by David Weber
"But what about this Pritchart?" Hamish asked in a tone of reasonable challenge. "You've never met her, and she is their President. Not to mention having been some sort of terrorist before the Pierre Coup. What if she's the one driving it all and Theisman is just going along? From all you told me about him, he sounds like someone who would do his duty and obey duly constituted authority whatever his personal feelings."
"Hamish," Honor said, "this is the man who overthrew State Security, probably shot Saint-Just personally, single-handedly convinced Capital Fleet to support him, called a constitutional convention, turned power over to the first duly elected President of the star nation whose constitution he had personally rescued from the dust bin, and then spent the better part of four T-years fighting a six or seven-cornered civil war in order to defend that constitution." She shook her head. "That's not the description of a man who's a weakling. And a man who would do all of that because he believes in the principles the old Republic of Haven's constitution enshrined, is not a man who's going to stand by and watch someone else grossly abuse power."
"Put that way, Hamish," Emily said slowly, "Honor certainly seems to have a point."
"Of course she does," White Haven said a bit testily. "And as far as I'm aware, she's the only person in the 'inner circle,' as it were, who's ever personally met the man. Not to mention the . . . special insight she has into people. I'm not trying to discount anything she's said. But the central, unpalatable fact remains. Why ever he did it, he's publicly signed off on the Pritchart version of the negotiating process." He shrugged. "Honor, he hasn't simply said that he's 'following orders' because Pritchart is his President, or even because he believes what she's told him. He's publicly on record as having seen diplomatic correspondence which we know for a fact didn't exist."
He shook his head, and Honor sighed and nodded in unhappy acknowledgment of his point. She still couldn't believe it, not of the Thomas Theisman she'd met. And yet, there it was. Whether she could believe it or not, it had happened. And God knew people often changed. It was just that she couldn't imagine what sort of process could have so completely warped the internal steel of the man she'd known in so short of time.
"Well, whatever is going on there," she said, "how bad is it, really, on the military front? And can we really afford to have you sitting in a dirtside office as First Lord instead of in a fleet command? I'm supposed to visit the Admiralty tomorrow afternoon for a formal briefing from Admiral Givens, but the bits and pieces I've already heard aren't very encouraging."
"I suppose that's one way to put it," White Haven said grimly. He reached for his wineglass and sipped deeply, then put it down and leaned back in his chair.
"As far as where we can 'afford' for me to be, I don't see any alternative to my taking on the Admiralty. I don't want to, but someone has to do it, and Elizabeth and Willy are right about how important is it for that someone to be a person the entire Alliance trusts. Which, for our sins, means either me or you. And, to be perfectly honest about it, it makes a lot more sense for it to be me. So I suppose—" he smiled crookedly at her "—that this war is going to be yours, Honor. Not mine.
"As for how bad the situation is, High Ridge and Janacek between them, with more than a little help from Reginald Houseman, managed to do even more damage than we'd guessed. Of course, what happened when the Peeps hit us made it far worse, but if they hadn't set us up for the blow, our backs wouldn't be so firmly against the wall.
"Basically, we've lost in excess of twenty-six hundred LACs, seventy cruisers and light cruisers, forty-one battlecruisers, and sixty-one superdreadnoughts." Honor inhaled sharply as he listed the figures. "None of which includes all of the ships which were currently under construction at Grendelsbane, or the construction personnel we lost there and in half a dozen minor repair facilities scattered around what were occupied Peep star systems. And we've lost," he finished in a granite voice, "every single system we'd taken away from them—with the sole exception of Trevor's Star—since the war started. We're back where we were strategically on Day One, aside from controlling all of the Junction termini, and proportionately, we're much weaker now compared to the Peep navy than we were before the Battle of Hancock."
Honor gazed at him in dismay, and he shrugged.
"It's not all doom and gloom, Honor," he told her. "First of all, thank God for Grayson! Not only did they save our asses at Trevor's Star and help bail you out at Sidemore, but they constitute the only true strategic reserve the Alliance has. Especially now that Erewhon has effectively gone over to the Peeps." He glowered again. "Erewhon didn't have the full Ghost Rider tech package, or the beta-squared nodes, or the LAC fission plants, but they had just about everything else . . . including the newest compensator version and the latest grav-pulse transmitters. When Foraker gets her hands on that and starts reverse-engineering it, we're going to be in an even worse mess than we are now.
"Maybe even worse than that, though, Pat has been engaged in a massive reevaluation of ONI's files, cross-indexed with information Greg Paxton has made available, and she's come up with some possible ballpark figures for what the Peeps may still have in reserve. I'm inclined to think that she's probably overestimating their capabilities, which would be a natural enough reaction to how badly we were surprised by what they hit us with. On the other hand, I've seen her basic analysis, and it certainly doesn't seem to me that she's being alarmist in the way she approaches it. So it may be that she's right. But if she is, then the Peeps have a minimum of another three hundred of the wall currently under construction. A minimum, Honor. That's at a time when Grayson has just under a hundred SD(P)s, and we're all the way up to seventy-three. Since we seem to have observed damned close to two hundred of them in action exclusive of the ones they sent to Sidemore, we're looking at what might conservatively be called an unfavorable balance of forces."
Honor had felt her face become stiff and drawn as the figures rolled over her. She'd already had first-hand experience of how effectively the Republic was using its new ships and hardware. Now she had a sense for the sheer size and mass of the juggernaut which had been assembled to smash the Alliance.
"We're not dead yet, Honor," Hamish told her almost gently, and she shook her head as if she could physically banish her sense of doom.
"What do you mean?" she asked after a moment.
"First of all, what you managed to accomplish at Sidemore seems to have had a profound impact on their thinking. Obviously, they don't know exactly what happened yet—it's going to take their commander on the spot a lot longer to get home, since he can't use the Junction. But they know they got reamed, if only from news reports of what we've already announced. Willie and I have discussed it with Elizabeth, and we're going to go ahead and announce their loss figures officially tomorrow morning, as well. I doubt that we're going to really astonish anyone, after the rumors have already been flying for so long. But when we confirm that you managed to destroy well over half of their attack force and damage most of the rest of it, I think it will give them even more pause. Not to mention what it's already done for our own civilian—hell, not just civilian!—for our civilian and military morale. What you pulled off out there is the only really bright spot in this entire disaster."
"What about what you and Niall managed at Trevor's Star?" she challenged.
"What we managed there was a negative event," he replied. She started to say something else, and he shook his head. "I'm not trying to be falsely modest, Honor. And I'm not trying to downplay what we accomplished, or to pretend that the public as a whole and the San Martinos in particular don't realize that what we staved off would have turned the Peep offensive into a total and complete disaster for the Alliance. But the fact remains that the fleet we had a shot at escaped intact, with nothing worse than the loss of a few LACs. The fleet that you had a shot at didn't just retreat—it was destroyed. I'm prepared to admit that in a strategic sense Sidemore is infinitely less vital to the Star Kingdom than Trevor's Star, and even th
at the ships they committed to the attack there seem to have included a higher percentage of obsolescent types which, in the final analysis, they could afford to lose much more readily than they could have afforded to lose the ships they committed to Trevor's Star. All of that may be true, but it's also beside the point.
"Given the increases in their technical capabilities, especially now that Erewhon is on their side of the line, the moral ascendancy we established before the cease-fire is even more vitally important. Frankly, they've just demonstrated that we don't have a right to that ascendancy any longer, but they may not realize it. For that matter, our people may not realize it . . . if we're lucky. The fact that you defeated them so decisively in the one place where effectively equal forces stood and fought is what we want them to remember. It's what we want our own people to remember, too, but it's even more important where the Peeps are concerned.
"The fact that they refused to engage at roughly equal odds at Trevor's Star is also going to loom in their thinking, I hope, of course. But that refusal takes on an entirely new light in the wake of what happened at Sidemore. Now it could be seen not simply as prudence—which, between you and me, is precisely what it actually was—so much as cowardice. Or, at least, an admission of their continued inability to meet us on equal terms."
"I suppose I can follow your argument," Honor said a bit dubiously. "It all seems very thin to me, though."
"Oh, it's certainly that," White Haven agreed with feeling. "But there's a second string to our bow, as well. And, to be honest, you created the preconditions for it, as well."
"I did? And what sort of 'second string' are you talking about?"
"Sir Anthony has already been in touch with the Andermani," White Haven told her. "Given the Gregor terminus, we can communicate back and forth with New Berlin faster than the Havenite fleet could retreat from Trevor's Star to the Haven System, and Willie and Elizabeth didn't lose any time taking advantage of that.
"The Andermani are as shocked by what happened as we were. No one outside the Republic of Haven so much as guessed this was coming, or would have believed how completely their initial offensive would succeed even if they'd seen it coming. The Andermani certainly never anticipated anything like it. And, to be honest, I think it frightened them. Badly, in fact. You know how little Emperor Gustav trusts 'Republican' forms of government in the first place. I think that predisposed him to believe our side when we explained that Pritchart and Giancola manufactured the diplomatic correspondence they're busy publishing to the galaxy. In addition, he's admitted to us that Pritchart deliberately encouraged them to pursue an aggressive policy in Silesia at the same time she was turning up the heat on us at the truce negotiations. My impression from what Willie's said is that the Peeps' obvious willingness to use the Empire as one more cat's paw in what was obviously a very carefully planned policy of deception has had a profound effect on the Emperor's view of the galactic balance of power.
"At any rate, it looks very much as if the Andermani Navy is about to come in on our side."
Honor stared at him in disbelief.
"Hamish, we were shooting at each other less than two months ago!" she protested.
"And your point is?" he asked, and chortled at her expression. Then he sobered. "Honor, 'real politik' is the guiding deity of the Anderman Dynasty. What Gustav Anderman is seeing right this minute is that the Peeps are unpredictable, that they attempted to use him, and that they're lying to the entire galaxy. Oh, and that they once again have the biggest Navy this side of the Solarian League." He shrugged. "On that basis, they're obviously a much greater danger to him than we are. Remember, the Andermani never really thought of us as a threat to their own security. What they resented was our interference in their efforts to secure what they regarded as their 'natural frontiers' in Silesia. Everybody, on the other hand, regarded the old People's Republic as a threat. And now that the new Republic has demonstrated that it has the same leopard spots as the old one, the Andermani see it in very much the same light.
"So since they never had anything personally against us in the first place, they're suddenly much more receptive to the notion that their enemy's enemy is their friend. Especially when Willie and Elizabeth agreed to sweeten the pot just a bit."
"How?" Honor asked, regarding him suspiciously now, rather than disbelievingly.
"With a little real politik of our own," White Haven told her. "The Conservative Association and the Liberal Party are effectively nonexistent at the moment. You haven't been to the Lords recently, so you can't begin to appreciate just how completely the entire Parliament is supporting Willie's new government right now. To give you some idea, the Lords have already agreed to take up a bill to transfer the power of the purse to the Commons over a five-T-year transition period. Unless something very drastic happens, it will be passed on third reading next week."
Honor was too astonished even to speak, and he shrugged.
"I know. Stupid, isn't it? The very issue that High Ridge was able to ride into power. The huge political bogeyman the entire peerage was so terrified of that a majority of them actually signed off on High Ridge's manipulations and dirty little deals. And now, in less than a month from the time shooting resumes, something on the order of an eighty percent majority is prepared to give it all up. If the stupid bastards had just been willing to consider making the same concession three years ago, none of this would've happened. Or, at least, if it had, it would've happened in a way which would have deprived Pritchart of the fig leaf of justification she's manufactured.
"But as far as the Andermani are concerned, the Lords' support for domestic finance reform is beside the point. What's going to bring the Empire in on our side is the fact that all of that ideological resistance to anything smacking of 'imperialism' went down the toilet along with High Ridge and New Kiev. Something like it would probably have materialized again soon enough, except for the fact that it's not going to have the chance to. Because later this week, Willie is going to propose to a joint session of Parliament that the Star Kingdom and the Andermani Empire finally bring an end to the incessant bloodletting and atrocities in Silesia."
"Oh, my God. You can't be serious!"
"Of course I can. I don't say it would have been my first choice of how to proceed, but I certainly understand the logic. And the Peeps haven't left us very much choice, either. We need the Andies to survive, Honor, and their price is the extension of their frontier into Silesia." He shrugged. "Well, if we're going to be in for a penny, we may as well be in for a dollar."
"And if the Confederacy government objects to being partitioned between two foreign powers?" Honor demanded.
"You've been to Silesia more than most of our officers," White Haven said. "Do you really think the average Silly wouldn't actively prefer to be a Manticoran subject?"
Honor started to reply quickly, then stopped. He had a point. All the average Silesian really wanted was safety, order, and a government that actually considered her wishes and well-being rather than seeing her as one more potential source of graft and corruption.
"Whatever the average Silly wants, the Confed government may not see things quite the same way," she pointed out.
"The Confed government consists of a bunch of corrupt, self-seeking, moneygrubbing grifters, thieves, and conmen whose concerns begin and end with their own bank accounts," White Haven said flatly. "For God's sake, Honor! You know perfectly well that the government of the Silesian Confederacy is probably the only bunch of crooks who could actually make High Ridge and Descroix look good by comparison."
Despite her grave reservations, Honor's lips quivered in appreciation of White Haven's comparison.
"Willie and Sir Anthony are already in the process of coming up with what's going to amount to a massive bribe," he went on with an expression of distaste. "Together with Gustav, they're going to buy the existing government off. Most of its members will do very well out of the deal. But the hook they don't know about is that we're going to be ser
ious about requiring them to obey the law afterward. We may pay them off now and effectively amnesty them for past crimes, but we'll come down on them like the Hammer of God the first time they try to go back to business as usual under new management." He shrugged. "I'm not too sure how I feel about the methodology, but the final outcome is going to be that we get an ally we desperately need, a problem which has been a source of tension between us and the Empire for the last sixty or seventy T-years gets resolved once and for all, and—maybe most important of all—we finally bring an end to a situation which has been costing literally hundreds of thousands of lives every single year in Silesia."
"And along the way, we become the Star Empire of Manticore," Honor replied with a troubled expression.
"I don't see that we have any choice," White Haven said. "And what with Trevor's Star and the Talbott Cluster, we're already moving in that direction."
"I suppose so," Honor said pensively. "I guess maybe what worries me the most about it is that it could be seen as validating the Republic's charges that we were already expansionist. That that's the reason High Ridge never had any intention of negotiating with them in good faith for the return of the occupied systems."
"That's my greatest concern, too," Emily put in, then moved her right hand in the gesture she used for a shrug as Honor and White Haven both looked at her. "Interstellar relations are so often a matter of perceptions rather than realities," she said. "If the Republic is trying to convince someone else—like the Sollies—that we're the villains of the piece, then this could play straight into their hands. They'll treat it as proof that we were expansionist all along, exactly as Honor has just suggested they will, and that in effect they had no choice but to attack us in self-defense."
"You may be right," her husband said after a few moments' thought. "Unfortunately, I don't think it changes the imperatives Willie and Elizabeth have to deal with. The bottom line, again, is that we have to have the Andie fleet if we're going to survive. There's not much point in worrying about anything else if we don't do that, after all. If we do," he shrugged, "then we can worry about other PR problems then."