At All Costs

by David Weber

  The chief of staff wasn't happy about how much wear and tear they'd put on their LAC personnel. The LACs were the only search platforms they had with a chance of running down something as elusive-and fast-as a stealthed Manty destroyer. Unfortunately, they didn't have very many of them, and as the last two days had demonstrated, even their chance was a piss poor one without at least some sort of sensor clue to give them an edge.

  "Wouldn't have mattered much if we had," Milligan said moodily. "Our birds are too slow to run them down before they could break back across the limit and translate out. Besides, we may not know where they are, but we sure as hell know what they are."

  Tucker nodded again, not even tempted to play devil's advocate this time. The only thing those transmissions could be were scraps of backscatter from Manticoran directional FTL transmissions. Which, of course, meant the ships which had deployed the recon platforms producing them were still in the system receiving their reports... somewhere.

  Or at least one of them was, anyway.

  "Well," Milligan said again, bracing both hands on the tabletop and straightening his back, "I can only think of one reason for them to be hanging around this way."

  "I'm afraid I agree, Sir." Tucker smiled without humor. "Which isn't to say I wouldn't like to discover that all they're doing is screwing with our minds."

  "Just trying to convince us they have something nastier in mind, you mean?" Milligan snorted. "That would be better than what I'm pretty sure they're really up to. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be that lucky."

  "Me either," Tucker admitted.

  "And I don't much like what their damned sensor arrays are telling them, either," Milligan continued more heavily. "Damn. Who would've expected the bastards here?"

  That, Tucker thought, was a very good question. The Hera System was just over sixty light-years from Trevor's Star... and barely thirty light-years from the Haven System itself. That was closer to the capital system than the Manties had ever come, even during Operation Buttercup, but Hera was scarcely a major bastion like the Lovat System. It was important, true, but clearly a second-tier system: a significant industrial node, but not vital enough to demand a heavy fleet presence for its security. Especially not when it was only four days from the capital itself, which meant it could be quickly reinforced in the unlikely event that the Manties managed to mount a second Buttercup.

  Except that wasn't what was going to happen.

  "We've sent for help, Sir," Tucker said after a moment. "And we've brought the local defenses to Condition Two. I wish there were something more we could do, but I don't think there is."

  "No, there isn't," Milligan agreed. "It's just-"

  "Excuse me, Sir." Both officers turned to face the office door as the duty communications tech appeared in it. "Sorry to disturb you," the young woman continued, her face tight with worry, "but Perimeter Watch just picked up unidentified hyper footprints."

  "How many?" Milligan demanded sharply.

  "It looks like at least six ships of the wall, split into two groups, Sir," the com tech said. "They're coming in on converging courses, and Captain Beauchamp estimates they're accompanied by six additional cruiser-range vessels."

  Milligan's jaw tightened. Six wallers-even six old-style wallers-would go through his "System Command" like a pulser dart through butter. And if they were coming in separated but on converging courses, they undoubtedly meant to pincer any defensive forces between them. However unnecessary that particular refinement might actually be.

  "Very well," he said after a moment. "Instruct Captain Beauchamp to keep us informed. Then transmit a general signal to all units. Set Condition One. After that, inform Captain Sherwell that the staff and I will be joining him aboard the flagship directly. He's to immediately begin and expedite preparations for getting underway. And-" he glanced at Tucker "-inform Governor Shelton that I'll be speaking to him shortly."

  "Yes, Sir." The communications tech braced briefly to attention and disappeared.

  "Sir," Tucker said very quietly, "if this really is six wallers, we're not going to stop them."

  "No," Milligan said bleakly. "But if they're doing what I think they are, we couldn't avoid action with them even if we tried."

  Tucker started to open his mouth, then changed his mind and nodded, instead.

  "Get with Stiller," Milligan continued. "I want an immediate evacuation of the entire orbital infrastructure. I'll get Shelton to confirm that when I speak to him."

  "And our civilian shipping, Sir?"

  "Anything that's hyper-capable and can reach the hyper limit before the Manties can bring it into range, runs for it. Get that order out immediately. Anything in their way, tries to evade, but I don't want any more dead heroes than I can help. If a ship's crew is ordered to abandon or, God help us, simply fired on, I want them to take to the boats immediately."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "As for the system defense units, we'll just have to do our best. Maybe," Milligan showed his teeth in a rictus-like caricature of a smile, "we can at least scratch their paint."

  * * *

  "Unidentified hyper footprints! Many unidentified footprints at eighteen light-minutes, bearing oh-niner-oh by oh-three-three!"

  Rear Admiral Everette Beach, CO, Gaston System Command, wheeled towards his operations officer, blue eyes widening in disbelief.

  "How many? What class?" he barked.

  "We can't say yet, Sir," the ops officer replied. "Looks like a couple of ships of the wall-might be CLACs, instead-with at least a dozen battlecruisers or cruisers. Probably at least a couple of destroyers, as well. And-" she turned to look Beach straight in the eye, and her voice harshened almost accusingly "-we've got a single destroyer-range impeller signature already in-system and moving to meet them."

  Beach's jaw tightened, and anger sparkled in his eyes. But angry as he was at Commander Inchman, he knew even more of his anger was directed at himself. Inchman had tried to convince him that the "sensor ghost" the arrays had picked up two days ago was really there, but Beach had disagreed. Oh, it had looked like a hyper footprint, but almost a full light-hour beyond the system hyper limit? At that range, given the rudimentary state of Gaston's sensor net, it could have been almost anything. And whatever it was, it had vanished within minutes of appearing in the first place.

  Sure it did, he thought harshly. And you were so damned sure Inchman was wrong about it's simply going into stealth, weren't you Everette? You stupid shit. You've been whining to the Octagon ever since you took over here that you needed a better sensor net. Well, genius, why didn't you at least pay attention to what you had?

  "You were right," he made himself say, a little surprised his voice sounded so close to normal. "They were scouting us."

  Inchman didn't reply. Not that he'd really expected her to. But he'd owed her that apology, and assuming he survived, he'd have to make it official in his after-action report. The one he'd no doubt have plenty of time to write after the board of inquiry beached him.

  "Signal to all units," he continued, "Condition Red-Three. Axis of threat is oh-niner-oh, oh-three-three. All merchant shipping to immediately get underway. Order the industrial platforms to commence evacuation at once."

  "Yes, Sir."

  * * *

  "Right on the tick, Your Grace," Mercedes Brigham observed with immense satisfaction as Commander Estwicke's Ambuscade accelerated steadily towards rendezvous with Imperator. "And exactly where she's supposed to be," the chief of staff continued, watching the destroyer's icon on the huge plot on Imperator's flag bridge.

  "So far, so good," Honor agreed. She stood beside the admiral's command chair, watching the plot as Ambuscade's fresh tac data started coming in. Commander Daniels' Skirmisher had delivered the basic take from the two destroyers' heavily stealthed arrays six hours ago, at the prearranged rendezvous, but Estwicke had remained behind to make sure there'd been no important changes after Skirmisher's departure. Now Honor gazed intently at the star system's
schematic while a skinsuited Nimitz perched on the chair's back. She felt him at the back of her mind, sharing her tension as he had so many times before, and she reached out to him with a quick mental caress.

  "I hope the other groups' timing is as good," Andrea Jaruwalski said from Honor's other side, and Honor glanced at her. "I know it doesn't really matter all that much in the greater scheme of things, Your Grace," the ops officer said with a crooked smile, "but this is opening night, so to speak. I want our audience to appreciate all the trouble we've gone to in order to impress them."

  "Oh, I imagine they'll get the message," Honor said with a half-smile of her own. She could taste Jaruwalski's excitement and anticipation, and the information from her scouting destroyers' spy mission strongly suggested that Hera was going to prove a case of severe overkill. No wonder the captain was confident of success.

  So was Honor. In fact, she'd suspected from the beginning that they were bringing along more firepower than was going to be required. But Hera was the closest of their targeted systems to Nouveau Paris, and this was the only attack going in without any carrier support at all. So she'd brought along Alistair McKeon's entire squadron... in no small part to make the point to Thomas Theisman that the Alliance could-and would-operate even its most modern superdreadnoughts aggressively this deep behind the front line systems. But, unlike Jaruwalski, Honor wasn't really looking forward to what they were about to do.

  Or to killing all the men and women who were about to die.

  "Ambuscade's upload is complete, Commodore Jaruwalski," one of the ops officer's plotting team's petty officers announced.

  "What does it show?" Jaruwalski asked, as she and Honor both moved closer to the plot.

  "CIC sees no changes from Skirmisher's data, Ma'am. It still looks like two battleships, four battlecruisers or big heavy cruisers, and less than a hundred LACs."

  "I still find that hard to believe," Jaruwalski muttered, then grimaced as Honor cocked a sardonic eyebrow at her. "Sorry, Your Grace. I don't mean to suggest Daniels and Estwicke didn't do a good job. I'm just surprised their system picket is that light, even this close to Nouveau Paris."

  Honor shrugged, never taking her gaze from the icons of the ships trapped between her own incoming forces. Skirmisher's report had allowed her to plot her own alpha translations perfectly, and the defenders found themselves caught squarely between the two prongs of her attack.

  They'd obviously realized the system was being probed and brought their mobile units-such as they were-to a high state of readiness, because they were already underway. In fact, they were accelerating hard, almost directly towards her flagship and its division mate, HMS Intolerant. Clearly their commander had realized she could never get outside the attackers' MDM envelope and had elected to attempt to stay as far away as possible from the four SDs of McKeon's first and third divisions. The defenders' outclassed, obsolescent ships and sparse LAC force stood no chance of survival against a pair of Invictus-class superdreadnoughts, but they probably had a marginally better chance of inflicting at least some damage on her single division before they died.

  "They can't be strong everywhere, Andrea," she said after a moment. "That's the whole point behind Cutworm. And don't forget that Ambuscade and Skirmisher probably didn't get reliable reads on any system-defense pods they may have deployed."

  "Agreed." Jaruwalski nodded. "Still, they're hanging all but naked. And I've got to say, I didn't expect to see any battleships still in commission."

  "I didn't either. On the other hand, this is an awful long way from the front. I suppose if they've got one or two left, it makes more sense to use them here than somewhere more likely to be attacked. Of course," Honor's smile was knife-blade thin, "they're going to be reevaluating where attacks are 'likely' very shortly now."

  * * *

  "It's confirmed, Sir." Captain Beauchamp's expression was grim on the com screen connecting Milligan's flag bridge to the system's planet-side Defense Headquarters. "Bogey Alpha is two superdreadnoughts and three big heavy cruisers-they look like the new Saganami-Cs. Bogey Beta is four SDs and three light cruisers. From the emissions signatures, two of Beta's wallers are Medusa-class SD(P)s. We don't have positive IDs on Beta's other SD, or on either of Alpha's, but all three of them are even bigger than a Medusa."

  "Invictuses," Tucker said bitterly. "They've got to be."

  "Here?" Milligan shook his head. "According to NavInt, they can't have more than a handful of them. Why in God's name would they send three of them this deep into the Republic to hit a target as secondary as Hera?"

  "At a guess, Sir, they're sending a message," Tucker replied. Milligan looked at him, and the chief of staff waved one hand at the ominous light codes in the plot. "We've all been assuming they'd have no choice but to pull in their horns and fort up after Thunderbolt, and especially after Grendelsbane." He shrugged. "Well, Sir, I'd say they intend to suggest we were mistaken."

  * * *

  "Harper."

  "Yes, Your Grace?"

  "Record a message for the system commander."

  "Of course, Your Grace." If Lieutenant Brantley thought there was anything odd about sending a message to the commander of a naval force one intended to destroy momentarily, no sign of it showed in his voice or expression.

  "Live mike, Ma'am," he said after a moment, and Honor looked directly into her pick up.

  "This is Admiral Honor Harrington, Royal Manticoran Navy," she said levelly. "By this time, you must be aware of the disparity of combat power between your forces and mine. I am here to destroy the industrial infrastructure in this star system, and I will do so, however regretfully. I have no interest in killing anyone when that can be avoided, however. I submit to you that the forces under your command, even assuming-as I do-that they're backed by a substantial number of previously deployed missile pods, can't hope to seriously damage my own units. Your vessels, on the other hand, are little more than targets. Courage alone cannot substitute for tactical inferiority on this scale. You are already inside my powered missile envelope; you won't survive to bring us into your shipboard range. Nor will your LACs survive to reach attack range of us."

  She paused for just a moment, then continued in that same level, measured voice.

  "It's obvious from your maneuvers to this point that you're prepared to do your duty in defense of this star system, however hopeless you must know that defense to be. I respect that, but I also implore you not to throw away the lives of the men and women under your command. If you continue to close, I will fire on you. If, however, you choose to abandon ship and scuttle at this time, I will not fire upon your small craft or life pods. Nor will I fire upon your LACs if you order them to withdraw and stand down. I'm not asking you to surrender your vessels to me; I'm simply asking you to allow your personnel to live.

  "Harrington, clear."

  "Clean recording, Your Grace," Brantley said, after replaying it to be certain.

  "Then send it," she said.

  "Do you think it will do any good, Ma'am?" Mercedes Brigham asked, leaning close to Honor's command chair and speaking quietly into her ear.

  "I don't know," Honor replied bleakly, rubbing Nimitz's ears as he curled in her lap. "I like to think I'd be rational enough to abandon in her shoes, but, to be completely honest, I'm not certain I would. I just know I don't want to slaughter people who can't even shoot back."

  * * *

  "... asking you to allow your personnel to live. Harrington, clear."

  Tom Milligan watched the message from the tall, level-voiced, exotically attractive woman in the black-and-gold uniform and white beret silently, his eyes hard. There was no doubt in his mind that Harrington-God, it would be Harrington, wouldn't it?-had summarized his command's chances of survival with agonizing accuracy.

  Of course, she did wait until-as she herself just pointed out-she'd trapped us into entering her missile envelope, whether we'd wanted to or not, didn't she? Obviously, however concerned she may be with sparing pe
ople's lives, she's not especially concerned about what's likely to happen to my career!

  He surprised himself with a chuckle, but it was short-lived.

  "Sir?"

  He turned his head. Commander Tucker stood beside his bridge chair, where he'd viewed the message along with his commodore, and his expression was profoundly unhappy.

  "Yes, George?" Milligan asked, his voice remarkably calm.

  "Sir, she may be right about our relative combat power. But we can't just blow up our own ships!"

  "Even if she's going to do it for us sometime in the next ten or fifteen minutes?"

  Milligan nodded his head at the implacably advancing icons in the plot. Harrington's converging superdreadnought divisions were already up to a velocity of over twelve thousand kilometers per second, forging straight ahead, like twin daggers plunged directly into the heart of the Hera System. He felt a spike of pure, burning rage at the complete-and completely justified-confidence of their unwavering approach.