House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (23 page)

The first massive wave of missiles crashed into his wall like the hammer of Thor itself, and his numb brain noted yet another difference from the norm. The tactical realities of towed pods meant each fleet had no real choice but to commit the full weight of its pods in the first salvo, because any that didn’t fire in the first exchange were virtually certain to suffer proximity kills from the
enemy’s
fire. They were normally concentrated on the enemy vessels for whom the firing fleet had the best firing solutions, as well, because firing at extreme range rather than waiting until the enemy had irradiated your weapons into uselessness meant even the best solutions were none too good.

All of that tended to result in massive overkill on a relatively low number of targets, but that wasn’t happening this time. No,
this
time the Manties had allocated their fire with lethal precision. There were well over three thousand missiles in the first wave. Many were jammers or decoys, but many were not, and Hamish Alexander’s fire plan had allocated a hundred and fifty laser heads to each Peep ship of the wall. His targets’ hopelessly jammed and confused defenses stopped no more than ten percent of the incoming fire, and Havenite capital ships shuddered and heaved, belching atmosphere and debris and water vapor as massive, bomb-pumped lasers slammed into them. Hulls spat glowing splinters as massive armor yielded, and fresh, dreadful bursts of light pocked Citizen Admiral Dimitri’s wall as fusion bottles began to fail.

But even as the SDs and DNs reeled and died under the pounding, a second, equally massive wave of missiles was on its way. This one ignored the surviving, mangled ships of the wall. Its missiles went for Dimitri’s lighter, more fragile battleships and battlecruisers, even heavy and light cruisers. Fewer of them went after each target, but even a battleship could take no more than a handful of hits from such heavy laser heads . . . and none of them could begin to match the point defense capability of a ship of the wall.

The third wave bypassed the mobile units completely to swoop towards Enki’s orbital defenses. They ignored the fortresses, but their conventional nuclear warheads detonated in a blinding, meticulously precise wall of plasma and fury that killed every unprotected satellite, missile pod, and drone in Enki orbit.

And then, as if to cap the insanity, a tidal wave of light attack craft—well over fifteen hundred of them—erupted from stealth, already in energy range of the broken wreckage which had once been a fleet. They swept in, firing savagely, and a single pass reduced every unit of Dimitri’s wall to drifting hulks . . . or worse. The LACs were at least close enough that his fortresses could fire on them, but their EW was almost as good as the capital ships’, and they deployed shoals of jammers and decoys of their own. Even the missiles which got through to them seemed to detonate completely uselessly. It was as if the impossible little vessels’ wedges had no throat or kilt to attack!

The LACs had obviously planned their approach maneuver very carefully. Their velocity relative to their victims had been very low, no more than fifteen hundred KPS, and their vector had been designed to cross the base track of Dimitri’s wall at an angle that carried them away from his forts and his own LACs. A few squadrons of the latter were in position to at least try to intercept, but those who did vanished in vicious fireballs as hurricanes of lighter but still lethal missiles ripped into their faces. Then the Manty LACs disappeared back into the invisibility of their stealth systems. And just to make certain they got away clean, that impossible Manty wall of battle blanketed the battle area with a solid cone of decoys and jammers which made it impossible for any of the surviving defenders to lock onto the fleet, elusive little targets.

Alec Dimitri stared in horror at the display from which every single starship of his fleet had been wiped without ever managing to fire a single shot. Not
one
. And as he stared at the spreading patterns of life pods, someone touched him on the shoulder.

He flinched, then turned quickly, and his com officer stepped back from whatever she saw in his eyes. But he stopped, made himself inhale deeply, and forced the lumpy muscles along his jaw to relax.

There was no more shouting, no more cries of disbelief, in the war room. There was only deep and utter silence, and his voice sounded unnaturally loud in his own ears when he made himself speak.

“What is it, Jendra?”

“I—” The citizen commander swallowed hard. “It’s a message from the Manties, Citizen Admiral,” she said then. “It was addressed to Citizen Admiral Theisman. I guess they don’t know he’s not here.” She was rambling, and her jaw tightened as she forced herself back under control. “It’s from their commander, Citizen Admiral.”

“White Haven?” The question came out almost incuriously, but that wasn’t the way he felt, and his eyes narrowed at her nod. “What sort of message?”

“It came in in the clear, Citizen Admiral,” she said, and held out a message board. He took it and punched the play button, and a man in the black-and-gold of a Manticoran admiral looked out of the holographic display at him. He was dark haired and broad shouldered . . . and his hard eyes were the coldest blue Alec Dimitri had ever seen.

“Admiral Theisman,” the Manty said flatly, “I call upon you to surrender this system and your surviving units immediately. We have just demonstrated that we can and will destroy any and all armed units, ships or forts, in this system without exposing our own vessels to return fire. I take no pleasure in slaughtering men and women who cannot fight back. That will not prevent me from doing precisely that, however, if you refuse to surrender, for I have no intention of exposing my own people to needless casualties. You have five minutes to accept my terms and surrender your command. If you have not done so by the end of that time, my units will resume fire . . . and we both know what the result will be. I await your response. White Haven, out.”

December 1914 PD

THE BEDSIDE COM
chimed softly, and the mahogany-skinned woman’s eyes opened. The man beside her stirred, but her hand darted out and silenced the chimes before he fully waked. She looked at him for a moment, smiling gently in the light of the com’s still flashing attention signal, then eased out of bed and padded across the bedroom floor on bare feet. He’d found himself awakened in the middle of the night just because she’d been far too often, and there was no need to do that to him yet again.

Something thumped behind her, and she looked over her shoulder with another smile as one of the cream-and-gray treecats hopped down from his perch and followed her. She could just see the green glow of the other ’cat’s eyes, picked out by the blinking attention light as he curled on his perch on her husband’s side of the bed, but he obviously had no intention of joining his companion, and she shook her head.

“Go back to sleep, Monroe,” she told him very, very quietly, and closed the bedroom door behind her. She stooped to pick Ariel up in her arms and carried him across the study to her desk. The com light on her terminal was flashing there, as well, and she let Ariel ooze down onto her blotter and seated herself in her work chair. She took one more moment to rub her eyes, then keyed the com panel to accept the call audio-only from her end.

The attention light stopped blinking and the Admiralty House wallpaper appeared on her display. It lasted only a moment, then disappeared, and she found herself looking at Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord of the Royal Manticoran Navy. She knew he could see only
her
wallpaper, the coat of arms of the House of Winton, not the person to whom he was actually speaking, and she cleared her throat.

“Good evening, Sir Thomas,” she said. “Or should I say ‘good morning’?” she added a bit wryly, and he bobbed his head in an abbreviated bow of apology.

“I’m afraid it’s ‘morning,’ Your Majesty—or will be in about another ten minutes,” Caparelli said. “I apologize for waking you at this hour, but the dispatch from Admiral White Haven arrived about fifteen minutes ago.”

Elizabeth Winton stiffened, nostrils flaring, and Ariel sat up abruptly, ears flat. The Queen of Manticore drew a deep, deep breath and ordered her voice to remain calm.

“In that case, Sir Thomas, no apologies are necessary. I believe I specifically directed that I was to be informed immediately when we heard back from Admiral White Haven.”

“Yes, you did, Your Majesty.” Caparelli inclined his head a second time, then looked straight into his com pickup. “Your Majesty,” he said formally, “I have the honor to inform you that Admiral White Haven, commanding Eighth Fleet, reports the surrender of the star system of Barnett, with all military personnel and facilities therein, to his forces.”

Elizabeth’s eyes closed. She kept them that way for a moment, then drew another breath.

“And Admiral White Haven’s losses, Sir Thomas?” she asked levelly.

“None, Your Majesty,” Caparelli said simply.

“None?” Elizabeth repeated, her voice sharpening slightly around the edges, and Caparelli nodded.

“Your Majesty, generalizing from a single operation is usually as dangerous as it is foolish. In this instance, however, I think the conclusion is inescapable. We will, of course, provide you with a detailed analysis of Admiral White Haven’s report as soon as there’s been time to prepare one, but the principal aspects of that analysis are already clear. And so is the central conclusion—the People’s Republic of Haven has just lost the war.”

Elizabeth raised one hand to her lips, a hand which quivered with a tremor she would never have let another human being see.

“The technology which has come out of the Weapons Development Board, Project Gram, and—especially—Project Mjølner and Project Ghost Rider, has fundamentally transformed warfare,” Caparelli continued in that same level, unflinching voice. “Thanks to your father’s initiatives and your uncle’s energy and inspiration, our fleet already outclassed the Peoples Navy in every aspect of war-fighting technology, even before Ghost Rider. Now, with the new multidrive missiles and the pod-layer capital ships actually in service, they can’t even reply effectively to our fire. For all intents and purposes, their warships have just become
targets
, not threats, and I see no possible way for them to overcome their technological inferiority before we destroy their entire existing fleet.”

It was the First Space Lord’s turn to draw a deep breath, as if steeling himself for what he was about to say.

“Your Majesty, in my considered opinion as First Space Lord, the Manticoran Alliance will be in a position to dictate terms of surrender to the People’s Republic of Haven within the next four to six T-months.”

The single, uncompromising sentence hung between them for a long, silent moment, and a single tear glittered like diamond on Elizabeth Winton’s cheek.

“Thank you for informing me, Sir Thomas.”

Her voice sounded surprisingly level, but Sir Thomas Caparelli had come to know his monarch over the years he’d served her. He heard the emotion within it, and she saw a flicker of concern in his eyes, but she only continued in that same level, formal tone.

“Please pass my thanks—my deep and sincere gratitude—to Admiral White Haven and all of the other officers and enlisted personnel who have served the Star Kingdom so long and so well. Your devotion and theirs has been all any queen could ever have hoped for . . . and no less than my house has come to anticipate from you. I’ll thank them all more publicly and more formally in the very near future, but for now I’ll let you get back to the many decisions I know must be made in the wake of Eighth Fleet’s victory. Thank you, Sir Thomas.”

“Your Majesty,” Caparelli said quietly, “no thanks are necessary. It’s been my greatest honor and privilege to serve you.” He looked into the pickup again, meeting her unseen eyes. “Not every officer is given the gift of knowing he serves a monarch worthy of every exertion or sacrifice which may be required of him or the people under his command. Anyone privileged to serve you or your father has been given that gift, and on behalf of every man and woman in Manticoran uniform, it’s
my
privilege to thank
you
.”

Elizabeth’s lips quivered and she scooped Ariel up, holding him to her chest. It took a moment, but she made her voice serve her again at last.

“You’re kinder and more generous than I deserve, Sir Thomas. But thank you. Clear.”

She reached out and touched the disconnect key, then bent over the silken warmth in her arms, hugging the treecat while tears soaked his silken coat.

“Wait here.”

The fair-haired, blue-eyed colonel looked sharply at her monarch and started to open her mouth in protest. But Elizabeth only looked back and shook her head.

“Not this time, Ellen,” she told the woman who’d headed her personal security detachment from the day she took the throne.

They stood alone in the silent, incense-scented, dimly lit nave of King Michael’s Cathedral. The enormous cathedral never locked its doors, but at this still, quiet moment, five hours yet before the dawn, it was empty, deserted save for the presence light burning above the altar. The Palace Security detachment had been greeted by the night duty priest when Elizabeth arrived. Father O’Banion’s astonishment at the Queen’s unannounced, unscheduled, middle-of-the-night arrival had been obvious, but he’d recovered quickly. Now he stood at Elizabeth’s elbow, waiting quietly, while she faced Colonel Shemais.

Elizabeth reached out and touched Shemais lightly on the shoulder.

“This is something I have to do myself,” she told the colonel. “Just me. And Ariel, of course.” She quirked a smile and reached up to touch the treecat’s head. “I think you can trust him to look after me this once.”

Shemais looked back at her stubbornly for perhaps ten seconds, but then the colonel’s expression softened.

“All right, Your Majesty. This once,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Elizabeth squeezed the colonel’s shoulder, then turned to O’Banion.

“And now, Father, if you please.”

Elizabeth descended the final three steps to the polished marble floor. Father O’Banion waited silently at the head of those steps, by the antique-looking grill whose door he had unlocked to allow her entrance. The bars of that grill looked like wrought iron, but they were actually battle steel, not that it mattered. Not now, at this moment.

She crossed the private family crypt silently, Ariel very still on her shoulder, and stopped before the carved marble plaque. It was very simple, that plaque, compared to the far more ornate one set into the cathedral floor above it:

Roger Michael Danton Maxwell Winton

August 19, 1809–October 7, 1883 PD

Beloved husband and father, who reigned too briefly

in this city and reigns forever in our hearts.

“I will build my house of steel.”

Elizabeth stood before that plaque, looking at it, thinking about the seventy T-years between her father’s first letter to the
Proceedings
and this moment. Thinking about her uncle, who hadn’t lived to see this day yet had known it was coming. Thinking about all the sacrifices, all the pain, all the destruction and lost lives and shattered hearts. Thinking about how many had given so much to bring her here, to this place, on this still, quiet night.

Feeling the tears break loose.

They fell into the silence like lost, broken bits of crystal, those tears, kissing that marble floor. And then, finally, she reached out and touched the words. Let her fingertips run gently, tenderly across them, and leaned forward, resting her forehead against the cool, unyielding stone while Ariel crooned lovingly in her ear.