Shadow of Victory - eARC (60 page)

“That’s something I wanted to ask you two about,” Ginger said. “What’s all this business about Mobius? All I know about it is that Mitya Nakhimov, my astrogator, tells me it’s about two hundred light-years from here. I’m assuming there’s a reason Admiral Gold Peak’s sending an entire division of Saganami-Cs off to it?”

Chapter Fifty-Three

“Be seated, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Rear Admiral Craig Culbertson said as he walked briskly into the flag briefing room, accompanied by Captain Roscoe Weisenthal, his flag captain, and Captain Helena Sammonds, his chief of staff. “I apologize for my tardiness,” he continued, crossing to his chair “Captain Weisenthal’s XO had a point that needed clarification.”

He sat, and the assembled squadron and division commanders who’d politely ignored his command to seat themselves, followed suit. He smiled and shook his head, then tipped back his chair. He was a tallish, sandy-haired man with a full, neatly trimmed beard, and he normally smiled a lot. Today, though, his smile faded quickly and his brown eyes were intense as they swept the men and women around the briefing room table.

“I assume you’re all waiting with bated breath to discover the reason for this summons,” he said, “and I won’t keep you in suspense. The primary purpose of this meeting is to discuss with you the possibilities Captain Grierson’s arrival from Manticore present. I realize his cruisers and destroyers scarcely represent a vast increase in our combat power, but they do significantly increase the total number of platforms available to us. So it’s occurred to me that Admiral Gold Peak might expect us to do something with that availability.”

He paused, and here and there, a head nodded. Mike Henke had left Culbertson’s CLAC squadron—already understrength by one carrier, even before HMS Cloud had been detached to accompany Sir Aivars Terekhov to Mobius in response to Michael Breitbart’s second, desperate request for assistance—to cover Montana. She’d left him two divisions of Saganami-C-class heavy cruisers—Sir Prescott Tremaine’s CruDiv 96.1 and Captain Otmar Kenichi’s CruDiv 94.2—and a pair of destroyer squadrons. The first division of Terekhov’s CruRon 94 would return to Culbertson’s command as soon as he’d completed his mission to Mobius, but no one knew exactly how long that mission was likely to take, since no one knew the situation he’d find when he arrived there.

In terms of defending Montana, Culbertson’s remaining five CLACs, supported by eight Saganami-Cs plus the large number of Mark 23 missile pods aboard his munitions ships, should be adequate to deal with any likely Solarian threat. In the meantime, the rest of Tenth Fleet was in the process of uniting in the Tillerman System for a direct attack on Meyers, the administrative capital of the Office of Frontier Security’s Madras Sector. Culbertson had no qualms about Gold Peak’s decision to take the war to the Sollies—not after she’d received confirmation Massimo Filareta was about to attack the Manticore Binary System—but it had left him with too little butter for his bread where additional Mobius-like situations might be concerned.

Of course, she hadn’t known—then—how the Second Battle of Manticore had worked out. Culbertson did, and that was part of the reason for this meeting.

“My current thinking,” he continued out loud, his expression grimmer, “is that we really don’t know how many other places these Alignment bastards may have promised desperate people Manticoran support. Admiral Gold Peak’s instructions to answer any support request have been confirmed by Governor Medusa and Admiral Khumalo. But she didn’t know at that point how decisively Filareta would be defeated or what sort of reinforcements that might free up for us here, and until Captain Grierson arrived, we were far too shorthanded for her to have contemplated our doing anything more…proactive than waiting for someone to come calling. And, frankly, Mobius was damned lucky to find the Admiral here when Ankenbrandt arrived. He wasn’t looking for the Navy in Montana; he only expected to send a message on to Spindle. So I don’t think we should assume anyone else is going to be sending messages here, however badly they need help. They’re more likely to send them direct to Spindle, exactly the way Ankenbrandt intended to do before he found us here. Or, as Commander Fremont—” he nodded to Commander Louis Fremont, his staff operations officer “—suggested to me the other evening, they’re likely to not send them to us at all.”

One or two people frowned, and Culbertson snorted.

“The point the Commander made to me over supper the other night—ruined my digestion, too, I might add—is that if he’d been in charge of setting up this operation, he’d also have set up ‘communications chains’ that went either to the Alignment…or nowhere at all.” He smiled bleakly. “Unfortunately, that theory fits entirely too well with the sole case we know about. The only reason Mister Breitbart’s messengers came to Montana was that after the attack on Trifecta Tower, the situation on Mobius disintegrated so quickly he had to improvise, using his own communications assets rather than the ones the ‘Manties’ set up for him. After Commander Fremont made his suggestion, I went back over everything both Ankenbrandt and Ms. Summers said before they were sent on to Spindle. Neither of them ever mentioned what sort of communication channels their ‘Manticoran’ contact had established, but it was clear they were operating outside those channels because of how suddenly the situation had worsened. And that leads me to believe Commander Fremont’s almost certainly correct about what was supposed to happen when they asked for help.

“Which further suggests that if anyone else needs our help, they’re going to be telling the wrong people about it.”

He paused, and the silence was deafening as his officers digested the implications.

“If that happens,” he resumed after a moment, his eyes cold, “thousands of people—maybe hundreds of thousands, or even millions—are going to die thinking the Star Empire of Manticore—our Star Empire, Ladies and Gentlemen—betrayed them. And I’ve decided that’s not going to happen anywhere we can do anything about it.”

“I think we’re all onboard with that, Sir.” Scotty Tremaine’s voice was harsh. “May I ask how you plan to go about it, though?”

“Indeed you may, Captain.” Culbertson let his chair come upright, planting his forearms solidly on the table top. “Captain Grierson’s arrival gives us far more light platforms than Admiral Gold Peak ever contemplated when she drafted our instructions. Captain Zavala’s Saltash operation also gives us a far better meterstick for how effective those light platforms can be, even against heavy Frontier Fleet units. My primary responsibility at this time is the defense of Manticoran citizens here in Montana, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take advantage of that effectiveness and those platforms. What I intend to do is to organize at least three, hopefully four, task groups of light cruisers and destroyers. I’d like for each of them to have a core of at least one division of Rolands, to give them some long-range firepower. I may break up your division, Captain Tremaine, to assign a Saganami-C to each of them, as well. And I also intend to attach a single freighter—I’m looking at our smaller support ships first, but I’m willing to commandeer civilian ships from the supply chain Admiral Khumalo’s set up for us here in Montana, if I have to—with a load of Mark 23 pods and a pair of dispatch boats, so they can send for more help if they need it.

“While Captain Sammonds organizes that, Commander Fremont and I will go through every scrap of intelligence we can turn up, trying to identify star systems in our vicinity—within a couple of hundred light-years, let’s say—the Alignment may have targeted. Frankly, I doubt we’ll find enough information to make meaningful determinations, but it may at least help us prioritize a bit. Either way, though, I intend for those squadrons to depart Spindle within forty-eight hours—seventy-two, at the outside.”

He paused, and Commodore Madison, the CO of his second CLAC division, raised an eyebrow.

“And do what when they get there, Sir?” he asked in the voice of someone who suspected he already knew the answer to his question.

“The gloves are off now,” Culbertson said flatly. “You’ve all seen the reports on Second Manticore. As Duchess Harrington told Filareta, if war’s what the Sollies want, then war is what they’re damned well going to get. By this time, Kolokoltsov and the other Mandarins have received the Grand Alliance’s formal declaration of war, and Admiral Gold Peak is already moving on the Madras Sector. That being the case, I see no reason we shouldn’t take a few offensive steps of our own. I intend to take or destroy any Frontier Fleet units in those systems. In addition, we will seize any Solarian civilian shipping as legitimate prizes of war…and if our people should just happen to walk into another Mobius situation—” those bleak, brown eyes circled the table again “—then they can damned well do something about it.”

* * *

“So you’re Stephen Westman,” Sinead Terekhov observed.

“Indeed I am, Ma’am.” Westman doffed his Stetson and swept a remarkably graceful bow as she finished stepping from the boarding tube to the shuttle pad. Then he straightened, blue eyes glinting under the bright Montana sun. “An’ from the portrait Aivars keeps in his cabin, you must be Sinead.”

“And you figured that out all on your own,” she marveled with a smile.

“Ma’am, I know Montanans have a reputation for not bein’ the sharpest styluses in the box,” he said earnestly. “Howsomesoever, that’s not really fair. Why, most Montanans’re just as smart as anyone else you might meet. Then there’s the ones like me. The ones who need a mite of help t’ know when t’ come in out of the rain. But we do try, really…and I s’pose I might’s well add that Captain Lewis warned me you’d most likely be along.” He shook his head with a smile of his own. “I should’ve realized old Bernardus’d come up with a ship for you.”

“Aivars does seem to have made friends in the oddest places out here,” she agreed, extending her hand.

“He’s the kind of man does that,” Westman agreed, and raised her hand to his lips rather than shaking it. Then he tucked it into the crook of his left arm and waved his right arm at the pad lift.

“I understand you have that effect on people, too,” he said with a smile. “An’ Captain Lewis warned me you were…‘a force of nature,’ I b’lieve she said.”

“No? Did she really?!” Sinead laughed. “I’m not nearly that fearsome, Mister Westman!”

“Don’t think I said anything ’bout ‘fearsome,’” he replied. “However, soon’s she told me that, I reserved the Presidential Suite at the Comstock—that’s the best hotel here in Estelle—for you. Been holdin’ it for the last week, waitin’ for you and Bernardus t’ get around Admiral Khumalo.” His smile broadened, but then his expression softened and he patted the hand in the crook of his arm “Reckon that’s the least Montana—and I—can do for Aivars till he gets back here.”

* * *

“Well, there they go, Sir,” Helena Sammonds observed, standing on HMS Elf’s flag bridge as she and Craig Culbertson watched the icons accelerating steadily towards Montana’s hyper limit. “At least we made your deadline. But you’re dumping a lot of responsibility on some fairly junior captains,” she added.

“Of course I am.” Culbertson turned from the display. “I think they’re up to it, though. And whether they are or not, I agree with Admiral Gold Peak. I’m not letting thousands of people who trusted us die thinking we betrayed them.”

“And that bit about destroying any Frontier Fleet units they meet?”

Sammonds, Culbertson knew, wasn’t second guessing him. What she was doing was giving him one last opportunity to consider his instructions to the commanders of those improvised task groups, check his orders one last time for potential improvements, while they were still in com range.

“Admiral Gold Peak was right about that, too,” he said. “She couldn’t know we’d formally declare war after Filareta attacked the home system, but it wouldn’t really matter either way.”

He shrugged and twitched his head sideways at the display.

“All they’re going to run into out here in the Verge is Frontier Fleet. I know Frontier Fleet’s one hell of a lot more competent than Battle Fleet, but I’ll be astonished if there’s more than three or four warships in any of the systems on our list. I could be wrong about that. And if the Alignment’s plans to ginger up resistance movements have borne fruit, I suppose the locals may have requested additional support. Even so, the most they’re going to see is a handful of battlecruisers, and Zavala demonstrated what the Mark 16 G can do to Solly battlecruisers. Every one of those ships has additional pods limpeted to their hulls, and we’ve assigned one of Tremaine’s Saganami-Cs to each task group. I know he hated breaking up his division, but if just three Rolands can dismantle four Solarian battlecruisers with a single salvo, then three or four of them backed by a Saganami-C can handle anything they’re likely to run into out here. And whatever the Sollies may think, we’re at war with the bastards now, Helena. So if there’s anyone out here stupid enough to pull the trigger rather than cut his wedge and surrender when he sees Manticoran warships entering his system, he’ll deserve whatever the hell he gets.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

“Governor,” Håkon Ellingsen said as Jeremy frank escorted him once again into Oravil Barregos’ office.

“Mister Ellingsen.” Barregos held out his hand. “And this is—?” He raised his eyebrows at the much smaller man at Ellingsen’s side.

“Abernathy, Governor,” the newcomer said. “Captain Vitorino Abernathy.”

“I see.” Barregos shook his hand in turn, and then nodded to the man who’d risen from the chair beside his desk. “And this is Admiral Roszak.”

“A pleasure to meet you Admiral,” Abernathy said, shaking his hand in turn. “We’ve heard a lot about you. The stand you made to defend Torch…” He shook his head in obvious admiration, and Roszak shrugged.

“We had a commitment. A moral one, as well as a treaty.”

“I’m aware of that, but your people paid almost as heavy a price—heavier, in absolute terms—than Duchess Harrington paid in Grayson. That’s something any Manticoran can admire.”

Roszak shrugged again, this time a little uncomfortably, and Abernathy let it drop.

“I suggest we all sit down and get to it,” Barregos said after a moment, directing his guests to the small conference table. “Would either of you gentlemen like anything to drink? I anticipate being here a while, and snacks are available. On the other hand, Luiz here is something of a cook, and he’s offered to feed us all if we take a break in two or three hours.”

“According to the Admiral’s dossier, ‘something of a cook’ is something of an understatement.” Ellingsen smiled. “I’ll gladly sit down to any meal he’d care to offer.”

“I hope you still feel that way after you’ve eaten,” Roszak said with an answering smile.

“I’m not too worried about that, Admiral,” Ellingsen replied, and set his small briefcase on the table. He opened the sophisticated security locks and extracted a chip folio and a compact holo unit.

“It occurred to me that we could save some time by letting Secretary Langtry explain things to you personally, Governor,” he said, and popped one of the chips into the player. A moment later, the distinguished image of Sir Anthony Langtry, Foreign Secretary of the Star Empire of Manticore appeared above the reader. He was seated behind a desk in an obviously formal setting, with the skyline of the city of Landing visible through the window behind his left shoulder. Ellingsen cocked an interrogative eyebrow at Barregos, and, when the governor nodded, pressed the play button.

“Governor Barregos,” Langtry said, “I appreciate your willingness to continue these conversations with Mister Ellingsen. Obviously, we—the Star Empire and the Maya Sector—have a great deal to discuss, and we’re not going to get all of it worked through in a single session. I feel it’s important for you to know precisely what we’re thinking here in Landing, however, so I’ve recorded this message. Mister Ellingsen is fully in my confidence, and he can expand on any point where you feel additional clarification is necessary or desirable.”

He paused for a moment, as if to allow that to settle, then continued.

“Essentially, we find ourselves needing all the allies we can get. The Republic of Haven’s willingness to stand with us against Solarian aggression’s been a godsend. Frankly, especially after the Yawata Strike, I doubt our position would be survivable without President Pritchart’s full-blooded support. But ‘survivable’ isn’t necessarily the same as good, I’m afraid, and that doesn’t even consider this ‘Mesan Alignment’ we’ve only recently learned exists. As you and Admiral Roszak are probably better aware than most, we possess a significant advantage in war-fighting capability at the tactical level. Strategically, our ultimate prospects are far less hopeful. The population base and industrial power of the Solarian League are many times that of the Star Empire and Republic of Haven, combined. Eventually, even Sollies—no offense,” he smiled tightly “—have to recognize our advantages…and seek to acquire the same capabilities for themselves.

“Given enough time, they will succeed in doing exactly that.”

Langtry paused again. This time his expression was bleak, and he sipped from the coffee cup on his desk before he resumed.

“Our best—perhaps our only—hope is to defeat the League quickly, in the shortest possible war. In large part, to conclude hostilities before the League can fully mobilize its R&D against us, but also to end the fighting with as little additional loss of life and destruction of property as possible. The less damage we do, the fewer Solarians we kill, the better our chance of concluding a peace settlement that avoids the sort of revanchism which would send the League back to war with us as soon as its weaponmakers duplicate our advantages.

“And that’s what brings us to Maya.”

The foreign secretary looked directly into the camera.

“It’s become clear the Mandarins will never conclude a negotiated peace. It’s stupid, and ultimately self-destructive, but they appear to be convinced they’ve crawled too far out on the limb to back down. They’re prepared to kill as many people as necessary to buy the survival of their personal power and the system that gives it to them, and the fact that they aren’t answerable to any effective political oversight is what’s allowed them to do that. So for any negotiated settlement to become possible, the Mandarins have to go. And because there’s no political mechanism to remove them, we must create a situation in which the League Assembly—or at least sufficient of the League’s member star system—create that mechanism out of a sense of self preservation.

“We hope to convince them they must take action if the League is to survive. You no doubt know even better than I just how much outright hatred for Frontier Security and the League in general exists in the Verge, and how thoroughly justified it is. We propose to give that hatred, that legitimate yearning for independence from the political and economic system which has raped the Verge for so long, a voice in order to multiply the threats the Core Systems can recognize. We believe a flare of widespread unrest—and calls in Old Chicago from the threatened economic interests for its suppression—will generate a Core World perception, even among those who don’t realize how critical to the League government’s budget the revenues squeezed from the Verge truly are, that the League is sliding towards dissolution. Towards that end we’ve been promoting discussions with…action-oriented reform elements in many of the Protectorates and quite a few nominally independent star systems. It’s been our policy to avoid encouraging anyone we feel has a less than even chance of success, since it would do neither them nor our cause any service to promote rebellions which fail. Where we believe the chance of success exists, however, we stand ready to provide both weapons and naval support.

“Obviously, I’m speaking to you because we’re aware, in at least a general sense, of your apparent plans in the Maya Sector. We believe an independent Maya under your governance would be a vast improvement over the present arrangement, and it would clearly be in our self-interest to engender friendly relations with such an independent star nation. It would also be in our interest to repair our relationship with Erewhon and generally shore up the strategic flank of both the Star Empire and the Republic of Haven in your vicinity.

“Because of that, I now formally offer you an alliance with the Star Empire and the Republic. For obvious reasons, this isn’t something any of us would be announcing publically anytime soon. However, Mister Ellingsen and Captain Abernathy are authorized to discuss with you what sort of military—and economic—support you might require in order to succeed in your…endeavor.”

He paused again, then smiled slightly.

“There’s an old, old piece of pre-diaspora political wisdom I think applies to all of the League’s adversaries. ‘If we don’t hang together, we will all hang separately.’ It would seem to me, and to my Empress and President Pritchart, that it would be far wiser of the Grand Alliance and the Maya Sector to hang together at this moment.

“Langtry, clear.”

* * *

“Well, that’s a sight I never expected to see. Or that I never wanted to see rolling towards me, back in the day, anyway,” Captain Loretta Shoupe said.

She, Commander Ambrose Chandler, and Captain Victoria Saunders stood with Augustus Khumalo in his ancient flagship’s CIC watching the displays. And, Khumalo had to admit he shared her sentiments; it wasn’t a sight he’d ever expected to see, either.

“Just as glad no one expects me to repel the invasion,” Captain Saunders said dryly. “Hercules is a game old bitch, but she’d be just a bit outclassed by that.”

She twitched her head at the display, and Khumalo snorted.

“Vicki,” he told his flag captain, “no disrespect to Hercules, but if you even suggested going up against that kind of firepower, I’d not only relieve you of command, I’d have you committed!”

Eloise Pritchart and Thomas Theisman had done Lester Tourville proud when they detached him from the alliance’s Grand Fleet. Although he’d given up Vice Admiral Sampson Hermier’s entire task force and lost one superdreadnought squadron from each of his two remaining task forces, those task forces had each received two additional squadrons of battlecruisers and an additional flotilla of light cruisers in exchange. Altogether, the new, revised Second Fleet boasted two hundred and thirty-one warships. With its fleet train of attached ammunition and service ships, over two hundred and fifty Havenite starships were decelerating steadily towards Spindle…and thirty-two of them were modern SD(P)s, although—like Tenth Fleet’s existing superdreadnought strength—none were equipped with Keyhole-Two.

“How much do we know about Tourville, Sir?” Saunders asked. “I know he was in command of the lead Peep—Sorry; I guess I’d better watch that. I mean, I know he was in command of the lead Havenite element when they hit Manticore. And I understand he commanded the ambush force that dropped out of hyper to box Filareta when the Sollies hit Manticore.”

She shook her head, clearly still bemused by the speed with which the implacable hostility of the last five or six decades had disappeared.

“I figure all of that—and the fact that they picked him to command these people—” she twitched a gesture at the display “—indicate he’s pretty good, but I don’t really have a feel for how good.”

“I think that’s a question for my always well-informed staff,” Khumalo said and cocked his head at Chandler. “Ambrose?”

“According to reports, Ma’am,” his staff intelligence officer told Saunders, “he’s more or less the Havenite version of Duchess Harrington. Or maybe Lady Gold Peak, actually, since he’s got a reputation as a cowboy, the sort of fellow who’d be comfortable on Montana.” Saunders chuckled, and Chandler shrugged. “I’m inclined to think that reputation’s…somewhat exaggerated, though. After all, there are those who’d describe Admiral Gold Peak the same way—that’s why I said he might be more a Havenite Countess Gold Peak than a Duchess Harrington—and we all know they’d be wrong about her. I think they’d be equally wrong about him, because I doubt a real ‘cowboy’ would’ve compiled the combat record he has. Duchess Harrington’s the only commander who’s ever beaten him, and he’s the only commander who’s ever beaten her, although, to be fair, the odds were sort of stacked in his favor that time.”

“While you’re being ‘fair,’ Ambrose,” Loretta Shoupe said dryly, “you might want to remember that the last time Duchess Harrington beat him, she had Apollo…and he didn’t.”

“That’s a valid point,” Khumalo agreed. “But the important thing here, Vicki, is that Admiral Theisman and President Pritchart have sent us the man who’s almost certainly the best fleet commander they have.” It was his turn to shake his head. “I would really, really hate to be the Solly admiral sent out to attack Talbott now that we’ve got both those cowboys—or cowgirls, as the case may be—to kick his ass,” he added in tones of profound satisfaction.

* * *

“Governor Medusa,” Lester Tourville said, stopping exactly three meters from Estelle Matsuko’s desk. He braced to attention and bowed ever so slightly—a nice balance, she decided, between the Republic of Haven’s aggressive egalitarianism and the sort of formality most people associated with monarchies. The treecat on his shoulder watched the two-leg ritual with bright, interested eyes…and what she suspected was amused tolerance.

“Admiral Tourville,” she replied, rising and walking around the desk to extend her hand. “You are a most welcome visitor.”

“Thank you, Milady,” he replied, shaking the offered hand, and his bushy mustache quivered slightly as he smiled. Then his expression sobered. “I’m afraid Manticorans haven’t always been happy to see me in the past. I hope that’s not going to be a problem for anyone out here.”

“If it is, I assure you Admiral Khumalo, Admiral Gold Peak, and I will all stamp on it with both feet the instant it rears its head.” She met his gaze levelly, despite their substantial difference in height. “You fought for your star nation just as they’ve fought for theirs, and we all know a lot more now about why we were fighting each other. More to the point, your Navy stood up to confront the Solarian League with us despite how long we’ve been fighting one another. If we have any anti-Haven bigots out here, I want them to show themselves, because as soon as they do, I promise you they’ll be on their way home. And not with any glowing letters of commendation in their personnel files!”

Tourville glanced from the corner of one eye at the treecat on his shoulder. The ’cat nodded ever so slightly, and Medusa carefully took no note of the interchange. She’d been informed that the treecats had begun providing what amounted to bodyguards for key members of the Grand Alliance’s leadership, although she hadn’t realized one had been attached to Tourville. Obviously, though, he’d already gotten into the habit of letting his six-limbed companion evaluate the sincerity of those with whom he came into contact.

“I’m deeply relieved to hear that,” he told her soberly. “There are still people in my Navy, some of them on my own staff, who have…reservations about our cooperation with the Star Empire. Not on any sort of political or professional level, but more on a…personal one, I suppose. I imagine that’s inevitable, given how many of our friends and fellow officers—in both navies—have been killed fighting each other. But I assure you that you won’t find any ‘bigots’ in Second Fleet, either. Or, if you do, at least, they’ll be headed home on the same ship as your bigots.”