mildly. "After all, this is supposed to be a diplomatic mission. But I've been going over everything we have on New Tuscany, and one thing that struck me is that they don't really have any deep-space sensor arrays worth mentioning."
Kaplan nodded. Any moderately prosperous star nation—or, at least, any moderately prosperous star nation which was concerned about military shenanigans in its vicinity—maintained deep-space sensor arrays. In the case of a star system like Manticore, those arrays could be literally thousands of kilometers across, with an exquisite sensitivity capable of picking up things like hyper-footprints and often even impeller signatures light-months out from the system primary, vastly beyond the range possible for any shipboard sensor.
But New Tuscany wasn't "moderately prosperous" by Manticoran standards. In fact, despite its oligarchs' often lavish lifestyles, New Tuscany was little more than a pocket of wretched poverty by the Old Star Kingdom's meter stick, and it didn't have anything remotely like modern deep-space arrays.
"These people are the next best thing to blind outside the hyper limit," Chatterjee pointed out. "I won't say they couldn't possibly see anything beyond that range, but the odds wouldn't be very good for them, and their resolution has to suck once you get out beyond twenty or twenty-five light-minutes from the primary."
"That's about what I'd estimate, yes, Sir," Kaplan agreed, yet there was an almost wary note in her voice, and he smiled again, thinly, as he realized she'd already guessed where he was headed. Well, in that case he supposed he might as well go ahead and confirm her suspicion.
"What I intend to do," he continued, "is to shift our formation to close Tristram up a little closer behind Roland and see if we can't use her footprint to screen yours. We'll make our translation at twenty-two light-minutes—if they want to think our astrogation is shaky, that's all right with me, but that gives us an extra light-minute and a half to play with. As soon as we make our alpha translation, though, I want you to go to full stealth."
"Sir, with all due respect—"
" 'With all due respect yada-yada-yada,' " Chatterjee interrupted with something that was much closer to a grin. "How did I know you were going to say that?"
Kaplan clamped her jaw tightly, although the gleam in her eyes communicated her unspoken thought quite well.
"Better," Chatterjee approved. Then his expression sobered.
"I'm not coming up with this brainstorm just to make your life hard, Naomi, I assure you. The problem is that nobody has a clue what the New Tuscans think they're going to accomplish, but we do know they've been fabricating incidents. In fact, we know they're willing to blow up one of their own freighters—which I hope to hell didn't really have a crew on board at the time—and blame it on us. I don't think they would've done that unless they felt they'd been able to cobble up at least some sort of 'sensor data' to support their claims, and Commander Denton, unfortunately, wasn't able to give us really conclusive counter evidence.
"I'm inclined to doubt that they're going to try anything with three Manticoran destroyers sitting right here, watching them like hawks, but I'm also not inclined to bet the farm on that. So what we're going to do is to use Roland, Lancelot, and Galahad to drop Ghost Rider platforms on our way in. We'll launch a few active platforms of our own to sweep ahead of us, but the others will be completely passive, won't even bring their drives up, and you'll be monitoring all of them from out beyond the hyper limit, using light-speed links so there aren't any unexplained grav pulses floating around the system. The New Tuscans won't know we're basically watching their entire star system and recording everything we see. If they try sneaking anything around outside our known sensor range, the covert platforms ought to nail them at it, which would probably strengthen Ambassador Crovisart's hand a lot if they are up to something and try to get shirty with her. So, in a way, I'd almost like for them to go ahead and try something if it let us catch them with their hand in the cookie jar. And you're the one who's going to be watching the cookies for us."
Kaplan was silent for a moment or two, and then she gave a barely perceptible sigh.
"Very well, Sir. I don't like it, but I understand the logic, and I guess somebody has to draw the duty. But the next time you come up with something like this, couldn't we cut cards, or shoot dice, or flip coins, or something to see who gets to play grandma rocking on the porch while the rest of the kids run out to play?"
"Goodness, Commander! I hadn't realized you had such a gift for imagery. But I suppose I can at least take your suggestion under advisement."
Chatterjee frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then grinned.
"Personally, I've always preferred paper, rock, scissors when it comes to serious command decisions, though."
"They've arrived, Ms. Anisimovna."
Aldona Anisimovna sat up quickly on the chaise lounge on the terrace of her temporary townhouse in Livorno. She'd been luxuriating in the warmth of New Tuscany's G3 primary like a big, blonde cat for almost an hour, and it took a moment or two for her sun-sodden brain to catch up with Kyrillos Taliadoros' announcement.
"The Manties?" she said, and he nodded in confirmation.
"According to our contacts, they turned up in a bit greater strength than we'd expected, Ma'am."
"How much greater?"
"Three of their new Roland-class destroyers," Taliadoros replied. "And according to their initial messages, they've sent no less than Amandine Corvisart to deliver their response to the Prime Minister's note."
"Really?" Anisimovna smiled nastily. Given the demolition job Corvisart had done at Monica, the opportunity to repay her for her efforts was an unanticipated bonus. She felt herself wanting to purr like a hunting lioness at the thought, yet even as she did, she felt her pulse beginning to speed. Not even a scion of a Mesan alpha line was immune to the effect of old-fashioned adrenaline. Or dread, she admitted, her smile fading just a bit. Or, for that matter, to a slight churning in her stomach as she contemplated the little detail she'd added to the plan without mentioning it to any of her allies here in New Tuscany.
&
nbsp; Stop that! she told herself firmly. It's the first move in a damned war, you silly bitch! Of course it's going to be . . . messy. But it's going to work, too, and that's a hell of a lot more important!
"You said this was according to our contacts," she said out loud. "Should I assume from that that no one from Vézien's office has passed us the official word yet?"
"No, Ma'am. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything." Taliadoros allowed himself a faint smile of complacency. "I'd be very surprised if our communications lines to the NTN—and his own office, for that matter—aren't actually shorter—or at least faster—than his are."
"Let's not let ourselves get overly confident here, Kyrillos," Anisimovna said just a bit quellingly, and her bodyguard's smile disappeared as he nodded in sober acknowledgment.
Not that he didn't have a point, Anisimovna conceded in the privacy of her own mind. Upon his arrival on New Tuscany, Jansen Metcalf had done what Mesan attachés and ambassadors always did. Even before he'd finished unpacking, he'd gone about establishing "contacts" throughout the local political and economic structure. It was always easier on planets like New Tuscany, where graft, patronage, and corruption were accepted, everyday facts of life. Anisimovna sometimes wondered if it was the relative absence of that trinity of tools which explained Bardasano's failure to penetrate someplace like Manticore—or, for that matter, Thesiman's and Pritchart's new Republic—the way she'd managed to penetrate so many other star nations.
Whatever might have been true in Manticore's case, however, New Tuscany had offered fertile soil for the standard Mesan techniques, and until Manticore had become involved in the Talbott Cluster, Metcalf hadn't had anything more important to do than to polish his network. Which meant Taliadoros was almost certainly correct—Anisimovna probably was better informed about what was happening throughout the New Tuscany System than Prime Minister Vézien. Quite possibly even better informed than Damien Dusserre, for that matter, although she'd have been less willing to wager on that possibility.
"You're probably right, though," she continued out loud. "It's more likely that Vézien is doublechecking his information before passing it on than it is that he's deliberately trying to keep us in the dark."
Taliadoros nodded again, and Anisimovna flowed to her feet. She padded barefoot to the terrace wall, gazing out across New Tuscany's capital for a few more moments of thought. Then she turned back to her bodyguard.
"I think it's time that I be very carefully sitting here doing absolutely nothing suspicious," she said. "And if I'm here, you have to be here. I think it would probably be a good idea to close down any private communications channels we might have open. I trust Lieutenant Rochefort has already received his instructions?"
"Yes, Ma'am. And Ambassador Metcalf has doublechecked the communications relay. Even if anyone detected it, there's no way it could be traced back to us."
"I like a positive mindset, Kyrillos, but my own recent experience leaves me disinclined to take anything for granted."
"Of course, Ma'am."
"All right, then," she said. "Go and make sure we aren't talking to anyone Mr. Dusserre's eavesdroppers can't listen in on. Wouldn't want him getting any nasty suspicions about why we might be trying to evade him, after all. And while you're doing that," she smiled, "I think I'll go have a shower and a pre-supper martini."
"I don't believe this shit," Commodore Ray Chatterjee muttered as he studied the icons on the plot being driven by the recon platforms he'd sent in-system ahead of himself. "How the hell did these people get here, and what the hell are they doing here?"
"I don't know, Sir," Lieutenant Commander Lori Olson, his operations officer, said quietly. "Right off the top of my head, though, I doubt it's anything we'd be happy about if we did know."
"You've got that right," Chatterjee agreed grimly.
He sat back in his command chair, his expression even grimmer than his tone had been, and thought hard.
When he and Ambassador Corvisart had been sent off to New Tuscany, no one had counted on this. So just what were the two of them supposed to do when they found seventeen Solarian battlecruisers and five of their destroyers parked in orbit around the planet?
This stinks to high heaven, he thought. The only question is whether or not the Sollies know they're part of whatever the New Tuscans are up to . . . and I've got a bad feeling about that. I suppose it's at least remotely possible the Sollies don't know, but they'd have to be dumber than rocks not to realize the New Tuscans were trying to play them. Not that I haven't known a few Sollies who were dumber than rocks. Strange how that's not a very comforting reflection at the moment.
"Contact the Ambassador, Jason," he said to Commander Jason Wright, his chief of staff. "Ask her to join us in my briefing room. Then get hold of Captain DesMoines and ask him to join you, me, and the Ambassador."
"Yes, Sir."
"Yes, Mr. Prime Minister?" Anisimovna said pleasantly, raising one eyebrow at the view screen while she swirled ice gently in her martini glass. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I thought you'd like to know that we've just been notified that three Manticoran destroyers or light cruisers have entered the system. They're headed for New Tuscany right now. We expect them to reach parking orbit within the next three hours."
"Indeed?" Anisimovna allowed her eyes to narrow with exactly the correct degree of sudden speculation as she leaned forward to set her glass on the edge of the coffee table in front of her. "I hardly expected them so soon, Mr. Prime Minister. Are all of our . . . special assets in place?"
"We're getting plenty of emissions and other data off them from the new platforms," Vézien assured her, although she suspected he was rather less confident than he chose to appear. "Minister of War Pélisard is in contact with Admiral Guédon right now. She says she's confident of capturing enough data for us to . . . massage however we have to for the Sollies' consumption. My only concern is having Byng right here in-system already." He shook his head and allowed a hint of concern to creep into his expression. "I wish he hadn't been in such a tearing hurry to get here!"
"I understand, Mr. Prime Minister." Anisimovna gave him a wry smile. "I never expected Commissioner Verrochio to respond so promptly to our first note, either. After all, Sollies never do things in a hurry—that's one of the things the rest of us dislike about them so much. Does Admiral Guédon expect to be able to work around them?"
"Probably." Vézien puffed his cheeks for a moment. "Nicholas—I mean, Minister Pélisard—seems to feel fairly confident of that, at any rate. But if the Sollies make a close comparison between the data their own sensors are undoubtedly recording right this minute and the 'incidents' we're going to be sending them shortly, they could very well spot the stuff we're recording right now when they see it again later."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that, Mr. Prime Minister." Anisimovna's smile turned wolflike. "Admiral Byng is sufficiently unfond of the Manties to overlook any inconvenient little problems, and Commissioner Verrochio and his staff are already primed to do exactly that, as well. All we need is something that's remotely plausible for anyone who doesn't have access to the data you're capturing at the moment."
"What do you make of them, Ingeborg?" Josef Byng asked, standing with his hands clasped behind him as he studied the enormous master plot on SLNS Jean Bart's flag bridge.
"Preliminary reports are still coming in, Sir," Captain Ingeborg Aberu, Byng's operations officer, replied. She looked up from her own console for a moment and grimaced as her eyes met Byng's, as if to ask what else could be expected from a combat information center manned by Frontier Fleet personnel.
"From what we have so far, though," she continued, "it looks like three light cruisers. They're headed in-system. We believe they've already burst-transmitted to the local government, but they haven't squawked their transponders, so we don't have any definitive IDs just yet. Under the circumstances, though, I don't think there's much doubt who they belong to, Sir."
&nbs
p; "Ballsy of them, Admiral," Karlotte Thimár observed. Byng looked at her, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I mean bringing it straight to New Tuscany this way. That's a bit of an escalation from harassing the New Tuscans' shipping in someplace like this Pequod System."
"From 'harassing,' maybe, Karlotte," Byng replied. "But from firing on and destroying an unarmed merchantship going about her lawful business?" His jaw muscles tightened. No one in Meyers before his departure for New Tuscany, not even he, had dreamed the situation could have escalated that rapidly out here, or that even the Manties would be that blatant about their behavior, and he felt a fresh wave of righteous anger go through him. "I think what we're seeing here is a direct progression of the kind of crap they've been pulling all along," he continued. "I think they've decided to come turn the screws on the New Tuscan government in its own backyard!"
"Well, if that's what they're thinking, Sir," Commander Lennox Wysoki, Byng's intelligence officer, said with an evil chuckle, "they'll probably be really unhappy when they finally realize we're sitting right here in orbit!"
"I agree that it's unfortunate, Commodore," Amandine Corvisart said. "And I won't pretend I'm happy about it, either—for a lot of reasons. But I don't see how we can allow it to interfere with our mission. We certainly can't just turn around and go home as if the mere presence of Solarian warships scared us off!"
