by David Weber
And, Michelle felt unhappily certain, office lights were burning late at Admiralty House while Thomas Caparelli and his colleagues worked on contingency plans just in case the entire situation went straight to hell.
For that matter, little though she cared for the thought, it was entirely possible the penny had officially dropped back home by now. But even if the Star Empire had received a formal response from the League—even if the League had announced it would pursue the military option instead of negotiating—Michelle hadn't heard anything about it yet.
All of which meant she was still very much on her own, despite all the government's approval of her previous actions and assurances of its future support. She'd received at least some reinforcements, she'd shortstopped the four CLACs of Carrier Division 7.1 on her own authority when Rear Admiral Stephen Enderby turned up in Spindle. Enderby had expected to deliver his LACs to Prairie, Celebrant, and Nuncio, then head home for another load, and the LAC crews had expected nothing more challenging than a little piracy suppression. That, obviously, had changed. Enderby had been more than willing to accept his new orders, and his embarked LACs had been busy practicing for a somewhat more demanding role. She expected her decision to retain them for Tenth Fleet to be approved, as soon as the official paperwork could catch up, and the arrival of another division of Saganami-Cs had been a pleasant surprise—in more ways than one, given its commanding officer. For that matter, still more weight of metal was in the pipeline, although the original plans for the Talbott Quadrant were still recovering from the shock of the Battle of Manticore.
In a lot of ways, given Enderby's diversion, she was better off at the moment then she would have been under the initial plan, but that might turn out to be remarkably cold comfort if there was any truth to the New Tuscans' reports that major Solarian reinforcements had already been deployed to the Madras Sector, as well . . . .
Well, you've got orders for dealing with that, too, don't you? she asked herself. Of course, they're basically to "use your own discretion." It's nice to know the folks back home think so highly of your judgment, I suppose, but still . . . .
She inhaled deeply. Baroness Medusa, the Talbott Quadrant's Imperial Governor, had dispatched her own note directly to Meyers at the same time Michelle had departed for New Tuscany and Josef Byng's date with several hundred laser heads. It must have reached Verrochio two T-weeks ago, and she wondered what sort of response he'd made.
You'll be finding out soon enough, girl, she told herself grimly. But even if he dashed off a response the instant Reprise got there with O'Shaughnessy, it couldn't get back here for another T-week. And one thing Solly bureaucrats aren't is impetuous about putting their necks on any potential chopping blocks. So even if he didn't have a thing to do with anything that's happened—however unlikely that is—I doubt he's going to have been a lot faster out of the blocks than Roelas y Valiente was.
She remembered the old proverb that said "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It was remarkably little comfort at the moment. She had absolute confidence in her command's ability to defeat any attack Frontier Fleet might launch against Spindle. They'd have to transfer in scores of additional battlecruisers if they hoped to have any chance against her own Nikes, Saganami-Cs, Enderby's CLACs, and the flatpack missile pods aboard her ammunition ships. In fact, she doubted Frontier Fleet had enough battlecruisers anywhere this side of Sol itself to take Spindle, even if they could send every one of them to call on her, and battlecruisers were the heaviest ships Frontier Fleet had. But Battle Fleet was another matter, and if the New Tuscans had been right about Solly superdreadnoughts at McIntosh. . . .
She gave an internal headshake and scolded herself once again. If there were Solly ships-of-the-wall in the vicinity, she'd just have to deal with that when she got confirmation. Which, of course, was one reason she'd assigned Oversteegen to defend against Mark 23s. She might relent and pull Apollo back out of the equation, but she doubted it, because the purpose wasn't really to smack Michael, no matter how much he deserved it for being such a smartass. And no matter how much she would enjoy doing exactly that, for that matter.
No, the purpose was to force one of the best tacticians she knew to pull out all the stops in defense of the Spindle System. Seeing how well her own staff did against a truly capable Mark 23-equipped opponent would have been desirable enough in its own right, yet that was actually secondary, as far as she was concerned. She was confident of her own tactical ability, but there was always something new for even the best tactician to learn, and Michelle Henke had never been too proud to admit that. She'd be watching Rear Admiral Oversteegen closely, and not just to evaluate his performance. If he came up with something that suggested tactical wrinkles to her, she'd pounce on them in a heartbeat, because she might need them altogether too soon . . . and badly.
Chapter Twelve
"May I help you, Lieutenant?"
The exquisitely tailored maître d' didn't sound as if he really expected to be able to assist two such junior officers, who'd undoubtedly strayed into his establishment by mistake.
"Oh, yes—please! We're here to join Lieutenant Archer," Abigail Hearns told him. "Um, we may be a few minutes early, I'm afraid."
She managed, Ensign Helen Zilwicki observed to sound very . . . earnest. Possibly even a little nervous at intruding into such elegant surroundings, but very determined. And the fact that her father could have bought the entire Sigourney's Fine Restaurants chain out of poket change wasn't particularly in evidence, either. The fact that she was third-generation prolong and looked considerably younger than her already very young age, especially to eyes not yet accustomed to the latest generations of prolong, undoubtedly helped, yet she clearly possessed a fair degree of thespian talent, as well. The maître d' was clearly convinced she'd escaped from a high school—probably a lower-class high school, given her soft, slow Grayson accent—for the afternoon, at least. His expression of politely sophisticated attentiveness didn't actually change a millimeter, but Helen had the distinct impression of an internal wince.
"Ah, Lieutenant Archer," he repeated. "Of course. If you'll come this way, please?"
He set sail across the intimately lit main dining room's sea of linen-draped tables, and Abigail and Helen bobbed along in his wake like a pair of dinghies. They crossed to a low archway on the opposite side of the big room, then followed him down two shallow steps into a dining room with quite a different (though no less expensive) flavor. The floor had turned into artfully worn bricks, the walls—also of brick—had a rough, deliberately unfinished look, and the ceiling was supported by heavy wooden beams.
Well, by what looked like wooden beams, Helen thought, although they probably weren't all that impressive to someone like Abigail who'd grown up in a (thoroughly renovated) medieval pile of stone over six hundred years old. One which really did have massive, age-blackened beams, a front gate fit to sneer at battering rams, converted firing slits for windows, and fireplaces the size of a destroyer's boat bay.
Two people were seated at one of the dark wooden tables. One of them—a snubnosed, green-eyed officer in the uniform of a Royal Manticoran Navy lieutenant—looked up and waved as he saw them. His companion—a stunningly attractive blonde—turned her head when he waved, and smiled as she, too, saw the newcomers.
"Thank you," Abigail told the maître d' politely, and that worthy murmured something back, then turned and departed with what in a less eminent personage might have been described as relieved haste.
"You know," Abigail said as she and Helen crossed to the table, "you really should be ashamed of the way you deliberately offend that poor man's sensibilities, Gwen."
Personally, Helen was reminded rather forcefully of the old saying about pots and kettles, given Abigail's simpering performance for the same maître d', but she nobly forbore saying so.
"Me?" Lieutenant Gervais Winton Erwin Neville Archer's expression was one of utter innocence. "How could you possibly suggest such a thing, Miss Ow
ens?"
"Because I know you?"
"Is it my fault nobody on this restaurant's entire staff has bothered to inquire into the exalted pedigrees of its patrons?" Gervais demanded. "If you're going to blame anyone, blame her."
He pointed across the table at the blonde, who promptly smacked the offending hand.
"It's not polite to point," she told him in a buzz saw-like accent. "Even we brutish, lower-class Dresdeners know that much!"
"Maybe not, but that doesn't make it untrue, does it?" he shot back.
"I didn't say it did," Helga Boltitz, Defense Minister Henri Krietzmann's personal aide, replied, and smiled at the newcomers. "Hello, Abigail. And you too, Helen."
"Hi, Helga," Abigail responded, and Helen nodded her own acknowledgment of the greeting as she seated herself beside Helga. Abigail settled into the remaining chair, facing Helen across the table, and looked up as their waiter appeared.
He took their drink orders, handed them menus, and disappeared, and she cocked her head at Gervais as she opened the elegant, two centimeter-thick binder.
"Helga may have put you up to it, and I can't say I blame her," she said." This has to be the snootiest restaurant I've ever eaten in, and trust me, Daddy's taken me to some really snooty places. Not to mention the way they fawn over a steaholder or his family. But you're the one who's taking such a perverse enjoyment over thinking about how these people are going to react when they find out the truth."
"What truth would that be?" Gervais inquired more innocently yet. "You mean the fact that I'm a cousin—of some sort, anyway—of the Queen? Or that Helen here's sister is the Queen of Torch? Or that your own humble father is Steadholder Owens?"
"That's exactly what she means, you twit," Helga told him, blue eyes glinting with amusement, and leaned across the table to whack him gently on the head. "And much as I'm going to enjoy it when they do find out, don't think I don't remember how you did exactly the same thing to me!"
"I never misled you in any way," he said virtuously.
"Oh, no? If I hadn't looked you up in Clarke's Peerage, you never would've told me, would you?"
"Oh, I imagine I'd have gotten around to it eventually," he said, and his voice was considerably softer than it had been. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, gave his right hand a pat where it lay on the table between them, then settled back in her chair.
If anyone had suggested to Helga Boltitz eight months ago that she might find herself comfortable with, or actually liking, someone from a background of wealth and privilege, she would have laughed. The idea that someone from Dresden, that sinkhole of hardscrabble, lower-class, grub-for-a-living poverty could have anything in common with someone from such stratospheric origins would have been ludicrous. And, if she were going to be honest, that was still true where the majority of the Talbott Quadrant's homegrown oligarchs were concerned. More than that, she felt entirely confident she was going to run into Manticorans who were just as arrogant and supercilious as she'd always imagined they'd be.
But Gervais Archer had challenged her preconceptions—gently, but also firmly—and, in the process, convinced her that there were at least some exceptions to the rule. Which explained how she found herself sitting at this table in such monumentally well-connected company.
"Personally," Helen said, "my only regret is that I probably won't be here when they do find out."
At twenty-one, she was the youngest of the quartet, as well as the most junior in rank. And she was also the non-Dresdener who came closest to sharing Helga's attitudes where aristocrats and oligarchs were concerned. Not surprisingly, given the fact that she'd been born on Gryphon and raised by a Gryphon highlander who'd proceeded to take up with the closest thing to a rabble-rousing anarchist the Manticoran peerage had ever produced when Helen was barely thirteen years old.
"If you really want to see their reaction, I suppose you could tell them yourself this afternoon," Abigail pointed out.
"Oh, no way!" Helen chuckled. "I might want to be here to see it, but the longer it takes them to figure it out, the more irritated they're going to be when they finally do!"
Abigail shook her head. She'd spent more time on Manticore than she had back home on Grayson, over the last nine or ten T-years, but despite the undeniable, mischievous enjoyment she'd felt when dissembling for the maître d', there were times when she still found her Manticoran friends' attitude towards their own aristocracy peculiar. As Gervais had pointed out, her father was a steadholder, and the deepest longings of the most hard-boiled member of Manticore's Conservative Association were but pale shadows of the reality of a steadholder's authority within his steading. The term "absolute monarch" fell comfortably short of that reality, although "supreme autocrat" was probably headed in the right direction.
As a result of her own birth and childhood, she had remarkably few illusions about the foibles and shortcomings of the "nobly born." Yet she was also the product of a harsh and unforgiving planet and a profoundly traditional society, one whose deference and rules of behavior were based deep in the bedrock of survival's imperatives. She still found the irreverent, almost fondly mocking attitude of so many Manticorans towards their own aristocracy unsettling. In that respect, she was even more like Helga than Helen was, she thought. Hostility, antagonism, even hatred—those she could understand, when those born to positions of power abused that power rather than meeting its responsibilities. The sort of self-deprecating amusement someone like Gwen Archer displayed, on the other hand, didn't fit itself comfortably into her own core concepts, even though she'd seen exactly the same attitude out of dozens of other Manticorans who were at least as well born as he was.
I guess you can take the girl off of Grayson, but you can't take Grayson out of the girl, she thought. It wasn't the first time that thought had crossed her mind. And it won't be the last, either, she reflected tartly.
She started to say something else, then paused as their drinks arrived and the waiter took their orders. He disappeared once more, and she sipped iced tea (something she'd had trouble finding in Manticoran restaurants), then lowered her glass.
"Leaving aside the ignoble, although I'll grant you entertaining, contemplation of the coronaries certain to follow the discovery of our despicable charade, I shall now turn this conversation in a more sober minded and serious direction."
"Good luck with that," Helen murmured.
"As I was about to ask," Abigail continued, giving her younger friend a ferocious glare, "how are things going dirtside, Helga?"
"As frantically as ever." Helga grimaced, took a sip from her own beer stein, then sighed. "I guess it's inevitable. Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse. I don't think anyone in the entire Quadrant's ever seen this many dispatch boats in orbit around a single planet before!"
All three of her listeners grimaced back at her in understanding.
"I don't suppose we can really blame them," she went on, "even if I do want to shoot the next newsy I see on sight! But exactly how they expect Minister Krietzmann to get anything done when they keep hounding him for 'statements' and 'background interviews' is more than I can imagine."
"One of the less pleasant consequences of an open society," Gervais said, rather more philosophically than he felt.
"Exactly," Abigail agreed, then smiled unpleasantly. "Although I'd like to see the newsy back home on Grayson who thought he could get away with 'hounding' Daddy!"
"Well, fair's fair," Helen said judiciously. They all looked at her, and she shrugged. "Maybe it's because I've spent so much time watching Cathy Montaigne maneuver back home, but it occurs to me that having Thimble crawling with newsies may be the best thing that could happen."
"Just how do you mean that?" Gervais asked. In the wrong tone, the question could have been dismissive, especially given the difference in their ages and relative senority. As it was, he sounded genuinely curious, and she shrugged again.
"Politics is all about perceptions and understandings. I realize Cathy Montaig
ne's mainly involved in domestic politics right now, but the same basic principle applies in interstellar diplomacy. If you control the terms of the debate, the advantage is all on your side. You can't make somebody on the other side make the decision you want, but you've got a much better chance of getting her to do that if she's got to defend her position in the public mind instead of you having to defend your position. Controlling the information—and especially the public perception of that information—is one of the best ways to limit her options to the ones most favorable to your own needs. Don't forget, if the Sollies want a formal declaration of war, all it takes is one veto by a full member star system to stop them. That's a pretty significant prize for a PR campaign to go after. And, at the moment, the way we want to control the debate is simply to tell the truth about what happened at New Tuscany, right?"
Gervais nodded, and she shrugged a third time.
"Well, if all the newsies in the universe are here in Spindle getting our side of the story, looking at the sensor data we've released, and interviewing our people, that's what's going to be being reported back on Old Terra. They can try to spin it any way they want, but the basic message getting sent back to all those Sollies—even by their own newsies—is going to be built on what they're finding out here, from us."
"That's more or less what Minister Krietzmann says," Helga admitted, "although he's prone to use some pretty colorful adjectives to describe the newsies in question."
"I think Lady Gold Peak would agree, too, even if she is doing her dead level best to stay as far away from them as possible," Gervais said, and Abigail and Helen nodded. As Michelle Henke's flag lieutenant, he was in a far better position to form that kind of judgment than either of them were.