Mission of Honor-ARC (47 page)

All of which meant she was incredibly shorthanded for dealing with such a stupendous haul of POWs, and she frankly didn't know what she was going to do with all of them. She had nowhere near the hyper-capable personnel lift to transfer them back to the prison camps in the Star Empire currently populated by the personnel of Lester Tourville's Second Fleet. For that matter, she wasn't at all certain those camps, despite their frenetic expansion following the Battle of Manticore, would have had sufficient space for her current catch even if she'd been able to get them there!

Baroness Medusa was scrambling to find someplace to store them, at least temporarily. Unfortunately, no one on Flax had ever contemplated the absurd notion that the planet might suddenly have to absorb the better part of four hundred thousand "visitors" like these, and the governor's options were limited. At the moment, Michelle knew, Medusa was inclining towards the same solution Michelle herself had experienced during her brief stint as a prisoner of war on Haven. Flax possessed several large, uninhabited tropical islands, many with the sorts of climates that evoked Pavlovian salivation from vacation resort developers. There was no housing on them at the moment, but food and water could be transported in, emergency sanitation arrangements could be made, and more permanent housing could be built once the immediate crisis had been dealt with.

No matter what we do, the Sollies're going to scream we've "abused" their personnel by "refusing" to house them properly and deliberately leaving them "exposed to the elements,"
she thought glumly.
But all we can do is the best we can do, and hope the Admiralty can find someplace back home to keep them . . . not to mention the shipping to
get
them "someplace back home!"

From the perspective of pure combat power, Crandall's task force wasn't even in the same league as Tenth Fleet. In fact, Michelle and her senior tacticians had been shocked by the totality of their own success. They'd deliberately adopted pessimistic assumptions about their ability to penetrate Solarian missile defenses, only to find their most
optimistic
estimations had fallen short of the reality. Despite everything, she'd been convinced it would take at least several salvos to inflict the sort of damage required to extort a surrender from someone as belligerent and obviously arrogant as Sandra Crandall. She'd certainly never anticipated that Terekhov's opening salvo would shatter its targets so completely.

She was fullyaware of the scale of her victory, andthat her firepower advantage was overwhelming. Yet from the perspective of securing its prizes, Tenth Fleet was in the position of someone who'd chartered a small boat to fish for near-tuna and landed a twelve-meter fluke-shark, instead. An impressive achievement, yes, but what did you
do
with the thing?

Well, I guess we're about to find out, aren't we?
she thought.

At the moment, Terekhov's cruisers and Khumalo's superdreadnought flagship maintained their positions in orbit around Flax, just over eight hundred thousand kilometers from what remained of Crandall's wall of battle. The undamaged Solarian ships, plus their lighter consorts, were motionless relative to the planet, sidewalls and impeller wedges down in obedience to Michelle's orders, and all of her battlecruisers lay seven hundred and fifty thousand kilometers outside their current positions. That geometry put every hyper-capable Manticoran combatant beyond effective energy range of the Solarian SDs—a not so minor consideration, given the fact that any one of those superdreadnoughts could have annihilated Michelle's entire fleet if she'd been foolish enough to stray into the effective envelope of their massive energy batteries.

Which was the reason she had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. It was also the reason both the
Saganami-Cs
and the
Nikes
were surrounded by veritable shoals of missile pods. Even if these superdreadnoughts' wedges had been active, it would have taken them six minutes at their maximum acceleration to reach energy range even of the battlecruisers, much less Terekhov's cruisers. Flight time for a Mark 23 over the same range would have been only twenty-four seconds. Based on what had already happened to Task Force 496, Michelle rather doubted it would survive the fifteen far larger salvos it would have received during those six minutes. More importantly, she felt confident the Sollies could do the same sums.

But even as she held her starships at a discreet distance, her LACs had maneuvered into position "above" and "below" the surviving Solarian warships. Since it had seemed likely the Sollies would have underestimated the capabilities of new-generation Manticoran light attack craft at least as badly as they'd underestimated those of current-generation Manticoran missiles, she'd arranged demonstration firings of the
Shrike-Bs
' massive grasers. She wanted no misconceptions about what those capital ship-weight energy weapons could do to the unarmored topsides and bottoms of the Solarian ships-of-the-wall.

And while all that was being arranged, her destroyers—all five of them—had accelerated off in pursuit of the nine hulked SDs. Five
old-style
destroyers could easily have found the boarding parties for search-and-rescue operations aboard nine superdreadnoughts. Whether or not her five
Rolands
were up to the task was another question.

Now it was time to find out if they were . . . and if her
other
arrangements were going to work, after all.

For the Sollies' sake, she hoped they did.

"Put me through to O'Cleary, Bill," she said without looking over her shoulder.

"Yes, Ma'am," Lieutenant Commander Edwards replied.

Michelle gazed into the plot for another few seconds, then turned to face the master com display as a fair-haired, dark-eyed woman in the white uniform of the Solarian League Navy appeared upon it.

"Admiral O'Cleary," Michelle said, and at this piddling range the light-speed transmission lag was barely two seconds.

"Admiral Gold Peak," the other woman responded. Originally TF 496's third in command, she'd become it's second in command when Admiral Dunichi Lazlo's flagship,
Andreas Vesalius
, blew up with all hands. With what remained of
Joseph Buckley
currently unable to communicate with anyone (assuming there was anyone aboard to do be communicated
with
), O'Cleary had become the task force's acting CO. Her voice was a little gravelly, but Michelle suspected that was normal, not something—like the stunned anger glowing at the backs of O'Cleary's eyes—produced by the shocking outcome of the Solarian attack on Spindle.

"My boarding parties are now prepared to take possession of your superdreadnoughts, Admiral," Michelle said levelly, "and I fully realize emotions are going to be running high among your personnel.
My
personnel have been instructed to exercise as much restraint as possible, but they've also been instructed to remember that their own security and the discharge of their orders takes precedence over all other considerations. I sincerely hope no one on either side will cause any avoidable incidents, but I remind you formally, for the record, that under the Deneb Accords, the legal responsibility to avoid such incidents by prompt compliance with my instructions and those of my designated prize crews rests with your personnel, as the ones who have been permitted to surrender."

O'Cleary's jaw tightened visibly, but despite her anger, she had herself firmly under control.

"I assure you, Admiral, that I've made all my personnel aware of that fact," she grated. "As you say, emotions are . . . running high among them. And as you, I hope there will be no 'avoidable incidents'."

"Good." Michelle inclined her head in a brief, courteous half-bow of agreement, then cleared her throat.

"I'm sure you realize, Admiral O'Cleary, that no one here in the Quadrant has made any provision for quartering such a large number of prisoners of war."

Michelle saw O'Cleary's eyes flash at the term "prisoners of war," but she didn't especially care. In point of fact, she was conceding them a status she wasn't required to under interstellar law, and O'Cleary knew it. There'd been no formal declaration of war when Crandall attacked the sovereign territory of another star nation. Technically, her actions amounted to piracy on the grand scale, and Michelle was under no legal obligation to accord her officers and crews the courtesies normally due regular POWs. The fact that she'd allowed them to surrender under the provisions of the Deneb Accords meant she'd
chosen
to extend that status to them, but whether or not she was legally required to continue to extend it was what the lawyers like to call "a gray area."

"Governor Medusa is currently making arrangements to provide food, shelter, and any necessary medical attention," she continued levelly. "We'll do everything in our power to ensure that no one suffers any hardship. Despite that, however, it's very likely—inevitable, to be honest—that housing and services are going to be jury-rigged, at best, at least initially. As I say, we'll try to avoid imposing hardship conditions, but, again, I remind you that the Deneb Accords specifically recognize the right of any belligerent to use whatever means are necessary, up to and including lethal force, to maintain order among POWs. We have no intention of attempting to pressure any of your personnel into collaborating, and we recognize the Deneb Accords' stipulation that it's the duty of captured personnel to attempt to escape. However, it would be well for you to remind your personnel that that stipulation does not grant immunity from the use of force to stop them from escaping or to maintain order among them."

"Is that an order, Admiral?" O'Cleary asked coldly.

"No, it is not," Michelle replied, equally coldly, enunciating each word carefully. "It is, however, a very strong
suggestion
, and I remind you our current conversation is being recorded. It can—and will be—produced at any inquiry which may result from your personnel's conduct—or ours—while your people are in our custody."

Their eyes locked for several seconds. Then O'Cleary inhaled deeply.

"Very well. Your 'suggestion' is noted, and I'll speak to my people. Is there anything else?"

"Yes," Michelle said, "there is. As I'm sure you've already deduced for yourself, the combined manpower of my fleet is far inferior, numerically, to that of your own task force."
Not that I have any intention of admitting just
how
inferior
, she added silently. "That poses some obvious difficulties for my boarding parties—difficulties which might well provoke the sort of incident we've both just agreed should be avoided—and I've been giving some thought to ways those difficulties might be alleviated. By my staff's calculations, the combined small craft and escape pod capacity of your superdreadnoughts should suffice to remove approximately five thousand of your personnel from each ship."

O'Cleary's face stiffened, and she began to open her mouth indignantly, but Michelle continued coldly.

"Before you say a word, Admiral. I advise you to consider your position carefully. As you've just acknowledged, interstellar law requires you to obey my lawful commands. I, on the other hand, am obligated to provide for the reasonable safety of your personnel as long as you and they
do
obey my lawful commands. The planet Flax is less than one million kilometers from your present position. That's well within the powered range of your life pods, even allowing a two hundred percent reserve for an unassisted landing. In short, removing your personnel from your vessels in the manner I've indicated poses no threat to life or limb, assuming you've properly maintained the equipment in question. As a consequence, I'm formally informing you that failure to comply with this instruction will be interpreted as a decision on your part to resume hostilities."

She held the Solarian's eyes with her own, daring O'Cleary to call her bluff while silently praying the other woman was smart enough to realize it was no bluff at all. After a handful of tense heartbeats, it was O'Cleary's eyes which fell.

"I understand," she grated.

"I'm glad to hear that." Michelle gave her a tight smile. "Once your small craft and life pods have separated from your starships, they'll proceed to Flax. There, they will enter orbit as Admiral Khumalo directs and comply with any additional instructions he may issue. They will
not
land except as he or I specifically order. We'll make every effort to get them planet-side as promptly as possible, consonant with Governor Medusa's ability to arrange accommodations. I'll guarantee that, under any circumstances, your life pods will be allowed to make planetfall well within their life-support endurance. If, however, any of your small craft or life pods fail to comply with instructions from myself, Admiral Khumalo, or our designated subordinates, they
will
be destroyed. I realize these arrangements are unusual, but so are our present circumstances. I've attempted to reach the best compromise I can between the security of my own people and the proper treatment of yours. I expect you to make it clear to all your personnel that we intend to treat them as decently and honorably as circumstances permit, but that any disobedience to our lawful instructions will be met promptly with whatever level of force—up to and including deadly force—we feel is required. Is that understood, as well?"

"Yes," O'Cleary got out.

"Good. You may not believe this, Admiral, but I take no pleasure in issuing instructions I know must seem humiliating. Unfortunately, I have no choice. In fact, I'd be derelict in my responsibility to ensure the safety of
your
personnel if I failed to take the measures necessary to control the present situation and prevent the sort of escalation which would require me to use force to enforce the terms of your surrender."

Michelle gazed into O'Cleary's eyes for another moment, hoping the Solarian could recognize the sincerity in her own expression. Then she nodded courteously.

"Gold Peak, clear," she said, and turned back to the master plot with an inner sigh.