by David Weber
"Bruce has an excellent point, Your Majesty," Morncreek put in. The small, dark baroness looked almost like a child sitting beside the taller, bulkier, fair-haired Wijenberg, but her voice was crisp.
"At the moment, we've suspended the markets," she continued. "We can probably get away with that for a few more days, but we can't just freeze them forever, so we're going to have to respond with some sort of coherent policy quickly. And as the first stage in doing that, I think the most important thing is for us to stop and take a deep breath. As Charlotte says, we still have our educational system, and as Bruce just pointed out, shipping routes aren't going to magically change. We have the ability to recover from this . . . assuming we can survive long enough. How bad things are going to get economically before they start getting better is more than I'm prepared to predict, and the price tag's going to be enormous, but I'm confident of our ultimate capacity to rebuild everything we've lost . . . if whoever did this to us gives us the time."
She looked directly at Hamish Alexander-Harrington, Sir Thomas Caparelli, and Admiral Patricia Givens, and her dark eyes were sharp. Francine Maurier had been First Lord of Admiralty herself, and that lent her unspoken question an even sharper edge.
"I don't know whether or not they will, My Lady," Givens admitted. She seemed to have aged at least a couple of decades in the last twenty hours, and her eyes were filled with bitter anguish. "At this point, we don't have the least idea who did it to us, much less how."
Samantha made a soft, distressed sound in White Haven's arms as the bleeding wound of the second space lord's sense of personal failure reached out to her. The earl didn't need Honor's empathy to understand his companion's distress, and his right hand twitched in an automatic reflex to reach out to Givens.
"Your Majesty," the admiral continued, facing Elizabeth squarely, "what's just happened represents the worst intelligence failure in the history of the Star Empire. A total failure. And as the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, that failure is mine."
Givens never physically moved, yet her shoulders seemed to hunch under the weight of her admission, and silence hovered. Then Elizabeth looked past her to White Haven. She started to speak, then stopped and shifted her eyes to Caparelli, instead.
"Sir Thomas?" the queen said very softly.
"Your Majesty," the First Space Lord looked more granite-like than ever, yet he replied almost instantly, and his eyes were level and his voice—as granite-like as his face—was unflinching, "Admiral Givens is entirely correct in at least one sense. We never saw this coming. None of us saw it coming. And that does represent an enormous failure on the part of your armed forces and your intelligence services. We were supposed to keep something like this from happening, and we didn't."
The silence was deeper and darker than ever. He let it linger for a heartbeat, then inhaled deeply.
"You'll have my letter of resignation by the end of the day, Your Majesty. And the reason you'll have that letter is because the responsibility ultimately is mine. But in defense of my subordinates—including Admiral Givens—I don't think this was something any of them could have seen coming. I've already spoken with Admiral Hemphill. Her people have been systematically examining every recorded sensor reading from every surveillance platform and ship in the entire binary system. She began with the moment of the attack, and she proposes to go back for at least six T-months. While that's going to take a long time, she tells me her preliminary assessment is that we're looking at the result of a previously unsuspected technological capability that's probably at least as revolutionary in its own way as anything we've managed.
"But that kind of capability doesn't just happen overnight. Whoever did this to us didn't just wake up the day before yesterday, pick the Star Empire at random, and decide to hit us with something he just happened to have lying around. Whoever did this—and I have a few suspicions about who that 'whoever' might be—developed the capability he just used for the specific purpose, the exact sort of operation, he just used it to accomplish. And given what's been happening lately in Talbott and the League, I also very strongly suspect we were the primary target all along, from the moment he first set out to develop his new tech.
"So if there was an intelligence failure involved, it wasn't a failure to correctly interpret information. It didn't happen because someone overlooked something. I suppose it's remotely possible we're eventually going to discover there was some tiny clue somewhere, but if this attack was the work of who I think it was, then we've been trying to put their capabilities under a microscope ever since the Battle of Monica. If we didn't realize they'd managed to put together the technology and the resources to pull this off, it wasn't because we weren't looking. It was because we didn't know—because nobody knew—what to be looking for."
No one spoke for a moment, then Grantville cleared his throat.
"I'm very much inclined to endorse what you've just said, at least to the extent that it bears upon Admiral Givens' performance." The prime minister looked directly across the table at Givens. "I've known you too long, worked with you too closely, to believe for a single moment that what's just happened represents any 'failure' on your part, Pat. From what Sir Thomas just said, it's obvious no one over at BuWeaps had a hint the weapons used in this attack were even possible, much less that anyone was actually developing them. That wouldn't be the case if whoever did the research and developing hadn't exercised extraordinary care to keep anyone from realizing what he was up to. So in my view, barring some totally unexpected revelation, this doesn't represent an intelligence failure on any one person's part. I doubt very much that it represents a failure on the part of our intelligence community as a whole, for that matter. Yes, we were supposed to see something like this coming. But to use one of Hamish's charming phrases, when you're ass-deep in alligators, sometimes it's hard to remember your original purpose was to drain the swamp. With everything that's been coming at us over the last few years, how in the world were you supposed to realize someone was cooking up a totally new—and presumably unorthodox as hell—technology that could defeat the best sensor platforms and technology in existence?"
Givens looked back at him with those wounded eyes. She didn't speak, but at least she didn't disagree with him—not openly, at any rate. He held her gaze for a moment, then looked back at Caparelli.
"I said I think I agree with what you've said at least inasmuch as it bears on Patricia's performance at ONI," he said. "But it's clear you're suggesting Manpower might somehow be behind this." The prime minister shook his head. "I know we're in the process of radically reevaluating everything we thought we knew about Manpower and Mesa. But are you seriously suggesting they have this kind of capability? Look at our confrontation with the League. What makes you think Manpower is more likely to be behind this than that the SLN's just demonstrated it has previously unsuspected capabilities of its own?"
Caparelli started to reply, but White Haven laid a hand on his forearm, stopping him.
"If I may, Tom?" he said quietly. Caparelli glanced sideways at him, then nodded, and White Haven turned to his brother.
"On the face of it, Willie, it does seem more likely someone like the League should be able to develop and deploy something like this—whatever 'this' is—than that an outlaw outfit like Manpower or even an entire single-system star nation like Mesa could. But I'm as certain as Tom that it wasn't the League, and not just because we've convinced outselves of our technological superiority to the SLN. If they'd had this sort of capability—and some way to get it to us this quickly—they wouldn't even have bothered to talk to us after what happened at New Tuscany. Think about the scale and the scope of what whoever it really was did here." He shook his head. "I suppose it's remotely possible Crandall could have been stupid enough to sail directly into a confrontation with us even knowing the League Navy had something like this in its locker. For that matter, if the development was kept 'black' enough, she might not even have known it existed. It could even have been devel
oped by one of the system defense forces, not the SLN itself, although that seems unlikely. But none of those possibilities change the fact that someone like Kolokoltsov would for damned sure have told us to pound sand from the outset rather than playing diplomatic games if the League had had this capability and been busy moving it into position to hit us all along.
"I agree with Tom's assessment. Whoever developed this, developed it for exactly the sort of operation he just carried out, and, frankly, there was no reason for the League to develop it. When you're the biggest, baddest conventional navy in the history of humanity—which is exactly how the SLN's always thought of itself—you don't need something like this. For that matter, you don't want something like this, because it's going to fundamentally destabilize the equation that's made you the biggest, baddest navy in existence."
Grantville looked skeptical, and White Haven waved one hand in an impatient gesture, as if he were looking for the exact way to express what he was trying to say.
"This is like . . . like our development of the grav-pulse com and the multidrive missile, Willie, only more so. You may remember just how much trouble Sonja had convincing certain members of our naval establishment—myself included—to support her changes, despite the fact that even those of us who disagreed with her had an enormous incentive to figure out how somebody our size survived against someone the size of the People's Republic. It's human nature to stick with what you know works, and there's always something scary about cutting loose from known, quantifiable, predictable technologies and capabilities, especially when you know you're the best around, have a significant qualitative or quantitative advantage over your adversaries, under the existing rules. That's why we kicked and screamed at each other so much—and so loudly.
"But we did head out in those new directions. And we did it because we had to. Because of that enormous incentive. Someone back on Old Earth once said that when a man knows he's going to be hanged, it concentrates his thoughts, and that's exactly what happened to us. But the League's never worried about that. It's never had any reason to, and that's precisely why the SLN's always been the most conservative fleet in existence. I can't conceive of any reason for the Sollies to have changed that permanently ingrained a mindset so completely. Under the existing rules, they've always been the eight-hundred-kilo gorilla, and any fundamental change could only jeopardize their position, or at least require them to duplicate the new technology themselves, quite possibly at the expense of throwing away the huge numerical superiority they've spent literally centuries building up.
"But Manpower, on the other hand—" The earl shook his head again. "However uncomfortable the conclusion may be, I think just about all of us have decided Mike and Honor are right about Manpower's responsibility for everything that's happened in Talbott. Which means that whatever we may have thought Manpower was for the last few centuries, it isn't just 'an outlaw outfit.' I still don't have a clue in Hell what it is, but I know it's more than that. And, like Tom, I know it's managed to keep anyone from guessing it was. What I can't even begin to speculate meaningfully on is how long it's been more than that, but I'm sure as hell not prepared to assume the leopard just decided to change its spots the day before yesterday. So given that someone's already demonstrated that he's developed both the intent and the capability to maneuver us into open warfare with the Solarian League, I think that someone is a much more likely candidate to have orchestrated this attack. And I also think someone who's apparently spent a long time planning and building up capabilities he didn't want the rest of the galaxy to know about is a much more likely candidate to have very quietly embraced a brand-new, completely destabilizing military technology.
"If you know anyone that description fits better than Manpower, please tell me who it is."
Grantville gazed at his brother for several seconds, then sat back in his chair.
"I can't," he said quietly.
"Neither can I." Elizabeth's grim voice drew all eyes back to her. Her own attention was fixed on White Haven and Caparelli, however.
"Am I correct in assuming you and Sir Thomas believe Manpower—or whatever the hell we should start calling these people—wouldn't have hit us and left our allies alone?"
"I doubt very much that they would have," White Haven said heavily. "I suppose it's possible they left the Andermani out. They have to be aware the Emperor's more than a little unhappy about this confrontation of ours with the League, and the Andermani have always had that reputation for . . . pragmatism, let's say. And there's got to be a limit on their current capabilities—how far they could stretch their attack when they started planning it—as well. So they may well have figured Gustav would recognize a sinking ship when he saw one. For that matter, they may have figured he's smart enough and cautious enough to figure there's no reason they couldn't do the same thing to him later if he didn't decide to step aside.
"But anyone smart enough to put all of this together is going to understand Benjamin Mayhew better than that, Your Majesty. They're going to've had a page or two in their plans for him. I'm very much afraid our dispatch boat telling him about what's happened here is going to cross one from him telling us the same thing already happened at Yeltsin's Star."
"I agree entirely with Hamish, Your Majesty," Caparelli said. "And I'd add one other point. The Andermani still don't have their military hardware fully up to our standards. The Graysons do. I don't believe anyone would launch an attack like this on us without trying to make certain he took out the people most likely to help us rebuild, as well."
Elizabeth looked at him for several more seconds, then nodded.
"That was about the conclusion I'd reached myself, unfortunately, Sir Thomas."
"I would like to make one additional point if I may, however, Your Majesty," the first space lord said quietly.
"Of course."
"I realize that at this moment what we're all most aware of is the damage we've taken and the fact that we don't have a clue how the attack was pulled off. Frankly, from a military perspective, the most frightening thing is that none of our sensor systems saw a single thing coming.
"My own feeling, and Admiral Hemphill's tentative analysis supports the same conclusion, is that what we have to be looking at is some radically new propulsive system. The missiles used in this attack were essentially conventional weapons—variants on our own MDMs. Analysis of their maneuvers from the moment they brought their drives up further suggests they were delivered in pods, probably coasted ballistically in to their launch points at a velocity of about point-two cee. The weapons that were used on the space stations were another case entirely. At this point, it looks like they were probably some sort of throwaway, disposable version of our own Shrikes, although nobody in Admiral Hemphill's shop has the least clue how Manpower—excuse me, how whoever launched this attack—managed to cram a weapon that powerful into a remote platform. Or how they gave its graser that sort of pulse endurance. For all intents and purposes, though, it's basically only a longer-ranged version of our own Mistletoe, probably using whatever new drive technology their ships use instead of relying completely on stealth the way Mistletoe does.
"So, so far, the only fundamentally destabilizing thing we've seen—or, rather, not seen—is the drive technology itself. That's scary enough, but I suspect it's an advantage that's going to be considerably less valuable the second time it's used against someone who knows it's out there, even if he doesn't know how it's done. And whatever it may let them do in sublight maneuvering, unless the laws of physics have been repealed, they still have to radiate a hyper footprint when they leave hyper-space. Admiral Hemphill tells me she feels quite confident she'll eventually be able to identify whatever trace footprint or hyper ghost we failed to spot or identify properly at the time the ships which deployed this attack's weapons dropped in on us.
"My point is, Your Majesty, that it's going to be much more difficult for this adversary to launch a second attack on this star system—or, for that matter, on Gr
ayson or New Potsdam—without our at least spotting their arrival from hyper. If we spot any unidentified hyper footprint or ghost, we'll immediately saturate the space around it with grav-pulse com-coordinated scout ships and deploy remote sensor platforms in a shell dense enough for someone to walk across. Even without our knowing exactly what we're looking for, it's extremely unlikely any significant force of starships could penetrate that kind of surveillance wall without our detecting something. And unless these people have been able to build an awfully large fleet of SD(P)s with Apollo capability of its own, 'something' is all Home Fleet or the system-defense Apollo pods are going to need."
"So a second, similar attack is unlikely to succeed?" Grantville asked.
"Obviously no one can absolutely guarantee it won't, Mr. Prime Minister," Caparelli said with unaccustomed formality. "I think 'unlikely to succeed' would be putting it mildly, however."
The first space lord shrugged, and looked back at Elizabeth.
"Your Majesty, I fully realize that what I'm talking about here is, at best, an argument that we can defend ourselves against similar attacks. I'm not even remotely trying to suggest that until we know how it was done, and until we're completely confident we know exactly who did it, we'll be in any position to take offensive action. And one thing we've learned against the Havenites is that the side which can't take effective offensive action ultimately loses. But barring the need to expend a large percentage of our limited missile supply against either the Republic or the League before we can get new production lines set up, I believe we ought to be able to protect ourselves against whoever this was until we do know what we need to know to go after them."