by David Weber
Tsang glanced quickly at Takeuchi. Marianne Holmon-Sanders was the Beowulf System Defense Force’s senior in-space officer, ranking just behind Admiral Corey McAvoy, the chief of naval operations. She was also the commanding officer of the BSDF’s First Fleet—its only fleet, really—which made the fact that the incoming message was from her even more interesting.
“I see,” the fleet admiral said after a moment, and walked across the flag bridge to her command chair. She took her time, settling herself comfortably, then nodded to Marceau.
“Put her through, Sherwood.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The woman who appeared on Tsang’s display a moment later had brown hair, brown eyes, a wide, firm-lipped mouth, and a determined chin which went just a little oddly with her pert, undeniably snub nose. But what Tsang noticed most strongly, what caused her eyes to widen, was the fact that Holmon-Sanders wore not the maroon tunic and charcoal gray trousers of the Beowulf System Defense Force’s usual uniform, but a skinsuit.
And so did every other officer and rating visible behind her. The officers and ratings manning their consoles and displays on what was obviously a capital ship’s flight deck at general quarters.
“Vice Admiral?” Tsang said after a moment, slightly but firmly emphasizing Holmon-Sanders’ lower rank. “What can I do for you today?”
She sat back to wait the minute necessary for her transmission to reach the terminus and Holmon-Sanders’ reply to reach her, but then, barely one second later—
“You can stand down your impellers and assure me you have no intention of making transit through this terminus against the expressed will of my star system, Fleet Admiral,” Holmon-Sanders said flatly.
Tsang’s head whipped around towards Sherwood Marceau’s station. She heard Takeuchi mutter something short, pungent, and surprised sounding, then cursed herself almost instantly for revealing her own astonishment so clearly. But—
Marceau was staring at his own console and looked, if possible, even more surprised than she felt. He looked down for another moment, then raised his eyes to hers.
“Another transmitter just came online, Ma’am,” he said. “It must be some kind of relay. It’s less than ten thousand klicks out from Warshawski!”
“No doubt your com section has detected my communications relay, Admiral Tsang,” Holmon-Sanders’ voice continued, and Tsang looked back at her display. “It’s a receiver, as well as a transmitter, you know. I thought it would probably be a good idea not to have any … avoidable delays in our conversation. Particularly given the strength and clarity with which my government has set forth the Beowulf System’s position on your proposed operation. Again, I formally request clarification of your intentions.”
Tsang had her expression back under control, and her mind raced. Holmon-Sanders hadn’t just idly decided to speak to her in real-time. She’d done it to make a point; that much Tsang was certain of. But what point? So far as Tsang knew, the only people who were even rumored to possess FTL communications ability were the Manties and—possibly—the Havenites. Which meant the only place Holmon-Sanders could have gotten her FTL relay was from Manticore. But why had she gotten it? And why was she telling Tsang she had it? Surely not even the Beowulfers had been crazy enough to—!
“Use their damned relay, Sherwood,” she said.
“Yes, Ma’am. Give me just a second.” He entered the commands to redirect his communications laser to the far closer relay, then nodded to Tsang.
“My intentions, Vice Admiral Holmon-Sanders,” the fleet admiral said then, her voice hard, “are to carry out my orders, as previously explained to your system government.”
“In other words,” Holmon-Sanders said, still with that impossible quickness, “you do intend to transit this terminus?”
“I do,” Tsang said flatly.
“Then I hereby inform you that you will not be permitted to do so,” Holmon-Sanders said, just as flatly. “The federal government has no authority to overrule the Beowulf System government in this regard in the absence of a formal declaration of war. Do you happen to be in possession of such a formal declaration, Fleet Admiral?”
“I’ve already had this discussion with Director Caddell-Markham,” Tsang replied. “I told him then, as I tell you now, that my understanding of the Constitution is that the federal authority supersedes that of any single star system in this situation. And, as I also informed him at the time, I intend to carry out my orders regardless of your own system government’s interpretation of their legality.”
“I don’t think you want to do this, Fleet Admiral,” Holmon-Sanders said, and smiled thinly. “I really don’t think you want to do this.”
That smile sent a bolt of anger through Imogene Tsang’s surprise and confusion. There was no amusement in the expression, only challenge. And, even more infuriating, more than a hint of disdain. Possibly even contempt. Somehow, that smile made Tsang abruptly aware that she’d felt more anger over the Manties’ defiance of the might, majesty, and power of the Solarian League than she’d previously realized.
“In that case, Admiral, you think wrong.” Her tone was an icicle. “I have every intention of carrying out my orders.”
All my orders, she thought, remembering the secret clause covering her response to this very situation. My God, I wondered what whoever wrote that part must’ve been smoking. Now it turns out they nailed it!
“And I, Fleet Admiral Tsang, have every intention of preventing you from endangering the lives of Beowulfan citizens of the Solarian League,” Holmon-Sanders replied equally coldly.
“Ma’am,” Franz Quill said quietly, “I’m picking up sensor platforms.”
Tsang glanced at the display, and her mouth tightened. Cascades of icons appeared as at least two or three hundred reconnaissance platforms went active, lashing her starships with radar and lidar. Some of them were even closer than the FTL relay, and threat receivers warbled in warning. She had no idea how they’d gotten that close without being detected in the first place, but there was no mistaking Holmon-Sanders’ message. She was telling Tsang that, unlike Tsang, she had detailed tactical information on the SLN task force.
“Status change!” Quill announced an instant later, and Tsang’s right hand clenched on her chair arm as thirty-six impeller signatures appeared on her plot, roughly nine million kilometers from Adrianne Warshawski … and directly between her and the Beowulf Terminus.
“Thirty-six superdreadnoughts at eight-point-eight-seven million kilometers,” Quill confirmed. “Impellers active. I can’t tell yet if their side walls are up.”
“Are you actually proposing to fire on units of the Solarian Navy?!” Tsang demanded, eyes blazing at Holmon-Sanders.
“I’m proposing to exercise the sovereign right of my star system to defend its citizens against the orders of an unelected clique of corrupt bureaucrats with no trace of constitutional authority to give the orders you propose to execute,” Holmon-Sanders replied. “And you, Fleet Admiral, know as well as I do that they have no authority. That if you proceed with this operation you will be doing so in direct violation of the Constitution you swore an oath to protect and defend. That may not mean much to you, but it means quite a lot to us here in Beowulf.”
Anger darkened Tsang’s face. How dare this jumped-up pretense of a flag officer in her comic-opera little system-defense force talk to her that way? Of course she’d sworn to protect and defend the Constitution! Every Solarian officer did that. But the Constitution was what accepted practice made it, not some dead-letter document which hadn’t functioned properly in over six hundred T-years! Holmon-Sanders knew as well as she did that the League would have fallen apart centuries ago if the people truly responsible for governing hadn’t made accommodations with the more absurd provisions of Holmon-Sanders’ precious Constitution!
“I disagree with your … unique interpretation of current constitutional law,” she said flatly. “And I repeat that I intend to pass my command through that terminus.
”
“Not without the assistance and cooperation of Terminus Traffic Control, you aren’t,” Holmon-Sanders replied. “I’m sure your staff astrogator will be aware, even if you aren’t, of just how disastrous any effort to make a simultaneous transit through this terminus without Traffic Control’s guidance is going to prove. Do you intend to place armed parties on the control platforms and compel our personnel to coordinate your transit at pulser point?”
“I intend to do whatever it requires, Vice Admiral! And if that means my Marines are forced to take control of your control platforms and ‘compel’ your personnel to do their duty as Solarian citizens, then that’s precisely what I’ll do!”
“And the instant you attempt to do so, the Beowulf System Defense Force will open fire upon you in defense of our citizens.”
Tsang inhaled sharply as the words were finally spoken.
“In that case, Admiral Holmon-Sanders, you will commit an act of treason.”
“In that case, Admiral Tsang, one of us will have committed an act of treason,” Holmon-Sanders replied, and her contemptuously challenging smile was no longer thin.
“And you and the vast majority of the personnel aboard your superdreadnoughts will also be dead,” Tsang said flatly. “You’ll be in my powered missile envelope in approximately nineteen minutes. If at that time you have not stood down and withdrawn your units, I will engage you, and the deaths of your spacers will be on your own head and that of your system government.”
“I take it that’s your final word on the matter?” Holmon-Sanders inquired almost calmly.
“Damned right it is.” Tsang glared at her. “Get out of my way now, Admiral, or I will by God blow every one of your fucking ships out of space!”
“I think not,” another voice said suddenly, and the image on Tsang’s display split as another woman appeared on it, speaking from another command deck.
The blue-eyed newcomer had golden hair … and her skinsuit was definitely not Beowulf-issue.
“Vice Admiral Alice Truman, Royal Manticoran Navy,” she identified herself coldly. “You might want to reconsider your belligerence, Fleet Admiral Tsang.”
“Status change!” Admiral Quill’s sharp voice wrenched Tsang’s eyes from Truman’s image back to the master plot as at least fifty new icons appeared on it. “Confirm sixty—repeat, sixty—additional superdreadnoughts!” Quill continued, and the bottom seemed to fall out of Tsang’s stomach as her numerical superiority over Holmon-Sanders abruptly disappeared.
Impossible. Impossible! There was no way sixty Manty superdreadnoughts could possibly be here in Beowulf space! Even if they’d dared to divert any of them, how could they have gotten them here? It was ridiculous, unless—
“I think you should have taken a closer look at the freighters moving back and forth between Beowulf and Manticore, Admiral Tsang,” Truman said in that same cold voice, smiling faintly. “Surely not even the SLN was stupid enough to think we couldn’t foresee the possibility of something like this once we figured out Filareta was coming! Or perhaps you really thought we couldn’t. Especially if you judged us by your own service’s demonstrated levels of competence.”
The contempt in Truman’s tone bit like a lash, and Tsang felt her jaw muscles bunching.
“I knew your system government was being run by lunatics,” she grated, glaring at Holmon-Sanders, “but I hadn’t realized they were goddammed traitors!”
“An interesting characterization coming from someone who proposes to kill Solarian citizens for having the audacity to resist the unconstitutional, illegal policies of a bevy of unelected bureaucrats,” Holmon-Sanders replied.
“Don’t hand me that bullshit!” Tsang snapped. “You’ve actively connived with a hostile star nation in time of war to offer armed resistance to the League’s own military!”
“In time of war?” Holmon-Sanders cocked her head. “Not unless there’s been that formal declaration of war you don’t seem to be able to provide me with, Fleet Admiral Tsang.” Her tone could have frozen a volcano.
“Don’t you dare parse semantics with me! I represent the Solarian League!”
“You, Admiral Tsang,” Truman said dispassionately, “represent Innokentiy Kolokoltsov, Nathan MacArtney, and the rest of their bureaucratic clique. And, as the Star Empire has repeatedly warned the League, they—or their policies, at least—are being manipulated by a non-Solarian power.”
“Bullshit! Don’t any of you ever get tired of that same old tired song-and-dance routine?!”
“In this case, no,” Truman replied. “Since, unlike the nonsense you’ve just been spouting, it bears at least a nodding acquaintance with the truth.”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the ass!” Tsang snarled back. “And even if there were some tiny particle of truth to it, that doesn’t change the fact that the Beowulf system government has actively colluded with another star nation which has killed God only knows how many Solarian naval personnel!”
“In resisting God only knows how many illegal, unilateral acts of aggression, you mean?” Truman inquired.
“Stop twisting my words!” Tsang’s face was dark with anger. “And no matter how you try to twist things around to make it our fault, how do you think the League is going to react to this shit? You think the rest of the League’s member systems are going to side with Beowulf? After Beowulf’s actively connived to help you ambush a Solarian task force in Solarian space?!”
“Your ability to interpret a tactical situation would appear to be every bit as good as Josef Byng’s and Sandra Crandall’s, Admiral,” Truman observed with icy disdain. “If we’d wanted to ‘ambush’ you, you’d be as dead as they are by now. Your reconnaissance provisions were so pathetic that the first thing you would have known about our presence would’ve been the impeller signatures of incoming missiles! Fortunately for you, nobody’s particularly eager to murder spacers whose only crime is serving under criminally stupid superiors. If that was what we’d wanted to do, we would have let you make transit straight into the fire of our Junction forts and killed every one of your ships before you even scratched our paint. Instead, we’ve chosen to save your lives—or your crews’ lives, at least—from the towering incompetence and unbridled arrogance of the Solarian League Navy’s senior officer corps.”
For the first time in her life, pure, distilled fury reduced Imogene Tsang literally to speechlessness. She could only glare at the Manticoran officer as Truman continued in that same precise, scalpel-edged voice.
“Had you shown a modicum of reasonableness, even a trace of respect for your own constitution and the constitutional rights of the Beowulf System and its citizens, you would have chosen to abide by the Beowulf System government’s decision to deny you transit through this terminus. And had you done that, my forces would simply have stood by in stealth as observers, without interfering in any way. Unlike the League, we have no desire to kill anyone we can avoid killing. But you couldn’t do that, so we found it necessary to present … an additional argument in favor of sanity, shall we say.”
“And, as for how the rest of the League’s systems are going to feel about this,” Holmon-Sanders put it in, “every word of our conversation has been and is being recorded, and it will be released to the news media, without cuts or censorship, as soon as possible. You’d made your intention to violate our sovereignty—and the Constitution—abundantly clear long before the first Manticoran naval unit arrived in Beowulf space, Fleet Admiral. Indeed, the only reason Admiral Truman’s ships remained stealthed as long as they did was to give us time to let you explain yourself for the newsies’ benefit. I don’t think there’s going to be very much question in the mind of anyone who bothers to think about it that if Admiral Truman hadn’t been here, you would indeed have opened fire on the units under my command in pursuit of what you know, whether you admit it or not, is an unlawful order. Of course, the odds have changed somewhat from the ones you thought obtained when you were so courageously prepa
red to slaughter your fellow Solarian citizens in pursuit of that order, haven’t they?”
The Beowulfer showed her teeth, and her brown eyes were just as hard, just as cold, as Truman’s blue ones.
“As Admiral Truman says, we don’t want to kill anyone who doesn’t have to die. But if you’re still prepared to fight your way through this terminus, Fleet Admiral Tsang, then you just bring it on.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
______________________________
“What the hell was he thinking?!” Elizabeth Winton snarled.
The Empress of Manticore stood glaring at the monstrous casualty list, brown eyes smoking like twin furnaces as the names of dead and damaged Solarian starships crawled endlessly up the conference room’s display wall.
“You had him dead to rights. He knew he you did! How could even a Solly be so stupid?!”
“I don’t know,” Honor said drearily. She stood beside her monarch, and her own eyes were dark and haunted, not fiery. Anger hovered in their depths as well, but it was a cold, bitter anger overlaid by equally bitter regret … and guilt.
Nimitz made a soft sound from his perch on a chair beside the conference table, then straightened up and raised both true-hands as she looked at him.
“Nimitz is right.” Elizabeth’s voice was softer, gentler, and Honor returned her gaze to the Empress. “You did do everything you could, Honor.”
“Everything except not back him into a corner,” Honor replied.
“Don’t you dare second-guess yourself over this!” Eloise Pritchart said sharply. “Yes, you and Earl White Haven pushed for an ops plan which would force them to surrender. I supported you in that, though, and so did Tom and Elizabeth and Protector Benjamin. And the reason we did, is that the two of you were right. And, as you yourself said, anyone crazy enough to open fire in the tactical situation you’d created was going to open fire no matter what happened!”