by David Weber
He was the last one left in his offices in Government House--not surprisingly, at this hour of the night. The staffTrevayne had assigned to him had all gone home, leaving him to cope with the effects of Xandau's damned, long day as best he could. Ever since he'd arrived, he'd felt as if he'd stayed up far too late. Which, he decided, he really had in this case. He switched off the light and started to leave, but stopped on seeing the figure silhouetted in the door to the still-lighted outer office.
"Good evening, Kevin," Miriam Ortega said.
"May I come in?" "Certainly." He turned on the desk lamp and waved at a chair, sitting back down himself. They sat on opposite sides of the bright pool of light, and Government House was quiet around them.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, thinking this was the first he'd seen of her since Trevayne had departed for the Fleet exercise.
She got out a cigarette, and he automatically reached across with an antique desk lighter. The spill of light from the small flame glowed on her bold features as she puffed the tobacco alight.
Blue smoke spiraled through the island of light and vanished into the surrounding darkness.
"Well," she said around the cigarette, "I was wondering ff you were ready to tell me what you weren't telling us aboard the Nelson." Sanders almost dropped the lighter.
"Whatever do you mean?" he asked warily.
Miriam sat back and blew smoke in his direction with a gently malicious smile uncannily like that he sometimes saw in his mirror.
"When you and Ian discussed this offensive, I couldn't help noticing a slight discrepancy between what he said and what you said," she said. "He took it for granted that reopening contact with the Innerwodds was the first step in a final campaign to force the rebels back into the fold. And you never corrected him. But "she gave him the same smile once more his-comy never actually said that, did you? The closest you came was... oh, how did you phrase it... 'putting an end to this war." At the time, I thought it might just be the nit-picking lawyer in me, which was one reason I didn't mention it. But now I've gotten to know you better than that, Kevin. No matter how glib and charming you may be, you never say anythineaeaong--or leave anything out--without a damned disgd reason.
Sanders savored a number of unaccustomed sensations and stalled while he collected his thoughts.
"Why else have you waited so long to mention this?" "I've been waiting for a chance to talk to you alone.
I have a strong sense that, underneath all your game-playing, you wish Ian well. So I'm giving you a chance to explain. your reasons for letting him jump to a false conclusion. And," she finished pointedly, "you're stfil stalling." He capitulated. "You know, Miriam, I've see enough since I've been here to realize who the real power in the Provisional Government is. Now I begin to see why. Very well, I'll make a dean breast. What I said aboard Nelson was absolutely true, so far as it went. The offensive wl begin on schedule, and its objective sts to open up a warp connection between the Innerworlds and the Rim. But once that's done, Prime Minister Dieter plans to offer the rebels a peace settlement based on acceptance of the status quo. The comesult will be a Terran Republic consisting of all the Fringe Worlds-- except those we'll have seized to serve as the corridor we need--and a Federation shaped rather like a dumbbell." (he was speaking in terms of the layout of the warp network. If the Federation he described had been charted in actual three-dimensional space, it would have resembled a geometrician's opium dream. But she understood.) "And they'll accept it. What I said about the combined military potential of the two loyal segments of the Federation was also true." "How do you know all this?" "I don't--not officially. But I've worked closely enough with the PM to learn how his mind works.
Also," he added with his most impish grin, "I have my own sources. Deviousness, my dear, has its uses." "Of course," she observed drvlv.
She was a strng woman, he t'hggught.
Despite her suspicions, confirmation of exactly what he'd been holding baek must have been quite a shock, yet she was adapting nicely. He folded his hands neatly on his blotter and awaited her response with interest.
Miriam sat back to digest his words. As always with Sanders, it was wheels within wheels. She doubted that she could ever fully understand this sophisticated old man from a sophisticated old planet. But her instincts continued to tell her that he was fundamentally a friend to Ian, which made him at least an ally of hers.
She noticed that her cigarette had burned low and stubbed it out, selecting another one. She glared down at it for a moment. She really ought to cut back on the damned things.., to hell with it. She lit up.
"Kevin, you must know that lan and I are... close. What makes you think I won't tell him all this?" Sanders leaned forward into the pool of light. His blue eyes were disconcertingly sharp.
"You won't tell him for the same reasons I haven't. Our mutual friend is an idealist in the truest sense. He also thinks in straight lines, something I've forgotten how to do, if I ever knew how in the first place. He can imagine no conclusion to the war except the triumphant restoration of the Terran Federation, and the truth would be. unacceptable to him. It would, I think, be something even you would have to bring him around to seeing only slowly.
And we don't have time to do things slowly, Miriam; not ff we're going to strike before the rebels find an answer to his new weapons." His eyes grew even sharper. "Since we don't have that time, he's going to be risking his life in this campaign very shortly.
You have even better reason than I for not telling him anything that might impair his effectiveness!"" She glared at him. "Don't you ever get tired of manipulating people?" "Miriam, it would take a far bigger man than me to manipulate either you or Ian. The fact is that you know I'm right. You also knew Dieter is right.
The Federation simply won't work on any basis but a consensual one, and that's gone now, as far as the Fringe is concerned. Maybe they're even right to pull away before the hate that's built up curdles us all internally. The most we can hope for is an Innerworld/rim unity with the Corporate World arrogance knocked out of us." She puffed thoughtfully. "You may have a point. But unless Dieter is prepared to give up the whole idea of an Orion amalgamation, that issue is still going to be with us. I can tell yon the idea doesn't sit well with the Rim--and that's just one aspect of a broader issue. You've got to understand that people out here are passionately loyal to the stdea of the Federation. But they're also passionately attached to self-government, and they see no contradiction between the two." "Federation member planets have always had local self-government.... his "Maybe so, but it's beyond that, now. The Rim is no longer a gaggle of unrelated planets.
We've acquired a sense of identity--almost nationhood--comby successfully defending ourselves. And the provisional government Ian's organized has given us a Rim-wide forum. You've probably heard people out here use the phrase "the Rim Federation."" She paused thoughtfully.
"Ironic, isn't it?" she went on with an odd half-smile. "Nobody talks about the "Rim Federation" around Ian! The whole concept is anathema to him. As far as he's concerned, he's simply holding the Rim for the Federation--and he may be the only man in the Galaxy who could have IS-TRRECTION done it." She like'eaned forward, and her eyes glowed as they caught the light. "But in the process of doing what's necessary--militarily and politically--for that, he's fathered a new nation! The Federation's going to have to take account of the rights, interests, and, yes, prejudices of the Rim. Otherwise, Dieter's policy will fall fiat on its ass. And besides..
. I think we've earned it!" Her voice had become a harsh clang of pride. After its echoes died away, Sanders remember, 4# o breathe.
"I agree," he said quietly. "The postwar astrographical realities will necessitate some form of special autonomy for the Rim within the Federation. I tell vou quite frankly--I'm rapidly learning better than to try. to'bullshit you--that the Amalgamation will come.
There's been too much public commitment to it and too many Innerworld voters see it as a symbol
of victory for Dieter to resist it even if he wanted to. But home ruife should shield the Rim from most of the thiugs people out here find repugnant about it. No doubt ff our friend were here he'd find all sorts of historical precedents for it from his own ancestors' commonwealth period, perhaps." His eyes took on a faraway look.
"You know, this may turn out for the best.
Amalgama- tion opens up fascinating possibilities for interspecies cultural interaction, which probably means it's the wave of the future. But at the same time, human-dominated societies will continue to have something to offer. And the Terran Republic is... immature. It may be that your owri "Rim Federation" will incorporate the best of both worlds, especially if it can avoid the mistakes of either." Miriam realized anew that she would never know quite where she stood with this man. There was something almost inhuman about that long a view. She wanted to ask him if he had any parochial loyalties, any passionate at- tachments, any fundamental beliefs of any kind. But that wasn't how the question came out.
"Kevin, were you ever young?" "Miriam," he suddenly flashed his toothiest grin and chuckled, "you wouldn't have believed me as a junior officer!"
"Attention on deck!" The men and women in Nelson's staff briefing room rose to attention as Trevayne strode in.
"Carry on, ladies and gentlemen," he said briskly, moving towards the head of the U-shaped table, and they immediately resumed their seats. He took his own place and came directly to the point. "I want to congratulate all of you on the results of the exercise. Even Commodore Yoshinaka could find little to criticize." A rueful chuckle went around the table. "I won't ask you to congratulate your personnel for me, because I plan to do so personally on the fieet-eide communication hookup at 2100 hours." He paused, his eyes sweeping his officers. They were a mixture of his handpicked people from BG 32 and Sergei Ortega's best subordinates, welded into a team in the fires of battle. He allowed himself to consider them one by one, as if in a final testing for weak links in the chain of command.
Sonja Desai, now a vice admiral, commanded his second supermonitor battlegroup.
(trevayne himself commanded the first, in addition to holding overall command, and Vice Admiral Frederick Shespar commanded the third.) Rear Admiral Remko, now commanding the battle-cruisers and their supporting craft, sat beside her. Ever since he'd received his new appointment, Trevayne thought with an inner smile, Scan had worn the look of a man who was once again in his element.
Genii Yoshinaka sat quietly at Trevayne's elbow, as he always did. Their link had grown even stronger since the Second Battle of Zephrain. Neither of them ever mentioned the incident which had caused it, but their shared understanding needed no statement. Trevayne had persuaded him to accept promotion to commodore by agreeing to let him stay on as chief of staff, though a captain might have filled the billet.
Vice Admiral Shespar sat at his other elbow, a dark-visaged, competent man with hard eyes who'd been Sergei's second in command before BG 32's arrival. Beyond him was Commander Joaquin Sandoval y Belhambre, another of Ortega's people, and one of the few actually born in the Rim. A fighter pilot who'd distinguished himself in the Battle of the Gateway and against the Tangri, he'd shown INSVB-AEON 329 an unexpected gift for operational planning as a carrier group ops oicer, in which position he'd caught Genjfs eye.
Sandoval had brought along his intelligence officer, Lieutenant Commander Lavrenti Kirilenko, who was widely regarded as a man to be watched. Though young, he had the kind of face which, Trevavne thought, lady novelists used to call "saturnine." He lso had a sardonic sense of humor, but there was a kind of puri about his approach to his profession: the amoral fascination of a chessmaster. Trevayne suspected that he had the potential to develop into another Kevin Sanders. If so, the great difference in their ages was just as well; one per century was enough.
Opposite Trevayne sat Flag Captain Lewis Mujabi, an even rarer bird than Sandoval in many respects--coma Fringer whose native, planet had seceded without him. In an era when more and more of the human race was blending into a nice, even shade of brown, Mt0abi was so black he was, in some lights, almost purple. His people, predominantly African to begin with, had settled Kashiji, a planet near the inner edge of the liquid-water zone of a class F2 sun.
Natural selection, abetted by some modest genetic engineering, had taken its inevitable course.
BG 32 itself was now commanded by Rear Admiral Maria Kim, originally one of its ship captains.
Another, Commodore Khalid Khan, led another battlegroup built around monitors captured at Second Zephrain (two of which had also been added to Shespar's BG 3 to round out its lower supermonitor strength). Rear Admiral Carl Stoner, who'd commanded Ortega's Frontier Fleet carriers, filled the same billet under Trevayne.
Looking around the crowded room at these officers and the others who comprised Fourth Fleet's brain, Trevayne could barely repress a thrill of pride. He abandoned himself to the reverie for just a moment longer before he cleared his throat and continued.
"Turning to the classified folders before you, I would ask you to open them now." There was a crackle of breaking seals. "Commander Sandoval will briefiv summarize." He had stressed the adverb slightly, ahd there were grins around the table (not least from Sandoval himselt), for the ops ocer had earned a reputation as a raconteur of hilarious but lengthy anecdotes.
"Yes, sir. I'll keep it brief, sir." There might have been just a suspicion of irony in his voice. It was hard to tell, but Genii Yoshinaka had recommended Sandoval for the job partly because he was a brilliant, irreverent soul who refused to be completely in awe of anyone or anything, including admirals. Now the dark, wiry commander, very young for his job, rose and switched on a holographic star display.
"First, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to point out that although the joint operation we are about to undertake is called "Operation Yellowbrick," we are concerned only with that portion of it called "Operation Reunion."" There was a chuckle at that, and Trevayne hid his own smile. Sanders had tended towards a sort of scandalized chagrin when Trevayne had announced the change in operational designations. Sandoval and he had stood to their guns, however. Trevayne had argued that there were innumerable precedents for renaming subsections of campaign plans and that the new name had more positive morale connotations. But what had really floored the Old Terran was Sandoval's irreverently point-blank refusal to lead men and women into battle under an operatiohal code name from a five-hundred-year-old children's story--and, no, Sandoval wasn't impressed by the fact that the story in question had always been one of Admiral Sanders' favorites.
"This operation is relatively straightforward," Sandoval went on, "although it may or may not be simple. Our only really difficult strategic decision was whether to make our breakout through the Gateway or the Back Door.
Either would take us to the Purdah System, meeting the bare-bones ops plan the Joint Chiefs sent us via Admiral Sanders, but the Gateway route does so in only three transits. The Back Door takes four, and would almost certainly meet stiffer resistance, since that route leads into the Bonaparte System"--a star blinked on the display -com?wh contains the major rebel base from which Second Zephrain was launched. Drone probes and raids have given us pretty good intelligence on our home warp points, and based on that data, we'deided on the Gateway. It'll be rough, but not as rough as Bonaparte.
"After the breakout, we hope to proceed rapidly. Our axis of advance will be through these systems." A net of warp lines lit in red as he touched a button.
"here are two main problems in an offensive like this. One, of course, is supplies, especially of depletable munitions. The fleet train is accordingly of the first importance, and guarding it is going to be essential. This will become especially true as we advance, because we'll open 'sally ports" on our flanks as we bypass warp points to other rebel-held systems. It's also possible, as we all know, for commerce raiders to operate for a time within a single system, even ff cut off from outside support. We consider the risk to the fleet train wi
ll not become critical, however, until we reach the Zapata System, the first major choke point on our planned route.
"And that brings us to the second major risk to our momentum: lack of intelligence. To be perfectly frank, we have no idea what system defenses we'll face after our initial breakout. Until we control more warp points, we can't even use probes, much less scouting squadrons, so we're going in blind. On the other hand, we know the rebels must have been committing the majority of their industrial capacity to shipbuilding, judging by what they used at Second Zephrain and the enemy deployment data Admiral Sanders brought us. Presumably, that means they can't have built a lot of fortifications out here, at least not behind the immediate "front line" systems. As for Fleet units --was he shrugged slightly his-comwe think they were badly hurt at Second Zephrain, and we've demonstrated the efficiency of our weapons. Unless they have a radically higher number of hulls than ONI estimates, they shouldn't be strong enough to stop both us and the forces attacking to meet us." He stopped and seated himself.