“No. We can’t communicate to ships in hyperspace.”
“So everybody had to agree with James’s point.”
“Yes. He doesn’t like me much. Something about me threatening to destroy his commercial space station if he executed my spacers as he threatened to.”
“Well, he mentioned your threat, but not his threat that led to it.”
“As I’d expect.”
“Yes, he’s something of a loose cannon.”
“So what do you think, Michael. Are they moving to war, or are they moving away?”
“I think they’re moving to demand you cease what they are calling Sintar’s belligerent behavior.”
“Well, I am unlikely to stop commercial traffic, I am unlikely to stop escorting my commercial vessels while the independent star nations remain unwilling or unable to protect them against commerce raiders, and I am unlikely to stop investigating incidents that occur in their star systems.”
“Which are their major complaints.”
“And which are all within their existing treaty obligations. It is they who have refused to protect my commercial vessels, and moved warships against us when we exercised our rights under treaty.”
“I know, Robert. I know. But no one is making that case.”
“And you, Michael?”
“I’m being pretty quiet for now. I will try to make the case when I think I have the greatest leverage, but I’m afraid this thing has a momentum of its own. And James is pushing it.”
“What about the others?”
“Most are quiet. Too quiet. If they were going to push back against James, I would have expected them to do it already.”
“What about the involvement of the DP in inciting all of this?”
“I think Queen Anne is on top of that. She asked some very pointed questions at the meeting. But James said that doesn’t excuse your belligerence, and there was general agreement with that.”
“Blame the victim when you don’t want to confront the perpetrator. That’s as ancient as the hills.”
“Yes.”
Michael looked down at his hands for several seconds, then back up at Dunham.
“Has Queen Anne tried to get in touch with you at all, to talk this out?”
“No. No one has. Not even any contact with our ambassadors. All we get are pro forma complaints every week about our ‘incursions.’”
“That’s also troubling. How are you supposed to address any of this if they don’t talk to you? This is going nowhere good fast.”
“Understood. Well, I appreciate the heads up, Michael.”
“No problem, Robert. And our agreement stands?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I keep my promises, Michael.”
King Michael visibly relaxed.
“I know you do, Robert. I just need a little reassurance once in a while.”
“I understand, Michael. These are troubling times.”
After his meeting with King Michael, Dunham called Admiral Leicester.
“Good morning, Admiral Leicester.”
“Good morning, Sire.”
“I wanted to let you know things with the independent star nations are moving to a head, Admiral Leicester. I expect my earlier estimate of two to five years was correct, but it will be on the low end of that scale.”
“In six months or so then, Sire?”
“Yes, Admiral Leicester. We should move forces to the frontiers, prepared to respond to provocation or attack. I expect Garland may be where it first comes apart. You should plan accordingly.”
“Very well, Sire.”
Rear Admiral Dorothy Conroy surveyed the big hyperspace map. She called her day-shift staff together.
“All right, people. We have received a war warning from Admiral Leicester. We are to look for anything out of the ordinary developing. We are to put special emphasis on Garland. Also, Admiral Leicester wants us to keep our inventory of what we think is where up to date for potential immediate use.”
There was some murmuring about that, and the tension in the room rose.
“We always hear first. The eyes and ears. This is probably several months or a year away. But we need to have current data available, at any time, day or night.”
“Should we go to faster cycles on the picket ships, Ma’am?” her chief of staff asked.
“Good idea, Captain. Let’s go to four hours for now, system-wide. We can always kick it up more later.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Vice Admiral Maria della Espinoza called a staff meeting in VR. She included her flag captain and his executive officer. Most of them were actually on different planets, since staff assignments in the Imperial Navy no longer required shuffling people from planet to planet. It was admiral’s discretion, but Espinoza didn’t want new staff members stuck in transit for weeks, so she left them where they were.
“I just had a meeting with some big brass. No names. They are expecting trouble out here, most specifically from Garland. Given our previous experience with the system, and our successes, they decided to leave us here rather than move in someone else. That being the case, they promoted me to Admiral.”
There was a chorus of “Congratulations, Ma’am.”
“Thank you. The reason for the promotion is they are moving some serious hardware out here to the frontier with Garland. Here are the numbers.”
Espinoza pushed the document to the display function in VR, and it displayed on the wall in the simulated conference room. Staffers looked down the list with interest. There were some low whistles, and a couple of reverent swears.
“Pardon me, Admiral. But that can’t be right. Can it?”
“It’s like somebody slipped a decimal point, isn’t it?” Espinoza asked.
“Maybe two, Ma’am.”
“Well, that’s what’s coming. So we need to plan several scenarios. Punitive measures against Garland, in various levels of strength. We move against Garland in strength. Garland moves against us in strength. I think that’s the short list.
“Oh, and a shift-left, shift-right strategy. What if the initial spark is not in Garland, but nearby, and we are ordered to respond? We need plans to move against anyone within several hundred light years. Phalia, the Rim, Jasmine, Bordain, Sirdon. We should have those plans all drawn up, for response at various strength levels, even to multiple locations at once. There’s a bunch of vice admirals coming in with all that hardware, so let’s figure out who goes where if we need to split up. They need to make their plans, too.”
Saturday afternoon on the pool deck had become an institution with the kids. There had been some rainy Saturdays, and they had not understood why they couldn’t go in the pool. They had had to take them up on the roof, out in the rain, for the kids to understand. They now knew the sign for rain.
Today, though, the weather was glorious. Dunham and Peters lay out on the chaises. She had done her laps, and the staff had the kids around the corner teaching them the glories of playing in the mud.
“You’re awful somber today, Bobby.”
“Michael thinks it’s going to be war. They keep heading in that direction, slowly.”
“What’s the next step?”
“Oh, the independents will probably form an alliance, not against Sintar per se, but ‘for mutual protection.’ And then they’ll start issuing demands against Sintar in violation of their treaty obligations. Demands I will not submit to.”
“How long?” Peters asked.
“Four to six months at this point.”
“And Admiral Leicester has been kept apprised?”
“Yes,” Dunham said. “He’s mustering forces, getting everything in place. And he has Admiral Conroy’s people looking for anything unusual.”
“So we’re ready.”
“As ready as we’ll ever be. I still don’t want it to happen, but I’m not the one violating treaty obligations and meeting freighters with warships.”
“So is it another Fifty Years War, Bobby?”
; “It’s going to be more like a Fifty Days War.”
“Over-confidence?”
“I don’t think so, Amanda. I think they’re way outmatched. The DP may be another matter, but this alliance is going to fold quickly.”
“Does Geoffrey agree with you?”
“Yes. He’s no less confident than I am. Perhaps more so.”
They heard them before they saw them. Two naked, squealing, mud-covered toddlers came running around the bushes at the far end of the pool, ran across the pool deck, and plunged headlong into the water, the two on-duty staffers hurrying along behind.
“Oh, my God,” Peters said. “They’re filthy. It looks like they had a wonderful time in the mud.”
“Until somebody said the word ‘pool,’ that is,” Dunham said.
The twins surfaced amid much spluttering and laughter, and Peters was struck by the contrast between their happy laughter and the earlier talk of war.
The Request
The SCV Morning Star dropped out of hyperspace in Aurora, one of the larger commercial trading hubs of the Kingdom of Phalia. She got under way for the planet.
A heavy cruiser squadron of the Phalian Royal Navy was on maneuvers, and traversing the system in the vicinity when Morning Star transitioned. They did not alter course or turn toward Morning Star.
Thirty minutes later, the Sintaran picket ship HMS Ramrod down-transitioned from hyperspace. The captain of the Ramrod noted the Phalian cruisers, but noted their course – currently across Morning Star’s bows, and well distant. He sent a message to Admiral Horace MacPherson’s staff.
“An escort has now down-transitioned as well, Sir.”
Rear Admiral Forrest Jones considered the plot.
“Hail them, Comm.”
“Yes, Sir.”
MacPherson checked the display. The cruiser squadron looked like a routine Phalian patrol. They weren’t lying in wait for Sintaran commercial vessels, and they hadn’t altered course, which was now taking them away from Morning Star’s track on a perpendicular course across the ecliptic.
“HMS Ramrod is being hailed, Sir. Rear Admiral Forrest Jones, from that cruiser squadron.”
“Tell Captain Komatsu I will answer the hail.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Admiral Horace MacPherson here, Admiral Jones. What can I do for you today?”
“You can turn around and leave the system, Admiral MacPherson. Your escort ships are neither needed nor welcome in the Kingdom of Phalia.”
MacPherson issued reinforcement orders on another channel, then answered.
“I beg to differ, Admiral Jones. While they may not be welcome, they are needed. Further, they are permitted under the commercial shipping treaty to which Phalia is a party.”
“They are not needed, Admiral MacPherson. Just as Phalian commercial ships do not need escort within the Sintaran Empire. The Phalian Royal Navy is responsible for commerce protection within the kingdom.”
“Phalian ships do not need escort within the Sintaran Empire, Admiral Jones, because the Imperial Navy does not aid and abet pirates, or stand aside while they murder innocent spacers.”
There was a long pause before Jones answered. MacPherson imagined his staff was peeling him off the deckhead. Navy officers were the sworn enemies of pirates everywhere, and the fact the PRN had been ordered to stand aside, as was made clear by the sensor recordings Sintar had obtained, just made it that much worse.
That MacPherson sympathized made no difference. He was not going to take any crap off an officer whose navy had stood aside while raiders destroyed Sintaran commercial ships and murdered their spacers. As an accomplice to that, Jones had no bitch coming.
When Jones did answer, his voice was strained, like he was speaking between clenched teeth.
“Whatever your view, Admiral MacPherson, and whatever extent I disagree with it, is no matter. Your escort ship is not welcome here, and is ordered to leave the system.”
“Request denied, Admiral Jones. We are exercising our right of free passage under the commercial shipping treaty. MacPherson out.”
“Send that communication to Aurora Fleet Headquarters and ask for instructions.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Jones fumed. He’d like to take a hard copy of MacPherson’s snarky communication and shove it right up his ass. But if Jones attacked him, that escort would take out one of his cruisers, and the two thousand men aboard her, and there was damn-all he could do about it. Jones had seen the sensor recordings of those escort ships in action, and he knew he couldn’t stop MacPherson.
There had been other Sintaran escort ships into Aurora, of course, but they had never been in his area of operations. That made a bigger difference than he had thought. Being out here, on the scene, and being able to do nothing, all his cruiser strength being helpless to stop the Sintaran escort, was more galling than he had imagined.
It was only made worse when twenty-four more of the tiny escort ships down-transitioned around SCV Morning Star and took up station as she continued to accelerate toward the planet. If Jones attacked MacPherson now, the Sintaran admiral would wipe out his whole squadron and lose nothing but eight of those little unmanned ships, while Jones would lose eight cruisers and thousands of spacers. And his own life, of course. Unlike MacPherson, he was actually on scene.
“Message from Aurora Fleet Headquarters, Sir. ‘Take no action. Ignore escort ship. Maintain profile.’ Message ends, Sir.”
“Damn,” Jones muttered as he watched the Morning Star and her entourage accelerate across his AO. “There will come a time, Admiral MacPherson. There will come a time.”
“Any change in profile of that cruiser squadron?” MacPherson asked.
“No, Sir.”
“Any further communications?”
“No, Sir.”
“Very well.”
MacPherson opened a channel to the captain of the Ramrod.
“Well done, Captain Komatsu. Let me know if anything else comes up.”
“Will do, Admiral.”
SCV Morning Star docked at Aurora’s commercial space station without incident. Its twenty-five escorts, their job done, accelerated out of the system at five gravities until they were well beyond the system traffic limits. The HMS Circe dropped out of hyperspace and projected a hypergate, into which all the escort ships vanished, and then Circe drew her hypergate over herself and disappeared.
“Isn’t that just lovely,” Queen Anne said after viewing the sensor recordings and the communications between the admirals involved in the Aurora incident.
“The Sintaran admiral was most insulting, Ma’am,” said her prime minister, Bruce Mallory.
“Yes, and not without cause. Don’t forget I did order the Navy to stand aside as those commerce raiders attacked Sintaran shipping. The Navy didn’t like it, either. But it was on my orders.”
Queen Anne sighed.
“I tell you, Bruce, that may turn out to be the single largest mistake of my entire reign. And now it all threatens to come crashing down.”
Mallory raised one eyebrow. The queen seldom called her long-time prime minister by his first name. It signaled a certain vulnerability, an introspection of the kind she seldom indulged.
“I don’t think war is avoidable at this point. You’ve heard the others at the last two meetings. Most held back during the first meeting, but they’re not holding back now. Some of them are egging James on, and others are supportive.”
“They do seem to be pushing hard, Ma’am.”
“Yes, and James doesn’t need any pushing. He simply doesn’t understand what he’s dealing with. The current Emperor of Sintar decapitated his own government, even while they were digging the bodies of his family – his sister, his wife – out of the ruins. And he nuked one of his own cities to put down a long-running insurrection. Do they really think he’ll back down from their petulance?
“No, this is going to get ugly, and it’s going to get ugly fast. Our one chance is perhaps to catch Si
ntar before they’ve upgraded the bulk of their navy. With the DP warships we have, we may be able to go toe-to-toe with them. But if he’s gotten enough of his new navy deployed, it will go very badly.”
“What are his new capabilities, Ma’am?”
“I wish I knew. Other than those devilish picket ships, we haven’t seen any of his new construction. That doesn’t bode well. If it were an evolution from current warships – ten percent more of this, fifteen percent more of that – it would be bad enough. But if that were the case, he wouldn’t be hiding them. I’m afraid it’s some radical and effective departure from current technology. That’s why he doesn’t want us – or the DP – to see them.”
“The DP, Ma’am?”
“Oh, they’re going to get pulled into this, too. Do you think Emperor Trajan will stop at the border of Annalia? I don’t. And if he doesn’t, the DP will get pulled in. And if Sintar’s new navy is as far along as it could be, the DP is going to get caught by surprise. That, at least, would be satisfying. They started all this, and it looks like they’re likely to be hoist on their own petard.”
“And what of Phalia, Ma’am?”
“If we’re lucky? We’ll end up being conquered by Sintar fairly painlessly, and you and I can go into retirement. If I could, right now, I’d do something like King Harold did in Pannia. See if I couldn’t get the same deal. But I’d be turned out in a coup if I tried.”
“Your Highness!”
“It’s true, Bruce. The Navy wants a piece of Sintar so badly they can taste it. I have to wait until Sintar can teach them the errors of their ways. Hopefully I can save some of them from the meat grinder.”
“You think it’s going to be that bad, Ma’am?”
“It certainly could be. This won’t be one of those little squabbles we always have between this independent and that one, where they take some potshots at each other and then settle down again until next time. James and his supporters are inviting Emperor Trajan to a war, and I think they’re going to regret it. All they had to do was read a little about his namesake to know that.”
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