by David Weber
"Hm." Cromarty frowned at the other end of the com link, his eyes thoughtful. Clearly the idea of reinforcing Yeltsin appealed to him, and he pondered it for several seconds, then nodded. "All right, I think I should suggest it. But you said you had 'a couple of thoughts.' What's the other one?"
"Unless I'm mistaken, Michael Mayhew's right here on Manticore. I know he's enrolled for graduate work at King's College—has he left because of the crisis?"
The Prime Minister stiffened, then shook his head, and White Haven shrugged. "In that case, you've got access to Protector Benjamin's heir, effectively the crown prince of Grayson. It wouldn't be the same as talking to their head of state, but it would certainly be the next best thing."
"... so I'm sure you can see why I asked you to visit me, Lord Mayhew," the Duke of Cromarty said quietly. "My senior officers all agree that this represents our best strategic option, but it necessarily means exposing your homeworld to enormous risk. And because of the time pressures involved, there is quite literally no time to discuss it with Protector Benjamin."
Michael Mayhew nodded. He looked (and was) absurdly young for a graduate student, even on Manticore. In fact, he was young enough his body could still accept the original, first-generation prolong treatments, something which had been unavailable to Grayson's isolated people before they joined the Alliance. Now Cromarty watched that youthful face frown in thought and wondered if Grayson was ready for the longevity its children were about to inherit.
"I see the problem, Sir," Mayhew said at last. He exchanged glances with the Grayson ambassador and shrugged. "I don't see that we have a lot of choice, Andrew."
"I wish we could speak directly to the Protector about it," the ambassador worried, and Mayhew shrugged again.
"I do, too, but I think I know what he'd say." He turned back to Cromarty, and his young eyes were level. "Your Grace, my brother knew what he was getting into when he chose to ally with Manticore rather than be digested by Haven—or, worse yet, Masada. We've always known that when the showdown finally came we'd be caught in the middle, so if we're going to be attacked anyway, anything that improves our chances of winning has to be worth trying. Besides," he finished simply, a flash of genuine warmth lighting those steady eyes, "we owe you."
"So you think we should go ahead?"
"I do. In fact, as Steadholder Mayhew and heir to the Protectorship, I formally request that you do so, Mr. Prime Minister."
"I don't believe it," Sir Thomas Caparelli murmured. He folded the short, terse, handwritten directive, and slid it back into the envelope with the bright yellow and black security flashes. He dropped them both into the disposal slot on his desk, then looked up at Patricia Givens. "Less than five hours, and we've got the go-ahead."
"We do?" Even Givens sounded surprised, and Caparelli snorted a laugh.
"More than that, he's directed us to up the stakes." He slid a sketched out deployment order across the desk to her and tipped back his chair as she scanned it.
"Four squadrons?" Givens murmured, absently twisting a lock of brown hair around an index finger. "That's quite a diversion."
"You can say that again—and all superdreadnoughts." Caparelli smiled a bit sourly. "That's twenty-six percent of Home Fleets superdreadnoughts. If we get hit here while they're out there—" He broke off and waved both hands in a throwaway gesture, and Givens pursed her lips.
"Maybe, Sir. Then again, maybe not. It won't exactly leave us uncovered, and if the Peeps buy our fake redeployments, they'll run into over sixty superdreadnoughts they think are somewhere else."
"I know." Caparelli frowned a moment longer, then nodded. "All right, let's get this set up. And I guess we'd better send along a flag officer with the seniority for that big a reinforcement."
"Who did you have in mind, Sir?"
"Who else?" Caparelli's sour smile was back. "It'll almost have to be White Haven, won't it?"
"White Haven?" Givens couldn't quite hide her surprise. Not only did she know Caparelli and White Haven disliked one another, but White Haven was currently second in command of Home Fleet, as well.
"White Haven," Caparelli repeated. "I know it'll make a hole in Webster's command structure, but so will the squadrons we're taking away from him. And White Haven not only has the seniority and the savvy to command them, he's also our most popular officer—after Harrington—in Grayson eyes."
"True, Sir. But he's senior to Admiral D'Orville, as well. That means he'll supersede the man on the spot when he arrives. Will that cause problems?"
"I don't think so." Caparelli thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I'm certain it won't. He and D'Orville have been friends for years, and they both know how critical the situation is. Besides—" the First Space Lord bared his teeth in a mirthless smile "—there ought to be plenty of crap to fall on both of them, even if this works."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Admiral Parnell entered the DuQuesne war room briskly despite the late hour. No one looking at him would have thought he'd had less than three hours sleep, but Parnell himself was naggingly aware of his fatigue. He considered—again—taking a stim tab, but if he did that he'd never get back to sleep again. Better to see what hot coffee could accomplish first.
Commodore Perot was already there, and he turned quickly, a message board tucked under his arm, at his boss's approach.
"This better be important, Russell." Parnell's tone was only half joking, and Perot nodded.
"I know, Sir. I wouldn't have bothered you if I didn't think it was." Perot's voice was calm, but he tilted his head to one side, inviting the admiral into one of the high-security briefing rooms, and surprise raised Parnell's eyebrows before he could stop them.
Perot closed the door behind them, shutting out the war room's background murmur, and punched a complicated security code into the message board before pressing his thumb to the scanner. The display blinked obediently to life, and he passed it to the admiral without a word.
Parnell frowned at the diplomatic corps header, then glanced at the text and stiffened. He sank into a chair, running his eyes slowly back over the terse sentences, and felt the rags of weariness blowing away from his brain.
"My God, Sir. They've done it," Perot said softly.
"Maybe," Parnell said more warily, but his own exultation warred with his caution. He laid the message board on the desk and rubbed his temple. "How reliable is this source of Ambassador Gowan's?"
"No intelligence source can ever be absolutely guaranteed, Sir, but everything this one's ever given us has panned out, and—"
"Which could mean they know all about him and they've been setting us up for the big one," Parnell interrupted dryly.
"That's always the problem with spies, Sir," Perot agreed. "In this case, however, we have some additional intelligence to support him." Parnell raised an eyebrow, and Perot shrugged. "If you scroll to the next page of the Ambassadors dispatch, you'll see that both of the Home Fleet detachments mentioned in his source's initial report departed almost exactly on the schedule he gave us, and their headings matched his version of their orders. Gowan had a day or two to work his other contacts, too, and some of the personnel involved were fairly loose-lipped. Three of his people—two restaurant workers and a barber, all on Hephaestus—report overhearing customers complaining about being ordered clear out to Grendelsbane."
"What sort of customers?" Parnell asked intently.
"Enlisted and noncom, Sir—not officers. And they were all regular patrons." Perot shook his head. "They certainly weren't ringers brought in for the occasion, so unless we want to assume Gowan's entire network's been broken and Manty intelligence knew exactly who to have gossip in front of who—" The chief of staff broke off with a shrug.
"Um." Parnell stared back down at the message board, wanting to believe and fighting his own desires. If only they'd been able to extend the Argus net to Yeltsin! But there hadn't been enough time to set it up—even assuming the seething deep-space activity in Yeltsin had
n't ruled it out. The Graysons seemed intent on smelting down every asteroid in the system for their orbital and planetary projects, and ONI had decided they were too likely to stumble over one of the sensor platforms, however heavily stealthed, and blow the entire Argus operation. Which meant he didn't have the same look into Yeltsin. Maybe that was his problem. He'd gotten used to more detailed intelligence than he had any right to expect.
"Anything from Rollins?" he asked.
"No, Sir." Perot glanced at the time and date display on the wall and made a face. "The Argus ships can't maintain a guaranteed schedule, but if they're running as close as they usually do, he should have gotten the latest dump from Hancock no later than yesterday."
"Which means seventeen more days before we get it," Parnell grunted.
He leaned back, nibbling on his lower lip. Seventeen days was far too long to wait. Barnett was a hundred and forty-six light-years from Yeltsin, a three-week trip for superdreadnoughts, and his window was barely twenty-six days wide. He couldn't possibly delay his decision until he had Rollins' report, and, by the same token, if he went, he'd have to go in without Admiral Ruiz's three battle squadrons, still en route to Barnett. He could substitute the two squadrons his original deployment plan had assigned to reinforce Seaford, then send all of Ruiz's to Seaford to replace them... but if Ruiz was delayed, Rollins might come up painfully short against his objective.
He nibbled harder. The master plan envisioned hitting Yeltsin in overwhelming force for the express purpose of isolating and destroying any Manty units stationed there as the first step in demoralizing and grinding away the RMN. If Caparelli really had pulled four squadrons out, then the size of the prize had been cut roughly in half, assuming their original estimates of the Yeltsin deployment were accurate, and he hated to give up the extra kills. On the other hand, the morale effect might be even greater, since a smaller force might well be completely annihilated without any substantial Havenite losses. And a part of him would actually prefer to go in against relatively weaker opposition until he'd had a chance to evaluate the technical differential firsthand.
Available combat reports indicated it was at least as bad as he'd feared, possibly even worse, which made it tempting to stack the numerical odds as heavily in his favor as he could until he knew for certain.
The worst part was that it would mean reshuffling the entire operation on very short notice. His own forces and those at Seaford had been intended to act in concert, moving simultaneously in accordance with final attack orders issued from Barnett. If he moved now, the war would begin the instant he entered Yeltsin space, and he was too ignorant of the situation in the Seaford-Hancock area to be certain Rollins had sufficient superiority—even with Ruiz—to carry out his part of the plan.
He sighed and rubbed his temple again. This was the entire reason he'd moved his HQ to DuQuesne Base in the first place, he told himself—and also the reason President Harris had authorized him to use his own judgment for the final timing. But he'd expected a more gradual buildup, not this last minute, lightning-bolt change in the data available to him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then inhaled sharply and let his chair snap upright.
"We'll go for it," he said crisply.
"Yes, Sir." Suppressed excitement quivered in Perot's voice, but he, too, was a professional. "And Admiral Rollins, Sir?"
"Get a courier boat to him. Send two, in case something happens to one of them. Tell him we'll be departing with our full available strength within forty-eight hours."
"Our full strength, Sir?"
"Less Admiral Coatsworth's Seaford task group," Parnell amended. He plucked at his chin, then nodded. "If they've pulled that much out, we don't need to raid the Seaford detachment to take them at better than two-to-one odds. On the other hand, we don't know the exact situation in Rollins' sector. He may need more muscle than we originally assumed, so tell him the originally assigned elements will depart from Barnett to join him within eight days or as soon as Admiral Ruiz arrives, whichever is sooner. I'll leave orders attaching Ruiz to Coatsworth—that'll thicken up Rollins' order of battle, just in case."
"Yes, Sir." Perot was punching notes into his memo pad at a furious rate.
"As soon as you get those dispatches off, dig out Base Ops. I'll give them forty-eight hours if I have to, but don't tell them that. If at all possible, I want to be ready to roll within twenty-four. Make sure they copy all of our Yeltsin simulations to each battle squadron. I want to run them backwards and forwards on our way to the target."
"Yes, Sir."
"And be sure to specifically instruct Admiral Coatsworth to send a courier to Rollins before he actually departs. I know he'll do it anyway, but make it official. Rollins has to know his schedule—and whether or not Ruiz is with him—to coordinate his own movements, and we can't afford any screw-ups when we're changing plans on the fly this way."
"Yes, Sir."
"After that, we'll have to inform the President. I'll record the dispatch while you start everything else in motion, and I'll need another courier to get it back to Haven."
This time Perot merely nodded, fingers still tapping notes into his memo pad, and the admiral smiled thinly.
"I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public Information and the history books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the truth wouldn't sound too good."
"The truth, Sir?"
"The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless. Somehow I don't think even Public Information could turn that into good copy."
"Maybe not, Sir... but it certainly sums up my feelings nicely. On the other hand—"
"On the other hand, we've got them by the short and curlies, assuming our data's reliable," Parnell agreed. He shook himself and stood. "Well, even if it isn't, we should see them in time to hyper the hell out. In any case, we've got to go find out one way or the other."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The small, nondescript man in Robert Pierre's office didn't look like an ogre. Oscar Saint-Just was a mild-mannered man who neither raised his voice, drank, nor swore. He had a wife and two lovely children, and he dressed like some low-level bureaucrat.
He was also First Undersecretary for Internal Security, Constance Palmer-Levy's second in command, and his mild voice had sent more people than even he could count into oblivion.
"I take it no one knows you're here?" Pierre leaned back behind his desk, raising his eyebrows in question as he waved at an empty chair.
"You should have more faith in me, Rob," Saint-Just said reprovingly.
"At this particular moment, my faith in people runs a poor second to my growing paranoia." Pierre's tone was dry, but an edge of humor flickered deep within it, and Saint-Just smiled.
"Understandable, understandable," he murmured. He settled back and crossed his legs. "May I assume you invited me over to tell me things are more or less on schedule?"
"Considerably more than less. Commodore Danton's come through with the weapons and the shuttles right on schedule."
"Excellent!" Saint-Just allowed himself to smile, then cocked his head to one side. "And the manpower to use them?"
"Cordelia Ransom's picked the CRU cells we need and cut them out of the normal CRU loop. She's got them running sims now, but I don't intend to release any actual hardware until we're closer to moving."
"And does Ransom understand the need for the, ah, cleanup details? Her InSec dossier suggests she's genuinely committed, Rob. Are we going to have to clean her up, too?"
"No." Pierre shook his head, and his own mouth tightened in distaste for the essentials of his own plan. "She understands how it has to work, and, as you say, she's committed. She's willing to make sacrifices to bring this off, but I suspect we're going to have to give her the Treasury afterward."
"I can live with that," Saint-Just observed.
"So can I—at least as long as she really does understand the need for gradualism, a
nd I think she does."
"If you're satisfied, I'm satisfied." Saint-Just rubbed his upper lip thoughtfully. "And Constance?"
"That part of the plan is ready to go right now— thanks, again, to Cordelia." Pierre smiled. "She didn't have to work around anyone to bring it off, either. The CRU's Central Action Committee jumped at the thought of it, crisis or no crisis. I'm afraid Constance hasn't made herself as popular with them as she could have since Frankel's assassination."
"Neither have I," Saint-Just said quietly. "I do trust they won't try for a double-header in an excess of enthusiasm?"
"If I thought there was any chance of that, I would've intervened personally." Pierre shook his head. "No, Cordelia's stressing the need to give 'InSec's storm-troopers'—that's you, Oscar—'time to reflect on the People's object lesson.' She's really quite good at agit-prop, you know. Perhaps we can convince her to take Public Information instead of the Treasury."
"I'll leave the political maneuvers up to you. Security and tactics I understand, politics—" Saint-Just shrugged and raised his hands, palms up, and Pierre bared his teeth.
"Politics, as practiced in the People's Republic, are about to change quite drastically, Oscar. For the foreseeable future, I think you may understand the new rules much better than President Harris ever would have."
Kevin Usher slithered quietly across the roof of Rochelle Tower, trying not to wince as the rest of his team followed him. The imagery of his low-light goggles gave the tower's top a shimmery surrealism, but he'd trained with them long enough to be comfortable with that. It was the ungodly—and unavoidable—racket of the rest of his team that worried him.
