"But my point," his expression sobered, "is that they're probably forming their own estimate of the situation and the balance of power on a basis which includes their control of the Manticore Junction. And, I might point out, we'd find it very difficult to get at their home systems directly. Even if we managed to take Talbott entirely away from them with local forces, their fundamental territorial integrity-both at home and in Silesia-would be safe from us for months, at the very least. All they'd have to do would be to retreat back to the junction's central terminus, and we couldn't get at them at all. But they could certainly close the junction to all of our merchant shipping, at least until we managed to get a powerful fleet there through hyper. I'm sure that as the representative of Kalokainos Shipping, Mr. Kalokainos is actually in a better position than I am to estimate how many billions of credits that would cost League ship owners and corporations in the interval."
Verrochio was frowning intently now, and Kalokainos shrugged irritably.
"Of course they could hurt us economically if they were stupid enough," he said. "But if they did, even those idiots on the Executive Council would agree to full-scale military operations against them!"
Which, Anisimovna thought coldly, is precisely what you and your cronies would just love to see, isn't it, Volkhart?
"No doubt," Hongbo agreed, his dry tone in obvious agreement with Anisimovna's suspicions. "I doubt, however, that the Council would be particularly happy with the people who allowed that situation to arise in the first place."
"So do I," Verrochio said, his voice calmer and more thoughtful than it had been since the conference began. Kalokainos' grimace of anger wasn't quite as well concealed as he probably thought it was, but the commissioner was too intent on the horrific career consequences evoked by his assistant's last sentence to notice.
"No," he continued, shaking his head firmly. "I agree we have to respond-forcefully and effectively-to the Manties' intrusion into an area of the Verge where they have no business poking their noses. But we can't afford to let this escalate out of control. And much as I agree with you about the degree of insanity it would require for them to take on the entire Solarian League, Volkhart, Aldona and Junyan have made excellent points of their own. I'm not prepared to risk the possibility that Manticore is crazy enough to go to the mat with us."
"Obviously, it would be a suboptimal situation for all of us if they did," Kalokainos conceded almost gracefully.
"Which brings us back to the question of silk gloves," Anisimovna pointed out.
"Yes, it does," a fair-haired, blue-eyed man agreed. Kalokainos' expression showed a certain lack of surprise at the other's support for Anisimovna.
"And should we assume you have a suggestion, Mr. Ottweiler?" he asked.
"As a matter of fact, I do," Ottweiler replied coolly. Several of the others looked at him speculatively, and he hid a smile. Aside from Verrochio and Hongbo-and, of course, Brigadier General Francisca Yucel-he was the only person in the room who legally represented a star nation. It might be only a single-system polity, but the Mesa System had far more clout than any single system normally wielded.
"With all due respect, Valery," the other man who hadn't yet spoken, Izrok Levakonic, Technodyne Industries of Yildun's representative, said mildly, "Mesa hasn't exactly been going from triumph to triumph where... managing the Manties is concerned."
"No, we haven't." It was obvious Ottweiler didn't like making the admission, but he did so without flinching. "I might point out, however, that Mesa, for several reasons," he carefully didn't look at Anisimovna or Isabel Bardasano, "is an openly declared enemy of the Star Kingdom. And however big and powerful the League may be, Mesa is only a single star system. We don't begin to have the advantage in resources which the League enjoys. And," he added, looking significantly at Verrochio and Hongbo, "in our last little fiasco at Verdant Vista, they had the backing of a sector governor. A Frontier Security sector governor, and the detachment of the SLN assigned to his sector."
"Don't blame us for that lunatic Barregos!" Verrochio snorted like an irate boar. "We'd have gotten rid of him in a heartbeat, if he hadn't made himself so politically unassailable over there in Maya."
"Of course you would have, Commissioner," Ottweiler agreed. "But that's actually part of my point. If you're not in a position to move openly against a governor in a sector which has been under OFS control for so long, then the degree of direct control we could reasonably expect you to exercise here in one of the Verge areas which hasn't yet received even protectorate status would have to be still lower."
Verrochio nodded gravely, and Anisimovna hid a mental chuckle of appreciation. Although Ottweiler officially served a duly elected government, everyone with an IQ higher than a rock's knew perfectly well that the "government" of Mesa was a wholly owned subsidiary of the interstellar corporations headquartered there. Which meant that, in a very real sense, Valery Ottweiler was Aldona Anisimovna and Isabel Bardasano's flunky. Nonetheless, the man had a natural knack she could never have matched when it came to managing career League bureaucrats like Verrochio.
I suppose I just don't have the patience to pretend they're anything except exceptionally large hogs swilling at the trough we keep filled for them. Except, of course, that hogs are much more intelligent animals.
"So what would you recommend, Valery?" Bardasano asked, exactly as if the three of them hadn't decided on that well before this meeting ever took place.
"I think this is a situation which will require careful management and preparation," he replied. "As I see it, our problem is that the Manticorans have managed to secure the higher moral ground, from a public relations viewpoint, because of their plebiscite. In addition, they actually have at least as much physical access to Old Sol as we do, as well as much better access to the Talbott Cluster."
"Oh, come now!" Kalokainos protested. "They may have contacts with Old Earth lobbying firms and media outlets, but nowhere near the contacts we have!"
"There was a reason I specified physical access, Mr. Kalolkainos," Ottweiler said calmly. "Of course they can't exert the same sort of leverage we can. They've chosen to stay well away from -involvement in the League's political and bureaucratic structures, whereas we're intimately involved in both. And wealthy as they may be, they can't begin to match the resources which we, cumulatively, routinely devote to nurturing our relationships with the League's political leadership, media outlets, and civil service. They literally can't afford to, whereas we can't afford not to remain deeply and directly involved in our own economic and political system. All I said is that they have at least as much physical access as we do. We can't shut that access off, and we can't predict what they'll do with it-not with certainty. All of which implies that we have to do something to pull their political teeth before we make any open move to discredit the validity of their plebiscite.
"As far as Talbott is concerned," he continued in that same, reasonable tone, "they can move units back and forth to the Cluster almost instantly from their home system, whereas it would take us literally months to deploy any substantial additional fleet strength to the area. Assuming, of course, that we could convince the Navy to send us additional units in the first place. And on top of all of that, as we've just agreed, the Manticoran Wormhole Junction gives them a dangerous amount of economic leverage."
No one disagreed with his analysis. In fact, one or two people-noticeably Volkhart Kalokainos-nodded in obvious impatience at his recitation of well-worn facts.
"So," he continued, "it seems to me we have to find a way to offset as many of their advantages as possible. My own area of expertise is politics, so I'd like to address the problem from a political perspective. I'm sure some of the rest of you would be in a better position to comment on the strictly military and economic aspects of the situation."
He flashed a slight smile, and Verrochio nodded with an air of august approval.
"Obviously," Ottweiler continued, "as Isabel has already pointed out, we can't a
ttack the plebiscite as a ploy on their part without some careful preparation, unless we're prepared to risk raising questions about our own use of plebiscites to legitimize Frontier Security's extension. No one would thank us for doing anything which would call the validity of our own previous plebiscites into dispute, after all.
"So any attack on the Manties' plebiscite has to be framed in terms of the honesty or dishonesty with which the votes were counted. In addition, it has to take into consideration the fact that the vote tallies have already been reported in the League 'faxes. The very fact that the totals have been reported at all is going to give the officially announced outcome a degree of legitimacy in the view of most League citizens. And unlike most neobarbs, the Manties can put their own talking heads onto Old Earth for the talk shows just as easily as we can, so we need to attack the results in a way which puts them firmly on the defensive from the outset."
"Agreed," Hongbo Junyan said when Ottweiler paused. "And just how do you propose to accomplish this notable feat?"
"Let's assume for the moment the votes actually were counted honestly," Ottweiler said. In fact, as everyone in the conference room knew, the count had been honest. "Even so, it wasn't unanimous. Saying eighty percent of the registered voters voted in favor of seeking annexation is just another way of saying twenty percent of them voted against it, now isn't it?"
Heads nodded, and he shrugged.
"Well, I'd be extremely surprised if somewhere in that twenty percent there aren't quite a few radical loonies prepared to resist annexation. Possibly even by force."
You actually managed to make it sound as if we hadn't already done our research, Valery, Anisimovna thought admiringly.
"I think you could safely rely upon that, Mr. Ottweiler," Brigadier Yucel said. As the commander of the Solarian Gendarmerie assigned to Commissioner Verrochio, Yucel was charged with intelligence operations in and around his area of responsibility.
"Actually," she continued, "there are several groups which are already coalescing into potential resistance movements." She grimaced. The Gendarmerie had been keeping an eye on those same groups because they were the ones which would have been most likely to resist an OFS occupation of the Cluster.
"If-speaking purely hypothetically, you understand-" Ottweiler said with a conspiratorial smile, "if those groups were to rise up in heroic resistance to the Manticoran imperialists who shamelessly rigged the vote, thus depriving them of their sacred right of self-determination, surely the Office of Frontier Security's mandate would require it to carefully examine the legitimacy of the original vote, just as it rigorously examines the results of its own plebiscites.
"And," his smile turned into something any shark might have envied, "if media reports of the Talbott fighting were properly framed by journalists attuned to the grim realities of the freedom fighters' struggle to reclaim their stolen independence, it could, ah, offset much of the advantage the Beowulf Terminus' proximity to Sol gives the Manties. Talking heads may be impressive, but the League's public is sophisticated enough-one might almost say cynical enough-to know official representatives spin the truth to suit their own ends. And body bags, burning buildings, and bombing attacks, all absolutely genuine and captured on HD for the evening news, are more impressive than any talking head ever seen. If the Talbott freedom fighters figure out how to get that message out, the League's citizenry might well begin to recognize the difference between our own scrupulously fair and painstakingly honest plebiscites and the crooked, put-up affair the Manticorans have attempted to get away with."
"You know, I rather like that," Izrok Levakonic mused. The small, wiry man had a darkly sardonic face, and his smile held an edge of true whimsy. "It sounds so... noble of us."
"Indeed," Verrochio said a bit repressively. The OFS commissioner felt more comfortable scuttling about on the undersides of bureaucratic rocks. People willing to stand in the open and admit they were dedicated to gaming the system made him uneasy.
"Of course," Yucel said thoughtfully, her dark eyes intent, "for those selfless patriots to make their resistance effective, they'd require access to weapons. Possibly even financial support." She looked across the conference table at Anisimovna and Bardasano, and the Manpower representative smiled gravely.
"I'm sure they would," she said, and Yucel nodded ever so slightly.
"And what if the Manties stomp all over these 'freedom fighters' of yours?" Kalokainos demanded. Of all of those around the table, only his expression might have been called sour.
"That would be... difficult," Yucel said. "Not impossible, mind you, Mr. Kalokainos. But difficult. They'd have to have both the political will and the physical means to do so. I'm not sure they would have the will in the first place, since they'd discover fairly quickly that they couldn't do the job without a certain amount of bloodshed. My impression is that Manties are more tough-minded than your typical Solly, but they don't have much experience with the inevitable unpleasant consequences of imperial expansion. The Andermani would probably be prepared to handle whatever had to be handled; I'm not sure Manties would be.
"Even if they were, though, they'd need the means, and given all their other current military commitments, I'd have to question whether or not they could free up the ships and troops to deal quickly and effectively with this sort of resistance."
Anisimovna nodded, although she wasn't certain she was prepared to trust Yucel's analysis completely. The Gendarmerie brigadier was undoubtedly intelligent-more so than Verrochio, certainly, and probably more so than Hongbo. But she was also willfully brutal. Manpower's private reports strongly suggested Yucel had been transferred to Verrochio's backwater because her penchant for sadism had acquired just a bit too much notoriety in her last posting.
Whether or not that was true, there wasn't much question that her idea of how to suppress resistance involved the maximum application of force at the earliest possible point in order to provide examples which would terrify any potential resistors into submission. Or that she thought anyone who didn't share her own approach was weak-willed and contemptible.
"I think we can take it as a given that any resistance movements which acquired significant amounts of outside financial support and weapons would, at the very least, be expensive and bloody to suppress," Anisimovna said. "And all we'd really need to bring the legitimacy of the plebiscite into question would be enough violence to let us put the proper spin on our investigation."
"You may be right," Kalokainos conceded, manifestly against his will. "Even so, though, it would take something more than a mere guerrilla war to turn public opinion around. Especially given all those Manty contacts with Old Earth we've just been talking about."
"We don't have to completely turn it around," Ottweiler replied. "All we really need is to create enough skepticism to turn the Talbott Cluster into just one more batch of Verge neobarbs being taken over by another batch of neobarbs. The Manties may've been able to present a civilized facade, but that's already taken a major hit because of their confrontation with Haven. The media's been all over the Peeps'-excuse me, the Havenites' reform efforts. And those idiots in the High Ridge Government ignored Old Earth almost as completely as they did Haven itself. They made no effort to prevent the Havenite reformers from becoming very well regarded by the Solly public, and the Alexander Government has embarked on a clear policy of imperialist expansion in Silesia. The same thing's clearly happening in Talbott, obviously against the will of a significant percentage of the Cluster's citizens. Civilized facade or no, that sort of raw aggression against star systems too weak to defend themselves amply demonstrates Manticore itself is a neobarb nation. What else could you expect from an outright monarchy, after all?" He shrugged. "Once the situation is framed in those terms, Frontier Security would almost be expected to intervene."
"Which doesn't magically overcome the point you yourself made a few minutes ago about the Manties' military advantages," Kalokainos argued. "We may be able to create-I beg your pardon, discover-
a situation which would let us justify military intervention in public relations terms. But getting the actual firepower to do it with, or convincing the Manties to back down, is another matter entirely."
Anisimovna quirked a sardonic eyebrow at him, and he flushed.
"I stand by my original analysis," he said defensively. "I still think it would be insane of the Manties to take on the League Navy. But certain other people at this conference have gone to some lengths to argue we can't count on their agreeing with me about that. So I'm simply pointing out that if we can't count on it, we still need to find a way to neutralize the possibility, however remote it might be."
"I think Valery's proposals would radically shift the parameters of the situation," Anisimovna replied in a reasonable voice. "And I think Brigadier Yucel's suggestion that the Star Kingdom's citizens might lack the stomach for what effective suppression of this sort of resistance would entail also has merit. But even if both of them are wrong and Manticore is prepared to deploy the warships and Marines required to crush the resistance and to forcibly resist any effort by Frontier Security to... stabilize the situation, what do we lose? How are we any worse off then, than we are right now? After all, there's no law of nature which would force us to push matters to an actual military confrontation if we chose not to."
David Weber - Honor17 - Shadow of Saganami Page 8
