by David Weber
He'd started out by accepting a life support endurance of only ninety-six hours rather than the weeks and months which most LAC designers insisted upon. Next, he'd eliminated all energy armament, aside from an extremely austere outfit of point defense laser clusters. It was pretty clear to NavInt that the Manties had adopted radical innovations to provide the energy supply their new LACs required. Those EW systems had to be energy hogs, and the humongous graser they'd wrapped at least one of their LAC classes around was even worse. NavInt's best current guess was that they'd gone to some sort of advanced fission plant with enormously improved and/or enlarged superconductor capacitor rings to manage their energy budget. They'd also done something distinctly unnatural with their beta nodes to produce impeller wedges of such power without completely unacceptable tonnage demands. Again, all of those were things Haven would be unable to match for years to come, but by ruthlessly suppressing the energy armament and accepting such a vast decrease in life support—and by eliminating over half of the triple-redundancy damage control and repair systems routinely designed into "real" warships—Clapp had managed to produce a LAC hull which came amazingly close to matching the performance of the Manties' designs. Its less efficient inertial compensator meant its maximum acceleration rate was more sluggish, but it was actually a bit more nimble and maneuverable than the observational data suggested the Manty LACs were.
Of course, it had also been effectively unarmed compared to the Manticoran designs, but that was the point at which Clapp had recruited others to his project. In the absence of energy weapons, the Cimeterre carried a pure missile armament, and the R&D teams had made enormous advances in marrying reverse-engineered Solarian technology with their own indigenous design concepts. The missiles they'd come up with, like the LACs which would carry them, weren't up to Manticoran standards, but they were much, much better than anything any previous Havenite LAC had ever boasted. Unless NavInt was entirely wrong about the performance parameters of the Manticoran weapons, the Cimeterre's birds could approximately match their range and acceleration in a package which was only a very little larger. Once again, sacrifices had had to be made to cram that performance into something the Republic could produce, and in this instance that something had been the sophisticated seeking systems and penetration aids built into the Manticoran missiles. But when Clapp and his colleagues were done, they'd produced a ship which was faster on the helm, had almost as good an acceleration rate, and was armed with weapons which were almost as long-ranged as anything the Manticorans had yet demonstrated.
And because Clapp had been so ruthless in suppressing every single system which wasn't absolutely essential to the Cimeterre's mission as he visualized it, each LAC could cram a truly amazing number of missiles into its sophisticated rotary-magazine launchers.
Like the missiles which suddenly detonated long before any Manticoran would have expected them to. Missiles which contained absolutely no seeking systems, no penetration aides, no standoff laser heads—only the biggest, nastiest, dirtiest nuclear warheads Mitchell Clapp or anyone he could recruit had been able to design. Those warheads weren't designed to destroy enemy LACs; they were designed to strip away the enemy's EW advantages, and it was evident from the plot that they'd done just that.
The brutal wavefronts of plasma and radiation lashed out from the tsunami of missiles. No one had adopted such a brute force application to clearing away decoys and jammers in centuries. Even after the missile pod had reemerged, with its vulnerability to proximity "soft kills," no one had ever attempted to apply the same technique to electronic warfare drones and remote platforms. But that was because of the ranges at which deep space engagements were fought, and the dispersal which warships with impeller wedges hundreds of kilometers across were forced to maintain. Neither of those factors applied to the overgrown pinnaces Clapp had designed. The Cimeterre, even more than its Manticoran counterparts, was designed to get in close. It was a knife-fighter, not a sniper, and it eschewed sophistication and finesse for up close and personal, bare-knuckle, eye-gouging combat.
The initial detonations ripped a thermonuclear hole straight through the electronic shield which had sheltered the Manticoran LACs, and a second echelon of the same massive salvo raced through the opening. Its birds detonated ten thousand kilometers closer to the Manties, ripping the hole even deeper and wider, and the next echelon exploited the opening the second had created. The third echelon closed to within as little as two or three thousand kilometers of the Manticoran LACs before it detonated in a final wavefront of blast, heat, and hard radiation.
The cumulative effect was devastating. The "triple ripple," as Clapp had dubbed it, not only irradiated and seriously degraded the remote platforms (those it didn't destroy outright), but also wreaked grievous carnage, however briefly, on the Manticorans' onboard fire control systems and sensors. Like all warship sensors, they were hardened against EMP, but nothing had prepared them for the precisely synchronized and timed detonations of that many multi-megaton warheads in so small a volume of space and time. Indeed, it was unlikely that anything could have prepared them. It was as if they'd suddenly found themselves staring directly into the belly of a star, and for precious seconds they were dazzled and confused by the sheer, unimaginable ferocity of the event.
And while they were still dazzled, the Cimeterres' second salvo came slashing in. Inferior as the seekers and penetration aids of that salvo's missiles undoubtedly were, they were more than sufficiently effective against defensive systems which could barely even see them coming. They roared down on their targets, homing ruthlessly, following their intended victims through the last-minute, desperate evasion attempts which were all their half-blinded state allowed, and then they detonated at ranges as low as five thousand kilometers.
This time, they were standoff weapons, and the crimson icons of the Manticoran "super-LACs" which had mangled one Havenite fleet after another during Eighth Fleet's offensive, began to vanish with dreadful speed.
"Eighty-two percent kills, by God!" Commander Lampert announced exultantly as the numbers came in. "Eighty-two percent!"
"Eighty-two percent so far," Foraker corrected quietly, and Lampert nodded in acknowledgment as the Cimeterres continued to charge down upon the broken and harrowed ranks of their Manticoran opponents.
The massive energy mounts of the Manticoran Shrike-class LACs came into their own, even with targeting systems that remained partially degraded, and Republican LACs disappeared from the plot as the powerful grasers harvested them. But there weren't very many of the Shrikes left, and those which remained found themselves targeted by storms of individually less capable but numerically overwhelming short-range missiles. The first four, or five, or six missiles might be evaded or picked off by active defenses, but the seventh, or eighth, or ninth got through. The Cimeterres lost perhaps ten percent of their total number, but in return, they destroyed every single one of the Manticoran LACs. The absolute tonnage loss was less one-sided, but even that was hugely in the Republic's favor, and Commander Clapp staggered as Captain Anders pounded him on the back in jubilation.
"Simulation concluded," a voice announced, but it was almost drowned out by the babble of excited exultation surging through Sovereign of Space's CIC.
"It's only a simulation!" Clapp pointed out as coherently as he could through the background racket and Anders' pounding.
"But it's the best simulation we've been able to build," Foraker responded. "And we used the most pessimistic assumptions we could about our relative capabilities when we modeled it in the first place." She shook her head, grinning almost as broadly as Anders. "If anything, this understates the probable outcome, Mitchell!"
"But only for the initial engagements," Clapp countered, and gestured at her chief of staff. "As Captain Anders pointed out, once we've done this to them a time or two, they're going to begin adapting their tactics. If nothing else, they'll accept a greater degree of dispersal and use sequenced waves of EW drones to make it harder for us
to kill them before we close."
"Of course they will," she agreed. "And," she went on more somberly, "you're quite right—our relative losses will go up steeply when that happens. But the entire point of your operational concept is that since we can't match their ability to kill starships with LACs, the best we can hope to do is to impose attritional losses on them. To neutralize their anti-shipping strike capability because we don't have the tech base to create a matching capability of our own. And that, Mitchell, is precisely what you've accomplished here. It isn't pretty, and it isn't elegant, but it is something more important than either of those things—it works." She shook her head. "To be honest, I hope we never get the opportunity to validate your creation, but if we do, I think it's going to do exactly what you set out to do."
Chapter Twenty-One
"I don't care what the intelligence 'experts' have to say," Arnold Giancola grunted. "I'm telling you that the damned Manties don't have any intention in Hell of giving us back our star systems."
He pushed back in his chair and glowered around the table in the palatial, expensively paneled private meeting room in what had once been the Hall of the People. That edifice had once more reverted to its even older title—the Senate Building—and technically, the Secretary of State was here to address the Foreign Affairs Committee. But that committee meeting wasn't due to begin for another hour and a half. Since he seemed to have arrived a bit early, however, he'd decided to spend a few minutes passing the time in idle conversation with a few personal friends.
Now one of those friends, Senator Samson McGwire (who just happened to be the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and an old Giancola crony), managed almost visibly not to sigh and shook his head, instead.
"You've said that before, Arnold," he said. "And I don't say you're wrong. But let's face it—there's no reason I can see for the Manties to want to keep most of those systems, either. Hell, all but half a dozen of them were economic liabilities to the Old Regime! Why should a bunch of money-grubbing plutocrats want to hang onto money-losing possessions?"
"Then why haven't they gone ahead and given them back?" Giancola demanded irately. "God knows we've been negotiating about it with them long enough! Besides, according to the latest estimate I've seen, some of those systems' economies are beginning to turn around already. Oh, sure—they'd do even better participating in our own economic turnaround. And don't think for a minute that the people who live in them wouldn't prefer that to being no more than wage-earners in what are essentially Manty-owned enterprises and investments. But their economies are beginning to generate a positive cash flow—for the Manties, at least, if not the people the Manties stole them from. And if the Manties turn the occupied systems into still more money-makers, then there goes your argument for why they'd want to give them back."
"And don't forget the military considerations," Senator Jason Giancola put in sharply. "They seized those systems in the first place to use as jumping off points for operations deeper in the Republic. So I can see at least one reason for them to want to hang onto them that has nothing at all to do with their economies."
"I know," McGwire agreed heavily. Unlike most of the Republic's senators, McGwire had been a member of a minor Legislaturalist family before the Pierre Coup. His family hadn't been important enough to draw the People's Court's attention during the purges, but he'd lost two cousins and a nephew in the war against Manticore, and his hostility towards—and suspicion of—the Star Kingdom were profound. "In fact, that's why I'm inclined to support you, Arnold, despite the fact that I'm not at all sure your ideas make economic good sense."
"This discussion is all well and good," Representative Gerald Younger pointed out. Like the Secretary of State, he was technically an interloper in this building, but many representatives were in and out of the Senate Building on a regular basis. Younger was one of them. He was also several decades younger than any of the discussion's other participants, and his tone was brisk, almost impatient. "The fact is, though, that whatever we may think, President Pritchart doesn't agree with us. And with all due respect, Arnold, it looks to me like she's holding the rest of the Cabinet in line with her own policy."
"Yes, she is . . . so far," the older Giancola admitted. "But it's not as cut and dried as it may look from the outside. Theisman is completely in her corner, of course. So are Hanriot, LePic, Gregory, and Sanderson, to one degree or another." Rachel Hanriot was the Secretary of the Treasury, Denis LePic was the Attorney General, Stan Gregory was the Secretary of Urban Affairs, and Walter Sanderson was the Interior Secretary. "But Sanderson is more than half way to seeing things my way, and Nesbitt, Staunton, and Barloi have both told me privately that they agree with me." Toby Nesbitt was the Secretary of Commerce, Sandra Staunton was the Secretary of Biosciences, and Henrietta Barloi was the Secretary of Technology. "So if Sanderson decides to come out openly on our side, the Cabinet will actually be split almost straight down the middle."
"It will?" Younger sounded surprised, and his expression was thoughtful.
"Damn right it will," the Secretary of State replied.
"What about Trajan and Usher?" Younger asked. Wilhelm Trajan's Foreign Intelligence Service and Kevin Usher's Federal Investigation Agency both came under the Justice Department and reported to LePic, much to Giancola's resentful chagrin. In his opinion, Justice should have the FIA, but State should have jurisdiction over ForInt. Pritchart hadn't seen things that way, and her decision to place both under LePic was one more point of contention, as far as he was concerned.
"Both of them are lined up behind the President, of course," he said testily. "What else did you expect? But neither of them holds a cabinet-level appointment, either. They're just very senior bureaucrats, and what they think or don't think doesn't affect the balance of power, if you will, in the Cabinet."
"Which won't matter a great deal," McGwire pointed out calmly. "Eloise Pritchart is the President, after all. Under the Constitution, that means her one vote outnumbers all the rest of the Cabinet combined. And even if it didn't, do you really want to risk pissing off Thomas Theisman?"
"If he were a Pierre or a Saint-Just, I wouldn't," Giancola said frankly. "But he's not. He really is obsessed with restoring 'the rule of law.' If he weren't, he never would have brought in Pritchart in the first place."
"And if he thinks you're challenging the 'rule of law,' you're likely to get a chance to exchange personal notes with Oscar Saint-Just," McGwire said dryly.
"Not as long as I do whatever I do from within the framework of the Constitution," Giancola disagreed. "As long as I do that, he can't take direct action against me without violating due process himself, and he won't do that. It would be like strangling his own child."
"You may be right," McGwire conceded after a moment. "But if Pritchart decides to demand your resignation, he'll certainly back her up. Especially if LePic and Justice also support her."
"Well, yes . . . and no," Giancola said with a slow, nasty smile.
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
"Well, it just happens that there might be a slight difference of opinion as to whether or not a President can dismiss a Cabinet-level minister on a whim."
"That's ridiculous," McGwire said flatly. "Oh, I agree it might be convenient if she couldn't," he continued in a slightly placating tone as Giancola frowned at him. "But the precedents under the old Constitution were clear enough, Arnold. Cabinet ministers serve at the pleasure of the President, and she has the right to dismiss any of them whenever she chooses."
"That may not be entirely true," Jason Giancola put in. "Or, rather, it may have been true under the old Constitution without being true under the new one."
"But the new Constitution is the old one," McGwire said.
"Mostly," the older Giancola said, taking over control of the conversation once more. "But if you go back and read the minutes of the Constitutional Convention, and then take a close look at the exact language of the resolution readopting the pre-Legislaturalist C
onstitution, you'll find that the second clause of subsection three specifies that 'all acts, laws, resolutions, and executive decisions and/or decrees made to reimplement this Constitution shall be subject to the consideration and approval of this Convention and of the Congress which shall succeed it.' "
"So what?" McGwire's puzzlement was apparent.
"So arguably, Pritchart's selection of the members of her first Cabinet—the Cabinet under whose direction the Constitution's been officially put back on-line—would come under the heading of 'executive decisions and/or decrees made to reimplement this Constitution.' In which case, of course, the entire Congress would have the legal right and responsibility to approve any changes she might unilaterally decide to make. Especially a change which would replace the individual charged with heading the interim administration of the state if something happened to her."
"That's really stretching, Arnold," the senator said skeptically.
"I suppose some might think it was," Giancola conceded equably. "But others might not. And given the grave constitutional implications of the question at this crucial formative stage in the Republic's evolution, it would obviously behoove those in disagreement with the President to submit it to the judgment of the judiciary for definitive clarification. And, of course, to seek an injunction to stay the President's actions until the High Court can consider it."
"And," his brother Jason said with an edge of very poorly disguised jubilation, "I have it on fairly reliable authority that Chief Justice Tullingham would be prepared to give the question very careful consideration if that should happen."
"He would?" McGwire sat suddenly straighter and looked intently at Arnold, who appeared less than completely pleased with his brother's revelation. The Secretary glared at Jason for a heartbeat or two, then shrugged and turned back to McGwire.