by David Weber
Honor inhaled when she shouldn't have, surprised by the interruption. She coughed the water back out before she rotated back up to breathe again and swam the last few strokes to the end of the pool. She caught the lip, lifted, twisted, and landed sitting on the pool surround.
"Spencer!"
"Yes, My Lady?" Captain Hawke turned quickly towards her and didn't even flinch. He'd had time to get used to Manticoran swimsuits, and compared to the ones Allison Harrington delighted in wearing, Honor's were positively demure.
"Mac says I've got a com call."
"Of course, My Lady." Hawke reached into the bag sitting on the poolside table beside Nimitz and extracted Honor's personal communicator. He handed it to her, and she smiled in thanks and configured it for video, but without bringing up the holo display, then keyed the acceptance button. An instant later, MacGuiness' face appeared on the small flatscreen.
"I'm here, Mac," she said, reaching up with her free hand and stripping off the swimming cap she'd been wearing over her braided hair. "Go ahead and put Ms. Montaigne through."
"Of course, Your Grace."
Honor swirled her feet slowly in the pool to keep muscles from stiffening and gazed out across the sparkling blue vitality of Jason Bay at the towers of Landing. Her house's terrace ran to the very edge of the upper tier of the cliffs above the bay; if she looked up, she could see the outer balustrade clinging to its lip. The upper cliff fell away from the terrace in a sheer precipice for ten or fifteen meters to a flattened saddle, almost like a giant stair step halfway between the beach below and the house above. That was where she'd chosen to put the pool, with a vanishing "infinite edge" on the outer side. From where she sat, the illusion that the pool's water was spilling over in a cascade to the ocean below was almost perfect. Of all the many features of her Manticoran mansion, she often thought the pool was her favorite.
The com beeped softly, recalling her from her thoughts, as the golden-haired, blue-eyed Honorable Member of Parliament for High Threadmore appeared upon it.
"Good morning, Your Grace," Catherine Montaigne said.
"And good morning to you, Cathy," Honor replied. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"I hope I didn't screen at an inconvenient moment," Montaigne said as Honor's water-beaded face registered.
"Actually, you just rescued me from the last nine laps," Honor reassured her with a smile.
"That's right. You actually swim for exercise." Montaigne shuddered dramatically.
"You don't like swimming?"
"I don't like exercise," Montaigne said cheerfully. "I burn off sufficient energy just charging around in six or seven directions at once. I'm sure you've heard that about me."
"I believe your ability to... multitask enthusiastically has come up a time or two," Honor acknowledged, her smile becoming a grin.
"I thought it probably had." Montaigne looked pleased, and Honor chuckled. She knew how much pleasure Catherine Montaigne took from her public persona's reputation for shatter-brained confusion.
"Actually, though," the ex-Countess of the Tor said, her own smile fading, "I had a serious reason for screening you this morning. I have a message for you from Anton."
"Do you?" Honor arched her eyebrows, and Montaigne nodded.
"He asked me to tell you that he and his associate believe they may be on the trail of evidence which will confirm the hypothesis they discussed with you last month."
"Really?" Honor sat up a bit straighter. "You say he's 'on the trail' of the evidence. I take it that that means he doesn't actually have it in hand?"
"I'm afraid not. It's going to take them some time to confirm what they suspect, but they feel confident at this time that they will be able to."
"Do we have any idea how long we're talking about?"
"I'm afraid not. Not exactly, at any rate. There's quite a bit of travel involved."
"I see." Honor's eyes narrowed intently. "May I ask where they're traveling to?"
"Since I can't be certain our connection is completely secure, I'd prefer not to answer that one, Your Grace," Montaigne said. "However, I will say that they'll have to travel incognito this time."
"I see," Honor repeated, and she did. The planet of Mesa, which she was almost certain had to be Zilwicki's and Cachat's destination, would not be a very healthy place for either of them. Manpower had a long and nasty memory at the best of times, and the slavers weren't likely to forget what the team of Zilwicki & Cachat had produced for them on Old Earth.
She tried not to feel disappointed although, in some ways, it was even worse to know Zilwicki and Cachat believed they would be able to confirm their suspicions. Whatever they might be able to do in the future, she still didn't have any proof of it now, and without that proof, there was no way to derail the events proceeding inexorably towards Sanskrit II.
And after we trash Jouett, the Havenites are going to be a lot less inclined to be reasonable, whatever Zilwicki turns up, she thought grimly.
"If you should happen to be sending any messages to Captain Zilwicki," she said aloud, "please tell him I very much hope his search prospers. I spoke to the individuals I assured him I'd contact. Unfortunately, they feel that without conclusive-or at least very persuasive-evidence actually in their hands, there isn't a great deal they can do about the problem."
"I was afraid of that," Montaigne said, blue eyes sad. "We'll just have to do our best to turn up the evidence they need. I hope we can find it in time."
"So do I," Honor said soberly. "I'm afraid, though, that events are taking on a momentum all their own. One we may not be able to deflect, regardless of what they discover, if their discovery's delayed too long."
"We'd already deduced that." Montaigne inhaled deeply. "Well, at least we still have one friend at court. We'll try hard not to disappoint you."
* * *
"Welcome back, Your Grace," Rafe Cardones said as the twitter of bosun's pipes died in Imperator's boat bay gallery.
"I'd like to say I'm glad to be back," Honor replied with a small smile. "Unfortunately, that would be a lie. Not that I'm not glad to see you, of course. It's just that I had to leave a very charming young gentleman and lady behind."
"But you brought lots of pictures, I hope," he replied, and she chuckled.
"Only a couple of dozen megs worth. And I've changed out my personal wallpaper, of course."
"Oh, of course!" Cardones laughed, and she clapped him on the upper arm and looked at Mercedes Brigham.
"We've got a lot to discuss, Mercedes," she said, and Brigham nodded.
"I'm sure we do, Your Grace. Just as soon as you're done showing those pictures to all of us. We do have a certain sense of proper priorities around here, you know."
"So I see," Honor said, and Nimitz bleeked an echoing laugh from her shoulder. "All right. The two of you have twisted my arm nearly to the point of dislocation. Solely because of your harshly insistent demands, I'll sacrifice my own desire to plunge immediately back into the official business of this command and force myself to sit through all those awful pictures all over again."
* * *
"That's an... impressive itinerary, Your Grace," Dame Alice Truman said.
Honor's staff and senior flag officers sat around the outsized table in her dining cabin. The familiar cups of coffee, tea, and cocoa had made their appearance on schedule, following the dessert dishes, and Judah Yanakov extracted a worn briar pipe from his tunic pocket. He held it up and raised an eyebrow at his hostess.
"That's a truly disgusting habit, Judah," she told him with a smile of affection, and he nodded.
"I know it is, My Lady. And we'd almost stamped it out on Grayson, until you Manties came along with all your modern medicine. Now I can indulge myself and know your decadent, worldly medical science will preserve me from the consequences of my own excesses."
"Does Reverend Sullivan know about this hedonistic streak of yours?" she asked severely.
"Alas," he replied sadly. "I'm afraid my family's alway
s been known for its lapses. My first Grayson ancestor, for example. There he was, the captain of the colony ship, supposed to be in charge of completely decommissioning and scrapping her as an example of the evil technology we'd fled Old Earth to escape. And what did he do? Kept her intact for almost sixty years. Transferred her computers and her auxiliary power plant down to Grayson, too. With that sort of a beginning, surely you know the Reverend is going to expect the worst out of me."
"Stop boasting," Brigham told him with a smile of her own. "I read that biography of your great-great-great-whatever' your grand-aunt wrote. We all know the Yanakov family was instrumental in preserving human life on Grayson. Did I get that quotation right?"
"Almost," he corrected solemnly. "The actual passage you're thinking of says that our family was 'instrumental, by the Tester's grace, in preserving human life on Grayson against overwhelming odds.'" He smiled admiringly. "Aunt Letitia always had a fine, well-rounded way with a phrase, didn't she?"
"Oh, forgive me! How could I have forgotten that bit?"
"Stop it, you two!" Honor said with a laugh. "And, yes, Judah. You can light the reeking thing as soon as Mac readjusts the air circulation to protect the rest of us."
"I'm reconfiguring now, Your Grace," MacGuiness' voice said from the open pantry hatch.
"Thank God," Alistair McKeon murmured, careful to be sure the comment was loud enough for Yanakov to hear.
"Infidel." Yanakov raised his nose with a sniff, and McKeon threw a balled up linen napkin at him across the table.
"Children. Children!" Honor scolded. "I should never have left the nanny back on Manticore!"
The laughter was general this time, and Honor was glad to hear it. She was especially glad since Yanakov's seniority in the Grayson Navy had made him her official second in command. Fortunately, he, Truman, and McKeon had known one another for years and worked smoothly together in the past. No one had gotten his or her nose out of joint following Yanakov's arrival.
Nor had Honor felt any qualms. Yanakov had matured considerably from the days when he'd been one of her brilliant but occasionally overenthusiastic divisional commanders in the Grayson Space Navy's second battle squadron. He'd lost none of the audacity, the ability to think quickly and see possibilities others might miss, but the enthusiasm had been tempered by experience and honed to an even keener, more dangerous edge. He still had a gambler's instincts, but now they were those of a coldly capable, calculating, and highly professional gambler.
"All right," she said as Yanakov got his pipe properly stoked, "I think we can all agree that what the Strategy Board has in mind is, as Alice says, an 'impressive itinerary.' It's also going to be the most powerful single attack the Alliance or any of its members has ever launched. I had a personal message from Herzog von Rabenstrange just before I returned to the fleet. His current estimate is that we should have at least thirty-five Andermani Apollo-capable SD(P)s and sixteen of their BC(P)s joining us here. The first ten or twelve wallers will actually be here within the next two weeks; the others will arrive as they complete their working up exercises with the new systems.
"Assuming he meets his minimum estimate of thirty-five, we'll have a total of fifty-three pod-superdreadnoughts, fifty of them Apollo-capable. That's fifteen percent of the Alliance's total SD(P)s. And until the rest of the Andermani superdreadnoughts complete their refits, it's over twenty-seven percent of the total actually available. It's also more pod-layers, not even counting the battlecruisers, than Earl White Haven had for Buttercup, and none of his ships had Apollo."
She paused to let that sink in, looking around the table at her staffers and flag officers, radiating her own confidence even as she tasted theirs. And they were confident, despite a certain completely understandable anxiety. Confident of their weapons, confident of their doctrine, and confident of their leadership.
She savored that confidence, even as she carefully concealed her own reservations. Not about the practicality of Sanskrit II. Not about the quality of the fleet which was her weapon, or the admirals who would wield it. But about why they were launching this operation in the first place, and what its consequences might be.
There's nothing they could do about it anyway, she reminded herself once again. So there's no point worrying them with it. The last thing they need right now is to be looking over their shoulders, wondering whether or not we ought to be doing this.
"Judah," she continued, breaking the small silence she had imposed, "you've actually had the most experience using Apollo ship-to-ship. I've spent quite a while reviewing your after-action report, and also your ops officer's report, and it seems to me that we overestimated the number of birds necessary to get through to a single target. Would you concur?"
"Yes, and no, My Lady. Yes, we overestimated the numbers we needed at Lovat, but that was a freebie. They didn't have any idea what was coming, and they never had time to adjust. That won't be the case next time."
"No, it won't," McKeon said. "On the other hand, how much good will it to do them to know what's coming? How the hell do you establish a viable defensive doctrine against something like this?"
"Admiral Hemphill and the ATC simulators are developing one right now, Alistair," Samuel Mikl¢s pointed out.
"They're trying to develop one," McKeon corrected. "I'm willing to bet they aren't having a lot of luck so far, and unlike the Peeps, they know exactly what Apollo can do. I'm not saying no one will ever come up with a doctrine which won't at least knock back Apollo's effectiveness. I just don't see any way the Peeps can have done it yet. I certainly can't think of anything they could do about it, and I've spent the odd couple of dozen hours thinking about it."
"I think you've got a point, Alistair," Honor said. "But so does Judah. I'm inclined to think we could probably pull back our original estimates by thirty or forty percent. The Lovat effectiveness numbers would support a pull back of at least fifty percent, but I think we have to factor in Judah's concerns."
"All right." McKeon nodded cheerfully. "I'd rather err on the side of pessimism than be overly optimistic and get my... tail caught in a wringer."
"I've got a few concerns of my own," Truman said. "They don't have anything to do with Apollo, but the observed performance of the Peep LACs at Lovat has me a little concerned. I wish we'd had more time to examine the wreckage, maybe pick up a couple of intact examples for BuWeaps and ONI to play around with."
"What specifically worries you?" Honor asked.
"Well, we really didn't turn it up until we started our intensive post-battle analysis back here at Trevor's Star," Truman admitted. "But when we took a good hard look, it became fairly obvious that they've got at least one, and probably two, new LAC classes. And unless I miss my guess, they're using fission power plants."
"I don't like the sound of that," Vice Admiral Morris Baez, commander of Battle Squadron 23 said.
"From the acceleration numbers, they don't have the new beta nodes yet," Truman said. "But their energy budget is obviously higher than it used to be, and, defensively, I suspect they've added at least bow walls. One of the two possible new classes we've tentatively identified seems to be the closest they could come to a clone of the Shrike. It packs a laser, instead of a graser, but it's an awful lot more powerful than any energy weapons we've ever seen out of a Peep LAC before. We're not absolutely certain about the other possible new design. We think they've done their best to duplicate the Ferret, as well. If they have, they still can't get as much out of the design as we can, though, because of the inferiority of their missiles."
"The Katanas seem to have handled them fairly easily, though," Matsuzawa Hirotaka said.
"At Lovat, yes, Hiro." Truman nodded. "On the other hand, they were present in strictly limited numbers. The vast majority of what they threw at us in Lovat were old-style Cimeterres. That suggests to me that these new birds are still available in only limited numbers. But it doesn't take very long to build a LAC, and we're talking about not launching Sanskrit II for another
two months. They could have a lot more of them available, by then. And since we hit Lovat, they're going to be reinforcing their central systems with everything they can, as quickly as they can."
"How seriously would you assess their threat to our wall of battle, Alice?" Honor asked.
"That's impossible to say without a better fix on their capabilities and the numbers we may be looking at. I'm not trying to waffle, Honor. We simply genuinely don't know. I've got some highly problematical performance parameters on them, but under the circumstances, I think we have to consider them minimal. They were operating with the older designs, and that would have restricted them to the Cimeterres' performance envelope. Scotty's been kicking at our tentative numbers around with the rest of my COLACs, and what I'd really like to do is to have him set up some simulations built around our best estimates and game out what happens. I think the combination of the Katanas and our own wall's defensive fire ought to be able to manage the threat, but I'll feel better if we're able to confirm that, at least in the sims."