by David Weber
He stopped talking, and silence hovered in the records storage room for long, fragile seconds. Then Okiku shook her head.
“My God,” she said softly. “No wonder people think you’re a fucking lunatic! But you really could be right.” She shook her head again, her expression an odd mix of wonder and fear. “You could.”
“Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to be wrong,” he told her equally softly.
“So, why bring me in on it?” she asked after a moment. “Trust me, I’m not going to be thanking you for it. If there’s anything at all to this theory of yours, whoever the conspirators are—‘Mesan Alignment’ or someone else entirely—they sure as hell aren’t shy about killing people. I’d just as soon not give them a reason to add me to their list.”
“You and me both,” al-Fanudahi said feelingly. Then he shrugged. “The problem is, they have to be tied in at the highest levels, and I don’t have a clue how to find them. I’m an intelligence analyst, not a criminal investigator. I truly think—I’m truly afraid—I’m onto something here, but I don’t have a clue how to go about investigating it, and the Office of Counter Intelligence has been basically a place to park people with more family connections than competence for decades. Rear Admiral Yau’s abilities are … less than stellar, let’s say, and the rest of his section takes its cue from him. For that matter, if I were out to engineer the covert penetration of another navy, the very first place I’d set up shop would be inside that other navy’s counter-intelligence service in order to make sure my operatives didn’t get caught. I don’t dare hand this to OCI without at least some idea of who’s in whose pocket, and I can’t just go to Justice or hand it over to the JAG for investigation without going to OCI first. The procedures simply aren’t there, and it would just get kicked back to Yau, probably with a pretty pointed observation that I should have gone through channels in the first place. So I need your expertise, and I need it without anyone else’s knowing we’ve talked.”
“You are so going to get all of us killed,” Okiku said grimly.
“It may actually be even worse than you know,” he said, and shrugged as her eyes narrowed once more. “It hasn’t hit the ‘faxes yet, but they’re not going to be able to hold it for long.”
“Hold what for long?” she demanded.
“I think I’ve figured out who the top level of the Alignment’s Navy contacts was,” he told her. “And it looks to me like there may actually be something to the Manties’—and the Havenites’—wild stories about some kind of nanotech that can control minds and make people do things.”
“Oh, give me a break!” Okiku’s tone was testier than it might have been, probably in reaction to her own inner tension, he thought. “I may grant you vast interstellar conspiracies, but mind control? Please!”
“I felt the same way,” al-Fanudahi said. “But that was before I found out Admiral Rajampet put a pulser in his mouth and pulled the trigger last night.”
Chapter Thirty-One
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Fleet Admiral Winston Seth Kingsford was barely half the age Rajampet Kaushal Rajani had attained, Innokentiy Kolokoltsov thought as Kingsford stepped into his office. He was also at least twice Rajampet’s size.
And unlike Rajani, he’s still alive, Kolokoltsov reflected. Which may or may not be a good thing.
“Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” the fleet admiral said respectfully, and Kolokoltsov nodded back to him.
“Fleet Admiral Kingsford. Thank you for coming so promptly. I didn’t really expect you to be able to get here for another couple of hours.”
“I won’t pretend things aren’t still in an uproar at the Admiralty,” Kingsford said. “There’s not much I can contribute there at the moment, though, and it seemed important to get over here and touch base with you as quickly as possible.” His mouth twisted briefly. “Admiral Rajampet’s suicide leaves a lot of things up in the air at the worst possible moment.”
Kingsford, Kolokoltsov thought, had a genuine gift for summing up the obvious. Then the permanent senior undersecretary kicked himself mentally. Nobody else was doing any better coping with Rajampet’s death. Irritating as the man had been, he’d also been a serving officer of the Solarian League Navy for the better part of a hundred and ten T-years and chief of naval operations for almost four decades. Getting used to his absence was going to take time.
But at least Kingsford—or anyone, really—is bound to be an improvement!
“Please, sit down, Fleet Admiral,” he said, and watched Kingsford seat himself. Once the naval officer had settled, Kolokoltsov sat back down himself and cocked his head. “I understand you’re Admiral Rajampet’s proper successor?”
“I was next in seniority, and that makes me the acting CNO, Sir,” Kingsford replied. “Filling the post on a permanent basis is a bit more complicated. Ministry of Defense Taketomo needs to formally nominate someone for the position. Then, under the Constitution, the Assembly has to confirm the nomination.”
He actually said that with a straight face, Kolokoltsov observed. Ministry of Defense Taketomo Kunimichi was a complete nonentity in terms of real power. He’d nominate whoever Kolokoltsov and his colleagues suggested, and “Assembly confirmation” would follow with automatic precision.
“I see.” The permanent senior undersecretary of state smiled. “Given the fact that it’s been—what? Thirty-seven T-years?—since we last had to replace a chief of naval operations, everyone’s going to be a little rusty on the procedure, I suppose. I think we can assume your acting status will be confirmed and made permanent as soon as possible.”
“I appreciate that, Sir,” Kingsford said, then allowed himself a wry smile of his own. “Under the circumstances, I’m not sure it’s going to be a very enjoyable job, you understand.”
“Oh, believe me, I understand. I understand completely.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Kolokoltsov leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers across his chest.
“I realize you’ve been acting CNO for less than twelve hours, Fleet Admiral, and I don’t want to pressure you unduly. At the same time, you were Battle Fleet’s commanding officer, and I have to assume you’ve worked closely with Fleet Admiral Rajampet for some time. Frankly, that continuity is one of the reasons I believe Minister Taketomo will definitely nominate you as Fleet Admiral Rajampet’s replacement. I hope it also means you’re in a position to give us your evaluation of the current military situation and of how you think we should best proceed.”
“That’s a pretty steep order, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” Kingsford responded after a moment. “And a bit of an awkward one, too, given that Fleet Admiral Rajampet and I weren’t in complete agreement on either of those points.”
“No?” Kolokoltsov leaned a bit farther back. “How so?”
“I had some reservations about Operation Raging Justice,” Kingsford said. “I didn’t oppose it. In retrospect, I wish I had, but at the time it was first discussed, I only suggested that rushing it as much as we did might not be the best approach. Rajani—Fleet Admiral Rajampet, I mean—scented a possible opening and wanted to get his blow in as quickly as possible, before the Manties had time to recover from the attack on their home system. I understood the logic, but I felt the inevitable delay in projecting an attack over that great an interstellar distance was likely to give the enemy too much time to recover his strategic balance.
“In fairness, I have to admit my reservations were nowhere near as pronounced as what I’ve just said might indicate. For one thing, I had no more idea than anyone else that the Havenites might actually ally themselves to the Manties. I don’t think anybody saw that one coming. I was simply concerned about getting in too deeply too quickly.” He shrugged. “In my worst nightmares, I never envisioned anything as disastrous as what happened to Fleet Admiral Filareta, however. It would be grossly unfair to Rajani—and, for that matter, to Filareta—to pretend I had any better idea of
what was going to happen than they did.”
“Then why raise the point at all?” Kolokoltsov inquired.
“Because the reason I had my reservations about Operation Raging Justice is that I believed there was rather more truth—or could be, at any rate—than Rajani did to the stories about Manticoran missile ranges. I hadn’t realized how thoroughly they appear to have transitioned to pod-launched missiles, or that they’d incorporated an FTL component into their fire control, but I did think evidence suggested they truly had significantly increased their missiles’ effective range. Under the circumstances, I would have preferred to test the waters a little before we committed a wall of battle to action. Better to have lost a few battlecruisers here or there than to have three or four hundred SDs blown out of space.”
“I see.” Kolokoltsov wondered how much of that was true and how much spin. On the other hand, Kingsford had been around long enough to know how the game was played. He wouldn’t have said what he’d just said if there hadn’t been a paper trail of memos somewhere which could at least be interpreted to support the analysis he’d just delivered.
“Should I assume, then, Fleet Admiral, that you’d be opposed to any additional fleet actions at this time?”
“Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” Kingsford said flatly, “any ‘additional fleet actions’ could only be one-sided massacres. Even assuming what Harrington said to Filareta in the recordings they’ve sent us represents a full statement of their capabilities, without holding any nasty tactical surprises in reserve, we simply can’t match them at this time. There probably hasn’t been this great an imbalance in combat power since the introduction of the machine-gun put an end to massed infantry assaults.”
Kolokoltsov’s eyes widened, despite himself, at the frankness of that response. It was refreshingly—and utterly—different from anything Rajampet had ever said.
“It’s really that bad?” he asked, curious to see how far are Kingsford would go.
“It’s probably worse than that, frankly, especially with Haven added to the equation,” the acting CNO said unflinchingly. “For all intents and purposes, the Reserve has just become several billion tons of scrap material. The superdreadnoughts we have mothballed are the wrong ships for this war, and I don’t see any way the existing hulls could be refitted to turn them into effective combatants.”
Well, that’s a kick in the head, Kolokoltsov thought dourly. On the other hand, if Omosupe and Agatá are right, we won’t have the cash to reactivate the Reserve, anyway. Of course, that leaves the little problem of where we’re going to find the cash to build new wallers if we can’t even de-mothball the ones we’ve already got!
“Are you saying we should just go ahead and surrender?” he asked, deliberately putting an edge into his voice, and Kingsford shook his head.
“For better or worse, Sir, I don’t think we can. Whether we want to fight or not, we don’t have a choice after the defeats we’ve suffered. And that’s what they were, Mr. Senior Permanent Undersecretary—make no mistake about that, because nobody in the Verge will. It’s not just the Manties and Havenites we have to worry about. We’re going to have other people, other star systems, pushing to see how they can exploit the situation. We can contain a lot of that, since none of those other systems will have the kind of missiles the Manties and Haven do, but if we don’t ultimately defeat the people who’ve hurt us this badly, their example’s going to remain and we’ll be fighting smaller-scale wars for decades.”
“I see. But if we can’t send our wall of battle out to fight their wall of battle, what do we do?”
“Actually, Sir, if I may, I’d like to bring in one of our analysts to present a little additional background before I respond to that question.”
“What sort of analyst, Fleet Admiral?”
“Captain Gweon, Sir—Captain Caswell Gweon. He’s the CO of the Office of Economic Analysis over at ONI.”
“Really? Only a captain?” Kolokoltsov said with a small smile, and Kingsford smiled back.
“He’s already been selected for rear admiral, Sir. His name’s on the next list to be submitted to the Assembly for approval.”
“I see,” Kolokoltsov repeated. “Very well, Fleet Admiral. How soon can Captain Gweon get here?”
“If you have the time for it now, Sir, he’s waiting with your assistant.”
“Ah.” Kolokoltsov touched a key on his chair arm. “Astrid?”
“Yes, Sir?” a female voice said out of thin air.
“If you have a Captain Gweon squirreled away in your office, would you be kind enough to send him in now?”
“Of course, Sir.”
The office door opened to admit a somewhat taller than average, immaculately uniformed SLN captain with brown hair and brown eyes. He struck Kolokoltsov as looking even younger than his rank would have suggested, and the permanent senior undersecretary frowned slightly as Astrid Wang uploaded a brief bio on to the holo display which could be seen only from behind Kolokoltsov’s desk.
It was a very brief bio in this case, consisting of about the barest-bone vital statistics he’d ever seen. Normally, he would have expected much more, but Gweon wasn’t one of the political figures Astrid would already have had prepackaged bios for.
Not as young as he’d thought, Kolokoltsov observed. Prolong could fool anyone, but it must’ve worked uncommonly well in Gweon’s case. He scarcely looked sixty-five T-years old, at any rate! Without a more detailed bio, Kolokoltsov couldn’t be certain, but it looked as if Gweon was well connected within the Navy’s hierarchy, which raised the interesting question of why he’d gone into intelligence. That wasn’t—or hadn’t been, anyway—the fast track to senior rank. For that matter, Gweon had only inherited his present position less than five T-months earlier, when Vice Admiral Yountz managed to slip and break his neck on the wet surround of his swimming pool.
“Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary, Fleet Admiral Kingsford,” Gweon murmured, bowing respectfully to both men.
“I understand you’re one of the Navy’s economic experts, Captain,” Kolokoltsov replied. “And Fleet Admiral Kingsford wanted you in here to talk to me about something. What would that happen to be?”
If the bluntness of the question flustered Gweon in any way, it wasn’t apparent. He only nodded, as if he’d expected it.
“I believe that would be in regard to my analysis of the economic consequences of a war with the Star Empire of Manticore, Sir.”
“I think we’ve already come to the conclusion that the consequences are going to be unhappy, Captain,” Kolokoltsov said dryly. “Should I assume you have some additional illumination to cast upon them?”
“I can’t really promise to cast any new illumination without having had access to the reports you’ve already seen, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” Gweon replied calmly. “I do have the Navy’s perspective on them, however.”
“Then share that with me, if you would.”
“Of course, Sir.”
Kolokoltsov hadn’t invited the captain to be seated, but that didn’t seem to faze Gweon, either. The intelligence officer simply clasped his hands behind him, standing with the easy poise of someone accustomed to presenting briefings, and began.
“I’m going to assume, Sir, that you don’t want the detailed statistical basis for my analysis at this time. I have that material with me, on chip, and I can provide it if you’d prefer. I’ve also already left a copy of it with Ms. Wang for you to review at a later time, if you wish. For now, I’ll simply concentrate on the conclusions of our analysis, if that’s acceptable?”
Kolokoltsov nodded a bit brusquely.
“In that case, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary, the critical point is simply that any extended war with the Manties is going to be an economic as well as an overtly military conflict. At the moment, their technological advantages are overwhelming, but our economic and industrial power is many times as great as theirs, even allowing for their new alliance with the Haven
ites. The essential question is whether or not our size and economic capacity are great enough to withstand a concerted attack by this new ‘Grand Alliance’ long enough for us to produce what we need to match its war-fighting capability. And the answer, I’m afraid, is that they may well not be.”
“I beg your pardon?” Kolokoltsov’s brows lowered in surprise at hearing someone finally say that in so many words.
“A great deal depends upon the political cohesiveness of the two sides,” Gweon said. “Given the lengthy period of hostilities between Manticore and the Republic of Haven, one would anticipate internal strains within their alliance which would work against its stability. I wouldn’t invest much hope in that prospect, however, for several reasons, including the fact that I think both Manticore and Haven genuinely believe this nonsense they’re spouting about sinister Mesan manipulation of the League’s policies. Another factor would be their shared resentment for what they regard as Solarian arrogance. And yet another, frankly, would be the fact that both of them obviously smell the opportunity to make extensive territorial gains at the League’s expense.