by David Weber
"About as often as I do," the Jessyk agent agreed with a chuckle.
"If that," FitzGerald replied. "At any rate, Mr. Clinton, let me thank you once again." He paused for a moment, then shrugged. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Monican customs procedures. Since we're only passing through, will there be any problem with my sending a shuttle down just long enough to hand over the message chip to you or one of your representatives?"
"As long as you're not landing or transshipping any cargo here, I shouldn't think so," Clinton assured him. "If you'd like, I can have my secretary meet your shuttle at the pad. If your crewman hands it to him through the hatch while the pad Customs agent watches to be sure we're not smuggling any laser heads or nukes back and forth, there's no reason for him to even board it."
"I'd deeply appreciate it if you could do that," FitzGerald said with absolute sincerity.
"No problem. Our offices are right here at the port. My secretary can hop over to the pad in five, ten minutes at most. I'll contact traffic control to get your pad number and have him waiting."
"Thank you again," FitzGerald said. "Kalokainos is going to owe you a pretty sizable return favor someday. I'll instruct Lieutenant Kidd to pass the chip to your man." He paused again, then cocked his head. "Tell me, Mr. Clinton, how do you feel about Terran whiskey?"
"Why, I'm quite partial to it, Captain Teach."
"Well, I just happen to have a case of genuine Daniels-Beam Grand Reserve in my personal cabin stores," FitzGerald told him. "Do you suppose your Customs agent would object to Lieutenant Kidd's passing a bottle of that along to you with the chip?"
"Captain," Clinton said with an enormous smile, "if he were so foolish as to object to an innocent little gift like that, he'd be off my payroll in a heartbeat!"
"I thought that might be the case." FitzGerald grinned. "Consider it a small token of my appreciation for your assistance."
It was obvious Clinton found the "small token" eminently acceptable, and no wonder, FitzGerald thought as they completed their conversation with protestations of mutual respect and indebtedness. A bottle of Daniels-Beam Grand Reserve went for about two hundred Manticoran dollars. This particular bottle came from Captain Terekhov's personal supply, and FitzGerald hoped Clinton would enjoy it thoroughly.
Especially in light of what was probably going to happen to the Jessyk agent's career when his employers figured out what Copenhagen had really been up to in Monica. It wouldn't exactly be fair of them to blame Clinton for not realizing what was happening, but Mesan-headquartered businesses weren't particularly noted for their passionate attachment to the concept of fairness.
He glanced at the time display again. Right on schedule. In fact, they might be doing just a bit too well, especially if the Customs agent was going to be as obliging as Clinton thought. Well, that was all right. He could always find some reason to spend an extra few minutes in orbit before heading back out for the hyper limit. Or to accelerate just a tad more slowly than he had on the way in.
Copenhagen wouldn't be leaving on a direct reciprocal of her arrival vector. Instead, she would head away from the system primary almost at right angles to her initial approach. There was no reason anyone should be suspicious, since he'd be filing a flight plan for the Howard System, but it would substantially reduce the total distance the recon drone would be forced to travel to return to the ship which had launched it.
* * *
The recon drone continued upon its unhurried way. Its passive sensors quivered like enormously sensitive cat's whiskers, and evasion programs waited patiently to steer it away from any vessel or sensor platform it detected which might have detected it, in turn. No such threats revealed themselves, and the drone brought its forward progress gradually to halt, fifteen light-seconds from the naval shipyard known as Eroica Station.
The tiny, stealthy spy hovered there in the vast emptiness, imitating—with a remarkable degree of success—a hole in space. Passive sensors, including optical ones, peered incuriously but painstakingly at the bustling activity around the space station. Ships and mobile spacedocks were counted, emission signatures (where available) were meticulously recorded. Moving vessels were scanned most closely of all, and careful note was taken of the two enormous repair ships sharing Eroica Station's solar orbit.
The drone spent fifteen of its twenty-four available minutes in silent, intense activity. Then it turned away, activating its impeller wedge once more, and went creeping off towards its scheduled rendezvous with Copenhagen with nine precious minutes in reserve against unforeseen contingencies.
Had it been capable of such things, it would undoubtedly have felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
But it wasn't, of course.
Chapter Fifty-Four
HMS Hercules departed Flax orbit exactly eight hours and thirty-six minutes after Rear Admiral Khumalo's meeting with the Provisional Government.
It was unlikely that the elderly superdreadnought had ever taken such precipitous leave of a star system in her entire previous career. Captain Victoria Saunders had certainly never expected to do so, and she felt more than a little out of breath at the sheer whirlwind energy which Khumalo and Loretta Shoupe had brought to the task of getting her ship and every other hyper-capable RMN unit in the Spindle System underway.
Saunders stood beside the captain's chair on her command deck, hands folded behind her, and watched the master plot as Hercules, the light cruisers Devastation and Inspired, and the destroyers Victorious, Ironside, and Domino accelerated steadily away from Flax. Ericsson, her sister ship White, and the ammunition ships Petard and Holocaust followed in the warships' wakes, and Khumalo had commandeered five additional dispatch boats. It was, at best, a lopsided and ill-balanced "squadron," although Hercules certainly looked impressive as its flagship. Unless, of course, one knew all of the old ship's manifold weaknesses as well as Saunders did.
But she's still a damned superdreadnought, Khumalo's flag captain told herself. And we're still the Queen's Navy. And I will be damned if Augustus Khumalo hasn't actually remembered that.
She shook her head, bemused and, to her own astonishment, proud of her Admiral. She'd skimmed Terekhov's dispatches—she hadn't had time to actually read them—and she couldn't decide whether Terekhov had brilliantly deduced the essentials of a complex plot or whether he was a raving lunatic. But if he was right, if the Republic of Monica really was in bed with the Jessyk Combine—which meant with Manpower—then he was probably also in for the fight of his life.
Which is saying quite a bit, given what he went through at Hyacinth.
In fact, it was possible, perhaps even probable, that if his fears were justified, Aivars Terekhov would be dead long before Hercules and her mismatched consorts ever got to Monica. For that matter, it was possible Khumalo's relief force might find itself destroyed, as well. But whatever happened to Terekhov, or to them, the Admiralty would have been warned, and the Republic of Monica would damned well find out that it should never have screwed with the Star Kingdom of Manticore.
"Excuse me, Ma'am."
Saunders turned towards the voice. It belonged to Commander Richard Gaunt, her executive officer.
"Yes, Dick?"
"The last of the personnel shuttles will be coming aboard in approximately ninety minutes, Ma'am," he said.
"Good, Dick. Good!" She smiled. "Do we have a headcount yet?"
"It looks like the shore patrol managed to round up just about everyone," he replied. "At last count we're about six warm bodies short, but for all I know, they could be aboard one of the other ships, given how frantic this entire departure's being."
"Tell me about it," she said feelingly, looking at the repeater plot that showed the ungainly gaggle of shuttles and pinnaces streaming after the squadron. It was unheard of for a Queen's ship to pull out so abruptly a sizable percentage of her company had to chase after her this way. But at least Hercules' acceleration rate was low enough the small craft wouldn't have much trouble overtaking her.
>
"Ma'am?" Gaunt's voice was much lower, and she looked back at him, one eyebrow arched.
"Do you really think all of this," he continued, still pitching his voice too low for anyone else to hear, and gesturing at the icons moving steadily across the plot, "is necessary?"
"I don't have any idea, Dick," she told him frankly. "But I did have the chance to look over Terekhov's projected ops schedule. If everything's going the way he projected, his kidnapped Solly freighter got to Monica about sixteen hours ago. Terekhov'll be arriving at his rendezvous—this 'Point Midway' of his—in about another seventy-two hours, and the freighter will meet him there about a week later. Call it ten standard days from now. And if he decides on the basis of its report to move directly on Monica, he can be there in another six days or so. We, on the other hand, can't reach Monica for twenty-five days. So, if he goes ahead, whatever he does is going to be over, one way or the other, at least one full T-week before we can possibly get there."
"I can't believe he'd really be crazy enough to pull something like that, Ma'am," Gaunt said, shaking his head. "He must know we're coming—the glory hound didn't leave us any choice about that! Surely he's not so far gone he won't wait one more week if it means the difference between going in unsupported and arriving with backup."
Saunders regarded her XO with a slight, rare frown. Gaunt was an efficient executive officer, the sort who always got the details right and developed an almost uncanny ability to anticipate his CO's desires. But he was also a stickler for sometimes petty details, and he had a powerful attachment to doing things by The Book. A certain . . . narrowness, coupled with an aversion to risk taking. He disliked the "glory hounds," a term he used a bit too easily for her taste, and Victoria Saunders had come to question whether or not he had the combination of flexibility and moral courage to wear the white beret of a starship commander. Especially in a war like the present one.
His last comment had just settled the question, and she was guiltily aware that an executive officer was what he would remain. That was what happened when a CO endorsed an officer's evaluation with the fatal words "Not recommended for independent command."
"Perhaps you're right," she said, looking at the man whose career she'd just decided to kill.
He wasn't, of course. But there was no point trying to explain that to someone of his seniority who didn't already understand.
* * *
"It's Copenhagen, all right, Sir," Naomi Kaplan announced.
"Thank you, Guns," Terekhov said calmly, and Helen glanced sideways at Paulo. The two midshipmen stood beside Lieutenant Commander Wright, where he'd been running through the results of their latest astrogation quiz on one of his secondary plots. Now Paulo met her gaze with no more than the micrometric elevation of one sculpted eyebrow.
It was the tiniest expression shift imaginable, but to Helen, it might as well have been a shout. She'd come more or less to grips with her emotions where he was concerned, although she wasn't positive he'd done the same for her. It didn't really matter. One thing the Neue-Stil Handgemenge taught was patience, and she was willing to wait.
She'd get him in the end. Even if she had to use some of that same Neue-Stil to beat him into submission.
She pushed that thought aside—or, rather, into a convenient pigeonhole for later consideration—and returned his lifted eyebrow with an abbreviated nod of her own. They were in agreement. The Captain couldn't possibly be as calm as he sounded.
The Squadron (everyone was calling it that now . . . except the Captain) floated in the absolute darkness of interstellar space, over six light-years from the nearest star. Starships seldom visited that abyss of emptiness, for there was nothing there to attract them. But it made a convenient rendezvous, so isolated and lost in the enormity of the universe that even God would have been hard-pressed to find them.
Many of Hexapuma's people had found the visual displays . . . disturbing over the last week or so. The emptiness here was so perfect, the darkness so Stygian, that it could get to even the most hardened spacer. Commander Lewis, for example, made a point of avoiding any of the displays, and Helen had noticed Senior Chief Wanderman watching her every once in a while. There was something going on there, she thought. Something more than the uneasiness some of the ship's company seemed to feel. Whatever it was, Lewis wasn't letting it affect her performance of her duty, but Helen had the peculiar impression that Hexapuma's Engineer would welcome even the prospect of taking on an entire system navy if it only got her away from this lonely spot which the rest of existence had forgotten.
Personally, Helen wasn't bothered a bit. In fact, she rather enjoyed her visits to the observation dome to watch the other ships of the squadron with their lights drifting against the soul-drinking dark like friendly, nearby constellations.
"Lieutenant McGraw."
Terekhov's voice pulled her back out of her reverie.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Please challenge Copenhagen."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the com officer of the watch replied, and Terekhov nodded and settled back in his command chair to wait.
Helen was confident Kaplan had identified the incoming ship correctly. And she felt equally certain Commander FitzGerald was still in command of her. But it was typical of the Captain to make absolutely certain. It was interesting. He took infinite pains, taking nothing for granted, and if she'd seen only that side of him, she'd have written him down as a slave to The Book. One of those fussy martinets who never stuck their necks out, never took a chance.
But that wasn't how the Captain's mind worked. He took such care over the details, whenever he could, because he knew he couldn't always do that. So that when the time came for the risks which must be run, he could be confident of his ship's readiness . . . and his own. Know he'd done everything he possibly could to disaster-proof his position by perfecting his weapon before the screaming chaos of battle struck.
It was a lesson worth taking to heart, she thought, trying to focus her mind on Wright's voice as the Astrogator resumed his analysis of her latest navigational effort.
* * *
"Captain on deck!"
Ginger Lewis, still officially Terekhov's acting executive officer, barked the traditional announcement as he and Ansten FitzGerald stepped through the briefing room hatch. It was a tradition Terekhov had dispensed with shortly after taking command of Hexapuma, but he wasn't surprised by Ginger's reversion to it. She had an excellent grasp of group dynamics, and she was providing him with every psychological edge she could.
Eleven men and women in that compartment, including himself, wore the white berets of starship commanders, and he saw uncertainty, concern—even fear—on some of those faces. He wondered what they saw when they looked at him?
He walked to the head of the table, FitzGerald at his shoulder, and seated himself as the XO moved behind his own chair.
"Be seated, Ladies and Gentlemen," he said.
They sat back down, and he let his eyes sweep silently around the table, looking at each of them in turn.
Anders of the Warlock, and his executive officer, George Hibachi. Both of them returned Terekhov's regard steadily. Not without concern, but without flinching. That was important. After -Terekhov himself, Ito Anders was the senior officer of the "squadron" he'd assembled.
Eleanor Hope of the Vigilant, and her XO, Lieutenant Commander Osborne Diamond. Hope looked acutely unhappy, and her eyes avoided his. Diamond was a cipher, sitting at his captain's left elbow with no more expression than the bulkhead behind him.
Commander Josepha Hewlett and Lieutenant Commander Stephen McDermott of the Gallant. Both of them looked uncomfortable; neither looked as unhappy as Hope.
Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Mavundia, Audacious' CO, and his exec, Lieutenant Commander Annemarie Atkinson. They were an unlikely looking pair. Mavundia couldn't stand a millimeter over a hundred and fifty-eight centimeters, with dark skin and a shaved head; Atkinson was almost as tall as Terekhov himself, and fair-haired and ivory-
complexioned. Yet Mavundia's expression was the closest to eager of anyone's in the compartment, and Atkinson's eyes mirrored his own determination.
Commander Herawati Lignos, CO of HMS Aegis, their most modern ship after Hexapuma. Only a light cruiser, perhaps, but still a formidable vessel. Much like her skipper, Terekhov thought, looking at Lignos' determined chin and bladelike nose. Her executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Istvan Nemesanyi, sat quietly beside her, his hazel eyes almost vacant and yet, somehow, poised on a hair trigger.
Lieutenant Commander Jeffers of the Javelin; Lieutenant Commander Maitland Naysmith of the Janissary; Lieutenant Commander Frank Hennessy of the Rondeau; and Lieutenant Bianca Rossi of the Aria completed his warships' captains. And at the foot of the table sat Commander Mira Badmachin, CO of HMS Volcano, the huge freighter which didn't mount a single offensive weapon of her own and yet was crucial to Terekhov's plans.
A mixed bag, he thought. Certainly no "band of brothers"! But they're what I have, the best I could shanghai, and they're Queen's officers. That's just going to have to be good enough.
"All of you know what Commander FitzGerald and Copenhagen were tasked to do," he began, and Commander Hope actually twitched as he broke his own silence. "The good news is that the Commander and his people appear to have accomplished their mission flawlessly. The bad news," he smiled mirthlessly at them, "is what they've discovered."
The sound of a pin dropped on the conference table would have been deafening, and he drew a deep, unobtrusive breath.
"Copenhagen's recon drone executed its mission profile to the letter, Ladies and Gentlemen. Its passive sensors swept the volume through which it passed for active impeller wedges and examined the area of Eroica Station very carefully. Its data indicates that the Monica System Navy has been what might be called 'substantially reinforced.' In fact, the drone positively identified eleven Indefatigable-class battlecruisers at Eroica Station."
Something very like an audible gasp ran around the table, but he continued speaking calmly.
