by David Weber
"What about Sir Aivars?" Helga asked. Helen, who was Sir Aivars Terekhov's flag lieutenant, raised both eyebrows at her, and Helga snorted. "He may be only a commodore, Helen, but everybody in the Quadrant knows how long he spent in the diplomatic service before he went back into uniform. Besides, Mr. Van Dort and the rest of the Prime Minister's cabinet all have enormous respect for him."
"We haven't actually discussed it," Helen replied after a moment. "On the other hand, he's passed up at least half a dozen opportunities I can think of to hide aboard the Jimmy Boy to avoid interviews, so I'd say he was doing his bit to shape public opinion."
Gervais grinned as she used the crew's nickname for HMS Quentin Saint-James. The brand-new Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser had been in commission for barely five months, yet she'd had her official nickname almost before the commissioning ceremonies concluded. Most ships wouldn't have managed the transition that quickly, but in Quentin Saint-James' case things were a bit different. Her name was on the RMN's List of Honor, to be kept in permanent commission, and the nickname was the same one which had been applied to the first Quentin Saint-James the better part of two T-centuries ago.
And if "Jimmy Boy" was a youngster, she was scarcely alone in that. In fact, aside from Admiral Khumalo's ancient superdreadnought flagship Hercules, there wasn't a single ship heavier than a light cruiser in Admiral Gold Peak's Tenth Fleet which was even a full year old yet. Indeed, most of the destroyers were no older than Quentin St. James and her sisters.
"Well," Helga said after a moment, "I imagine the Minister will go right on 'doing his bit', too. Don't expect him to like it, though."
"Some things are more likely than others," Helen agreed. Then she snorted.
"What?" Abigail asked.
"Nothing." Abigail looked skeptical, and Helen chuckled. "All right, I was just thinking about how the first newsy to shove his microphone in Daddy's face would make out. I'm sure Daddy would be sorry afterwards. He'd probably even insist on paying the medical bills himself."
"I wondered where you got that physically violent disposition of yours," Gervais said blandly.
"I am not physically vioilent!"
"Oh, no?" He did his best to look down his longitude-challenged nose at her. "You may recall that I was sent over to Quentin Saint-James with that note from Lady Gold Peak to the Commodore last week?" She looked at him suspiciously, then nodded. "Well, I just happened to wander by the gym while I was there and I saw you throwing people around the mat with gay abandon."
"I wasn't!" she protested with a gurgle of laughter.
"You most certainly were. One of your henchmen told me you were using something called the 'Flying Mare's Warhammer of Doom, Destruction, and Despair.'"
"Called the what?" Helga looked at Helen in disbelief.
"It's not called any such thing, and you know it!" Helen accused, doing her best to glare at Gervais.
"I don't know about that," he said virtuously. "That's what I was told it was called."
"Okay," Abigail said. "Now you've got to tell us what it's really called, Helen!"
"The way he's mangled it, even I don't know which one it was!"
"Well, try to sort it out."
"I'm guessing—and that's all it is, you understand—that it was probably a combination of the Flying Mare, the Hand Hammer, and—maybe—the Scythe of Destruction."
"And that's supposed to be better than what he just said?" Abigail looked at her in disbelief. Abigail herself had become proficient in coup de vitesse, but she'd never trained in Helen's chosen Neue-Stil Handgemenge. "Coup de vitesse doesn't even have names for most of its moves, but if it did, it wouldn't have those!"
"Look, don't blame me," Helen replied. "The people who worked this stuff out in the first place named the moves, not me! According to Master Tye, they were influenced by some old entertainment recordings. Something called 'movies.'"
"Oh, Tester!" Abigail shook her head. "Forget I said a thing!"
"What?" Helen looked confused, and Abigail snorted.
"Up until Lady Harrington did some research back home in Manticore—I think she even queried the library computers in Beowulf and on Old Terra, as a matter of fact—nobody on Grayson had ever actually seen the movies our ancestors apparently based their notions of swordplay on. Now, unfortunately, we have. And fairness requires that I admit most of the 'samurai movies' were at least as silly as anything the Neue-Stil people could have been watching."
"Well, my ancestors certainly never indulged in anything that foolish," Gervais said with an air of unbearable superiority.
"Want to bet?" Abigail inquired with a dangerous smile.
"Why?" he asked distrustfully.
"Because if I remember correctly, your ancestors came from Old North America—from the Western Hemisphere, at least—just like mine did."
"And?"
"And while Lady Harrington was doing her research on samurai movies, she got some cross hits to something called 'cowboy movies.' So she brought them along, too. In fact, she got her uncle and his friends in the SCA involved in putting together a 'movie festival' in Harrington Steading. Quite a few of those movies were made in a place called Hollywood, which also happens to have been in Old North America. Some of them were actually darned good, but others—" She shuddered. "Trust me, your ancestors and mine apparently had . . . erratic artistic standards, let's say."
"That's all very interesting, I'm sure," Gervais said briskly, "but it's leading us astray from the truly important focus we ought to be maintaining on current events."
"In other words," Helga told Abigail, "he's losing the argument, so he's changing the rules."
"Maybe he is," Helen said. "No, scratch that—he definitely is. Still, he may have a point. It's not like any of us are going to be in a position to make any earth shattering decisions, but between us, we're working for several people who will be. Under the circumstances, I don't think it would hurt a bit for us to share notes. Nothing confidential, but the kind of general background stuff that might let me answer one of the Commodore's questions without his having to get hold of someone in Minister Krietzmann's office or someone on Lady Gold Peak's staff, for instance."
"That's actually a very good point," Gervais said much more seriously, nodding at her in approval, and she felt a glow of satisfaction. She was preposterously young and junior for her current assignment, but at least she seemed to be figuring out how to make herself useful.
"I agree," Abigail said, although as the tactical officer aboard one of the new Roland-class destroyers she was the only person at the table who wasn't a flag lieutenant or someone's personal aide, and gave Helen a smile.
"Well, in that case," Gervais said, "have you guys heard about what Lady Gold Peak is planning to do to Admiral Oversteegen?"
* * *
"It's time, Admiral," Felicidad Kolstad said.
"I know," Admiral Topolev of the Mesan Alignment Navy replied.
He sat once more upon MANS Mako's flag bridge. Beyond the flagship's hull, fourteen more ships of Task Group 1.1, kept perfect formation upon her, and the brilliant beacon of Manticore-A blazed before them. They were only one light-week from that star, now, and they'd decelerated to only twenty percent of light-speed. This was the point for which they'd been headed ever since leaving Mesa four T-months before. Now it was time to do what they'd come here to do.
"Begin deployment," he said, and the enormous hatches opened and the pods began to spill free.
The six units of Task Group 1.2 were elsewhere, under Rear Admiral Lydia Papnikitas, closing on Manticore-B. They wouldn't be deploying their pods just yet, not until they'd reached their own preselected launch point. Topolev wished he'd had more ships to commit to that prong of the attack, but the decision to move up Oyster Bay had dictated the available resources, and this prong had to be decisive. Besides, there were fewer targets in the Manticore-B subsystem, anyway, and the planners had had to come up with the eight additional Shark-class ships for Admiral Colenso
's Task Group 2.1's Grayson operation from somewhere.
It'll be enough, he told himself, watching as the pods disappeared steadily behind his decelerating starships, vanishing into the endless dark between the stars. It'll be enough. And in about five weeks, the Manties are going to get a late Christmas present they'll never forget.
Chapter Thirteen
Audrey O'Hanrahan reached for the acceptance key as her com played the 1812 Overture. She especially liked the version she'd used for her attention signal, which had been recorded using real (if exceedingly archaic) cannon. She had a fondness for archaisms—in fact, she was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms here in Old Chicago. Besides, the exuberance of her chosen attention signal suited her persona as one of the Solarian League's foremost muckraking journalists.
Investigative journalism of the bareknuckled, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners style O'Hanrahan practiced was considerably less lucrative than other possible media careers. Or, at least, it was for serious journalists; there was always a market for the sensationalist "investigative reporter" who was willing to shoulder the task of providing an incredibly jaded public with fresh, outrageous titillation. O'Hanrahan, however, had always avoided that particular branch of the human race's third oldest profession. The daughter and granddaughter of respected journalists, she'd proven she took her own reportorial responsibilities seriously from the very beginning, and she'd quickly gained a reputation as one of those rare birds: a newsy whose sources were always rock solid, who genuinely attempted to cover her stories fairly . . . and who never backed away from a fight.
She'd picked a lot of those fights with the cheerfulness of a David singling out Goliaths, and she'd always been an equal opportunity stone-slinger. Her pieces had skewered the bureaucratic reality behind the representative façade of the Solarian League for years, and she'd never hesitated to denounce the sweetheart deals the Office of Frontier Security was fond of cutting with Solarian transstellars. Just to be fair, she'd done more than a few stories about the close (and lucrative) connections so many serior members of the Renaissance Association maintained with the very power structure it was officially so devoted to reforming from the ground up, as well. And she'd done a series on the supposedly outlawed genetic slave trade which was so devastating—and had named enough specific names—that there were persistent rumors Manpower had put a sizable bounty on her head.
She'd also been one of the first Solarian journalists to report the Manticoran allegations of what had happened at Monica, and although she was no Manticoran apologist, she'd made it clear to her viewers and readers that the waters in Monica were very murky indeed. And as Amanda Corvisart showed the Solarian news media the overwhelming evidence of Manpower's and Technodyne's involvement, she'd reported that, too.
The Solarian establishment hadn't exactly lined up to thank her for her efforts, but that was all right with O'Hanrahan and her producers. She was only fifty-three T-years old, a mere babe in a prolong society, and if the market for old-fashioned investigative reporting was limited, it still existed. In fact, even a relatively small niche market in the League's media amounted to literally billions of subscribers, and O'Hanrahan's hard-earned reputation for integrity meant that despite her relative youth, she stood at the very apex of her particular niche. Not only that, but even those members of the establishment who most disliked her habit of turning over rocks they'd prefer remained safely mired in the mud paid attention to what she said. They knew as well as anyone else that if they read it in an O'Hanrahan article or viewed it in an O'Hanrahan 'cast, it was going to be as accurate, and as thoroughly verified, as was humanly possible. She'd made occasional mistakes, but they could have been easily counted on the fingers of one hand, and she'd always been quick to admit them and to correct them as promptly as possible.
Now, as she touched the acceptance key, the image of a man sprang into life in the holo display above her desk, and she frowned. Baltasar Juppé was scarcely one of her muckraking colleagues. He was nine or ten T-years older than she was, and influential, in his own way, as a financial analyst and reporter. It was a specialist's beat—in many ways, as specialized a niche as O'Hanrahan's, if larger—and it was just as well Juppé's audience was so focused. Human prejudice was still human prejudice, which meant people automatically extended more respect and benefit of the doubt to those fortunate souls who were physically attractive, especially when they had intelligence and charisma to go with that attractiveness And where O'Hanrahan was auburn-haired, with crystal-blue eyes, elegant bone structure, a graceful carriage, and an understated but rich figure, Juppé's brown hair always hovered on the edge of going out of control, his brown eyes were muddy, and he was (at best) pleasantly ugly.
Although they ran into one another occasionally, they were hardly what one could have called boon companions. They belonged to many of the same professional organizations, and they often found themselves covering the same story—if from very different perspectives—given the corruption and graft which gathered like cesspool silt wherever the League's financial structure intersected with the permanent bureaucracies. For example, they'd both covered the Monica story, although Juppé had scarcely shared O'Hanrahan's take on the incident. Of course, he'd always been a vocal critic of the extent to which Manticore and its merchant marine had penetrated the League's economy, so it was probably inevitable that he'd be more skeptical of the Manticoran claims and evidence.
"Hi, Audrey!" he said brightly, and her frown deepened.
"To what do I owe the putative pleasure of this conversation?" she responded with a marked lack of enthusiasm.
"I'm hurt." He placed one hand on his chest, in the approximate region where most non-newsies kept their hearts, and concentrated on looking as innocent as he could. "In fact, I'm devastated! I can't believe you're that unhappy to see me when I come bearing gifts."
"Isn't there a proverb about being wary of newsies bearing gifts?"
"There probably is, except where you're concerned," he agreed cheerfully. "And if there isn't one, there ought to be. But in this case, I really thought you'd like to know."
"Know what?" she asked suspiciously.
"That I've finally gotten my hands on an independent account of what happened in New Tuscany," he replied, and his voice and expression alike were suddenly much more serious.
"You have?" O'Hanrahan sat up straighter in her chair, blue eyes narrowing with undisguised suspicion. "From where? From who? And why are you calling me about it?"
"You really are a muckraker, aren't you?" Juppé smiled crookedly. "It hasn't hit the public channels yet, and it probably won't for at least another day or so, but as you know, I've got plenty of contacts in the business community."
He paused, one eyebrow raised, until she nodded impatiently.
"Well," he continued then, "those sources include one of the VPs for Operations over at Brinks Fargo. And he just happened to mention to me that one of his dispatch boats, just in from Visigoth, had a somewhat different version of events in New Tuscany."
"From Visigoth?" she repeated, then grimaced. "You mean Mesa, don't you?"
"Well, yeah, in a way," he acknowledged. "Not in the way you mean, though."
"The way I mean?"
"In the 'the miserable minions of those wretched Mesan outlaw corporations' deliberately slanted and twisted' sort of way."
"I don't automatically discount every single news reports that comes out of Mesa, Baltasar."
"Maybe not automatically, but with remarkable consistency," he shot back.
"Which owes more to the self-serving, highly creative version of events the so-called Mesan journalistic community presents with such depressing frequency than it does to any inherent unreasonableness on my part."
"I notice you're not all over the Green Pines story, and there's independent corroboration of that one," Juppé pointed out a bit nastily, and her blue eyes narrowed.
"There's been corroboration of the explosions for months," she retorted
, "and if you followed my stories, you'd know I covered them then. And, for that matter, I suggested at the time that it was likely there was Ballroom involvement. I still think that's probably the case. But I find it highly suspect—and convenient, for certain parties—that the Mesans' 'in-depth investigation' has revealed—surprise, surprise!—that a 'notorious' Manticoran operative was involved." She rolled her eyes. "Give me a break, Baltasar!"
"Well, Zilwicki may be from Manticore, but he's been in bed with the Ballroom for years—literally, since he took up with that looney-tune rabble-rouser Montaigne," Juppé riposted. "And don't forget, his daughter's 'Queen of Torch'! Plenty of room for him to've gone completely rogue there."
"Maybe, if he was a complete lunatic. Or just plain stupid enough to pull something like that," O'Hanrahan retorted. "I checked his available public bio, including that in-depth report what's-his-name—Underwood—did on him, as soon as Mesa's version hit the data channels. I'll admit the man's scary as hell if you go after someone he cares about, but he's no homicidal maniac. In fact, his more spectacular accomplishments all seem to've been defensive, not offensive. You come after him or his, and all bets are off; otherwise, he's not especially bloodthirsty. And he's for damned sure smart enough to know what nuking a public park full of kids would do to public support for his daughter's new kingdom. For that matter, the whole damned galaxy knows what he'll do if someone goes after one of his kids. You really think someone with that kind of resume would sign off on killing hundreds or thousands of someone else's kids?" She shook her head again. "Which am I supposed to believe? The public record of someone like Zilwicki? Or the kind of self-serving, fabricated, made-up-out-of-whole-cloth kind of 'independent journalism' that comes out of Mendel?"
From the look in her eye, it was evident which side of that contradiction she favored, even if a huge segment of the Solarian media had chosen the other one. While it was true the Solarian League's official position, as enunciated by Education and Information, refused to rush to judgment on the spectacular Mesan claims that Manticore—or, at least, Manticoran proxies—had been behind the Green Pines atrocity, "unnamed sources" within the League bureaucracy had been far less circumspect, and O'Hanrahan and Juppé both knew exactly who those "unnamed sources" were. So did the rest of the League's media, which had been obediently baying on the appropriate trail of Manticoran involvement from day one.
