by David Weber
“Well, to begin with,” Mikulin observed, “it leaves a lot of people alive who’d be dead otherwise. And it pretty conclusively demonstrates that their navy can’t stand up to Manticoran weapons technology.”
“Does it?” White Haven asked. “Demonstrate they can’t stand up to our weapons, I mean?”
“Excuse me?” Mikulin looked perplexed, not incredulous, and White Haven shrugged again.
“What happened to Crandall’s already demonstrated that to anyone with a working IQ,” he pointed out. “Despite which, they’ve sent this entire fleet all the way out here. The damned ‘Mandarins’ are still that willing to risk getting millions of people killed—and that unwilling to even consider admitting they might conceivably be in the wrong. The name they’ve assigned this abortion is proof enough of that! ‘Operation Raging Justice’?” The scorn in his voice was withering. “Pretty much shows how they plan on selling this to the League, doesn’t it? They’re still trying to game the system, and they don’t give a single solitary damn about the fire they’re playing with as long as it’s someone else who gets burned!”
He paused and looked around the table, his eyes like fiery blue ice.
“So what happens, what do they do, if the fleet they’ve sent after us turns around and goes home without anyone firing a shot?” he went on. “Do they suddenly decide to admit their entire so-called strategy was a recipe for disaster that they walked straight into with their eyes wide open? For that matter, do they admit they pulled back because they’ve figured out they can’t take us out? Do they even admit we let them back off instead of blowing their entire fleet into dust bunnies? No. What they’ll do is try their damnedest to pass it off as another example of their ‘restraint’ in the face of our belligerence. They didn’t turn around because they knew they’d get their ass kicked if they kept coming; they turned around because they realized our leadership was so hopelessly stupid and bloodthirsty it was really going to fight, despite the fact that we couldn’t possibly win, and they weren’t prepared to slaughter all our personnel. After all, none of our spacers are responsible for our government’s hopelessly corrupt and imperialistic policy. Isn’t that the way they’ve already been selling all this? Of course it is! So rather than press matters, once they realized Her Majesty here was perfectly prepared to throw away all of those lives, they’ve decided to exercise restraint.”
“That’s—” Grantville paused for a moment, looking at his brother, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ham, but that’d be too much for even the Solly public to swallow!”
“Maybe,” Vice Admiral Trenis said, her expression thoughtful. “In fact, probably. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try it, though, Mr. Prime Minister. As Earl White Haven says, it’s certainly compatible with the propaganda the Mandarins already have out there, anyway. And let’s face it, they’ve managed to sell their public a lot of things that were almost equally preposterous.”
“Tester knows that’s true enough,” Benjamin agreed. “I’d really prefer for Hamish to be wrong, too, Willie, but I’m very much afraid he isn’t.”
“And even if they couldn’t hope to sell it in the long run,” Mikulin said with a scowl, “they might figure they could make it stand up in the short run as long as all of them lied loudly enough with straight enough faces. Long enough for them to get a formal declaration of war through the Assembly, say.”
“All right, I’ll accept that they may be thinking that way, even if I don’t think they’d be likely to get away with it,” Grantville said, although his tone was still doubtful. “Having said that, though, what do you propose we do about it, Ham?”
“We don’t give them the choice,” White Haven said flatly.
“Hamish,” Elizabeth said, “given my reputation, I can’t quite believe I’m the one who’s about to say this, but I’d really prefer not to kill anyone we don’t have to kill.”
“I’m not proposing we slaughter them out of hand, Your Majesty.” White Haven smiled thinly. “Mind you, the notion does have a certain appeal, especially given how cynically they’re taking advantage of the Yawata strike. Reminds you of a carrion hawk circling a sand buck with a broken leg, doesn’t it? Or maybe more of a dune slug getting ready to strip the carcass before it’s quite dead. But what I’m saying is that we need to create a situation in which whatever happens here represents an unambiguous, undeniable, decisive defeat for the SLN. Something no Solly spinmeister’s going to be able to convince even some credulous three-year-old was a ‘voluntary act of restraint’ on the League’s part. We don’t have to blow them all out of space to do that, either.”
“You’re thinking of forcing them to surrender, aren’t you, Milord?” Thomas Theisman said slowly, his eyes narrowed.
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” White Haven agreed. “After what happened at Spindle, they’d find the surrender of another four hundred or so ships-of-the-wall damned hard to explain. Well, to explain as anything except an admission of total military impotence, anyway.”
“There’s something to that, Your Majesty, Madam President,” Langtry said. “On the heels of Lacoön and Spindle, the fact that we’ve simply captured the biggest single fleet the Solarian League’s ever assembled—hopefully without firing a shot or harming a single hair on anyone’s head—would have to just about finish off any remaining public confidence in Battle Fleet. Not to mention taking another four hundred-plus ships-of-the-wall out of Rajampet’s order of battle. I don’t care how many obsolete wallers he’s got in the Reserve; even he’s got to eventually figure out he’s running out of ships. Or out of trained crews to put aboard them, anyway!”
“And if Filareta doesn’t have any ‘secret orders,’ or if he’s just plain too stupid to surrender without getting a lot of his ships blown out of space first?” From Theisman’s tone, he wasn’t disputing Langtry’s or White Haven’s analyses. He was simply a military man who wanted to be sure the civilians around that table fully understood what was being discussed.
“If we arrange things properly, Tom,” Honor said, entering the discussion for the first time, “we can create a tactical situation in which he’ll have to recognize the hopelessness of his position. In fact, you and I have already done that, haven’t we?” It was her turn to smile coldly. “The only change we’d have to make would be to wait a bit longer, let him actually cross the limit before we pull the trigger. If he’s not willing to surrender under those conditions, then he’s another Crandall, and he wouldn’t be willing to surrender under any conditions. And if that’s the case, he’d probably try to bull straight in until we stopped him the hard way, no matter what. Which means—”
“Which means we’d have to open fire on him, anyway.” Pritchart finished Honor’s thought for her.
“Exactly, Madam President.” Honor sighed. “Like Her Majesty, I don’t want to kill anyone we don’t have to kill. But if Filareta’s determined to fight anyway, then I want the deck as heavily stacked in our favor as possible. And I want him hammered so hard even Sollies have to get the message that going after us is a really, really bad idea. That this isn’t just another of their business-as-usual manipulations or some kind of sporting event, with rules they can game any way they like or walk away from any time they choose. That it’s a war—their war—and that wars have consequences. We didn’t start it; they did, when Byng massacred Chatterjee’s destroyers. And we didn’t send a fleet to attack the Sol System; they’ve sent one to attack us. For that matter, the fact that so many of their people got killed at Spindle was Crandall’s fault, not ours, and she obviously meant to kill any of our people who got in her way.”
Honor’s eyes were hard, and even as she spoke, she wondered how much of the grim, cold determination she felt inside was aimed at the Solarian League and how much of it was aimed at any convenient target. Was her anger, her vengefulness, the product of New Tuscany and Spindle? Or were they the product of the Yawata strike, directed at the Solarian League because she couldn’t get at the one
s who’d actually murdered so many people she’d loved?
And did it matter which it was?
“They’re bringing this war to us, when they don’t have to,” she went on coldly. “Bringing it to us when we’ve warned them they’re being played by Mesa. When we’ve specifically warned them they’re sending their superdreadnoughts into an effective death trap! There’s a limit to what we owe them, how far over backward we’re required to bend to keep from killing people who’re here for the express purpose of invading and conquering our star system and our homes. I support Hamish on this one. Don’t let them off. Don’t let them ‘magnanimously’ step back. Smack them down in a way that forces them to admit the stupidity of sending Filareta out here in the first place, and then see how well Kolokoltsov and his Mandarins deal with the fallout!”
Chapter Twenty
______________________________
Massimo Filareta stood in one of his favorite “thinking” poses, feet spread, hands shoved deep into his tunic pockets, and brow knitted while he gazed down at the detailed star-system schematic. At the moment, that schematic showed both components of the binary system which was his objective, but he wasn’t really interested in the secondary component. Not yet.
Although John did have a point, he reflected. They’re bound to be expecting anyone who comes calling to hit Sphinx or Manticore, especially after what happened to them in February. That’s where they’re going to have their fleet strength concentrated. And the bulk of any system-defense missiles they have left has to be deployed to cover Manticore-A, too. They can’t really afford to lose any of their home-system planets, but they could afford to lose Gryphon a lot more than they could either of the other two. And they have to know that if they spread themselves too thin …
He grimaced. The notion of hitting Gryphon first, of starting by attacking their weakest point, had an undeniable appeal. Part of that was the “dipping a toe in” aspect of not getting any deeper than he had to before he’d tested the waters. That was scarcely the stuff of military derring do; then again, professional naval officers were supposed to avoid derring do whenever possible. “Derring-do” was usually what happened only after someone had screwed up by the numbers and had to figure out how to save his ass from his own mistakes. And given that he’d been forced to accept that he really was facing the wrong end of a tech imbalance, seizing an objective the Manties would be forced to retake, compelling them to come to him on his terms, had a lot to recommend itself in terms of cold military logic. Especially if they really were depending on pod-launched system-defense missiles—which were effectively fixed defenses—to make up the combat differential against the League’s superior numbers.
Unfortunately, his orders were to go directly for the Star Empire’s capital world, and that meant attacking Manticore-A.
Yeah, those are the orders. But the people who gave them aren’t here, and you are. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t … modify them in a heartbeat if you really thought it would make a difference.
He snorted mentally, wondering yet again if one reason he’d been chosen for this mission—chosen by his official superiors, not Manpower, that was—was precisely because those superiors realized he’d treat their orders as no more than suggestions if it came down to it. He hoped it was, at any rate, because he’d already decided that was precisely what he was going to do.
I’m sure Manpower does have its reasons for sending me out here, but I’ll be damned if I do a Crandall for them! If this brainstorm of Rajani’s looks like it’ll really work, all well and good. If it doesn’t … Well, sorry about that, Manpower, but we are out of here!
He didn’t much care to contemplate the repercussions of disappointing his “sponsors,” but he liked contemplating the deaths of a couple of million Solarians—including that of one Massimo Filareta—even less.
“All right,” he said finally, turning from the display tank, “does anybody have any last-minute thoughts, inspirations, or concerns we need to discuss before we all grab some sleep?” He smiled thinly and took one hand from a tunic pocket to wave in the direction of the time display which was counting steadily downward towards Eleventh Fleet’s scheduled alpha translation back into normal-space. “We’ve still got a whole ten hours to think about them!”
That evoked the smiles and smothered laughs he’d hoped for. There was an edge of nervousness in some of that laughter, but that was inevitable. More importantly, there was an even stronger edge of … not confidence, perhaps, but something close to it. Or a lot closer to that than to dread, at least. The simulations they’d carried out with their new missiles during the lengthy voyage had a lot to do with that. He still had more unhappy questions than answers about where those missiles had come from—and why—but he had to acknowledge their impact on Eleventh Fleet’s capabilities. He’d been as conservative as he could in evaluating their potential, but by his calculations the pods alone had tripled his wall of battle’s striking power at the very least. And if he was willing to accept a long enough ballistic phase between drive activations, the new missiles had enough endurance, even in the tube-launched version, to give him a powered engagement envelope far in excess of anything his fire control could hope to handle. That had to have gone a long way towards offsetting the range imbalance.
“Seriously,” he continued, allowing his own smile to lapse, “the initiative’s ours. If anybody has had a last-minute thought, we can still put a hold on the operation while we consider it.”
He looked around the faces of his seated staffers and their assistants. Their expressions were sober now, but they met his eyes steadily. Then he surveyed the faces of his task force and senior squadron commanders, looking back at him from the solid wall of com displays. One or two of them looked a bit more nervous, but they, too, returned his measuring gaze levelly, and he nodded.
“Good! In that case, John”—he turned to Admiral Burrows—“let’s just hit the high points one more time.”
“Of course, Sir.”
The portly chief of staff stood and walked around to the lectern at the head of the flag briefing room’s table. Normally he would have remained seated in his usual place, but today was scarcely “normal,” and every man and woman in that compartment or looking in from the display wall knew it.
“The key to our plan is the system’s astrography,” he began formally, entering the command that zoomed in the holo display on Manticore-A and its planets. “In particular, the location of the planet Sphinx.” He entered another command, and a twenty-two-light-minute sphere around the G0-class star suddenly turned amber. “As you can see, Sphinx’s position means that—”
* * *
“Well, better late than never, I suppose.” Mercedes Brigham made a face. “Not that I’m not grateful for the extra prep time, but you’d think even Sollies could hit within, say, a couple of days of their ops schedule.”
“Now, now,” Honor said mildly, studying CIC’s preliminary analysis. “We’ve missed a few operational schedules ourselves, Mercedes.”
“True, Your Grace,” Rafael Cardones agreed. Her flag captain had been standing beside her, studying the flag-bridge plot, but now he turned away from it to look at the chief of staff. “And far be it from me to point this out, Commodore, but this is amateurs’ night. This is Battle Fleet, you know. Frontier Fleet might at least have been able to find its backside if it got to use both hands, but these people?” He shook his head. “They sit on their asses while Frontier Fleet does all the work, and you’ve seen the kind of ‘gimme’ sims Lady Gold Peak pulled out of their computers! For somebody with exactly zero real operational experience and such miserable training doctrine, coming this close to meeting their schedule is downright miraculous, when you get down to it.” He smiled sourly. “As a matter of fact, I’m still trying to cope with the surprise that Solly SDs were really able to make it all the way out here in the first place. I didn’t think the engine-room hamsters had it in them!”
Honor’s lips twitched unwilling
ly, but she gave him a moderately stern glower.
“It may be ‘amateurs’ night,’ Rafe, but these people may also be a lot closer to ready for the major leagues than we think. They’ve certainly been given plenty of incentive to … reconsider their training standards, at least. On the other hand, Mercedes”—she looked at the older woman—“Rafe’s got a point. For someone with zero real experience, they’ve done well to hit this close to their deadline.”
Brigham looked back at her for a moment, then nodded.
“You’re probably right, Your Grace—both of you. And either way, they’re here now.”
“And pretty much where we anticipated they’d arrive, Ma’am,” another voice said.
There was more than a hint of satisfaction in Captain Jaruwalski’s observation, and Honor nodded. Not that it had taken a tactical genius to recognize the Sollies’ most probable approach vector.
She wasn’t accustomed to knowing her adversary’s actual instructions before battle was ever joined, but she wasn’t about to complain when it finally happened. Nor was she about to rely blindly on that sort of advantage, which was why she’d copied Michelle Henke’s Spindle tactics and deployed system-defense pods and most of her heavy cruisers and battlecruisers to cover Gryphon, just in case Filareta had chosen to strike that way instead. Still, despite any insurance policies against unlikely contingencies, she’d been confident in her own mind that he would head straight for Manticore-A, as both his orders and the Solarian Navy’s fundamental strategic doctrine required.
Even so, that had left the question of which of Manticore-A’s inhabited planets he’d choose to attack. In the eleven T-months since Lester Tourville executed Operation Beatrice, Sphinx had moved out of the resonance zone, the conical volume of space between the Junction and Manticore-A in which it was virtually impossible to translate between hyper-space and normal-space. That meant the planet was no longer shielded from a direct approach, which left Honor’s home world—barely 15.3 million kilometers inside the hyper limit—very little defensive depth.