Mission of Honor-ARC (80 page)

At the moment, though, his levelheadedness appeared to be somewhat in abeyance, Admiral John Burrows, his chief of staff noted with undeniable unhappiness.

Burrows was the physical antithesis of his superior. Where Filareta stood a shade over a hundred and ninety centimeters, Burrows barely topped a hundred and sixty-two, and he was fair-haired, blue-eyed, and distinctly portly. Like Filareta, Burrows enjoyed a reputation for working hard, but he was actually more comfortable than his superior was when it came to improvising. And he'd also developed a certain talent for reading Filareta's mood and adroitly . . . managing him.

"And what do
you
think about this brainstorm, John?" Filareta demanded rather abruptly, wheeling from his contemplation of his enormous day cabin's smart wall, which currently displayed the central star of the Tasmania System.

"I assume you're referring to Admiral Rajampet's latest missive, Massimo?"

Burrows put an edge of drollness into his tone, but Filareta wasn't in the mood for their usual shared, more or less tolerant contempt for the CNO.

"And just what else did you think I might be referring to?" he asked rather nastily.

"Nothing," Burrows admitted, dropping the effort to defuse the other man's obvious unhappiness. His more sober expression was an unstated apology for his original attempt at humor, and Filareta grunted.

"Well, whatever," he said, waving one hand. "What
do
you think of it?"

"I haven't had time to fully examine the availability numbers," Burrows replied rather more formally. "Assuming that everyone who's supposed to get here actually does before we hyper out, it looks like we'll probably hit the specified force level. We might even have a few of the wall to spare. So, from the nuts-and-bolts perspective, it looks doable. I don't like how light we're going to be in screening elements, and I wish we had a lot better information than we do at this point on what happened at Spindle, though."

"The screen numbers could worry me less," Filareta said dismissively, waving his hand again. "That point about Spindle, though—
that
one's well taken. Of course, Sandra Crandall always was too stupid to close the outer hatch first, but still . . . ."

His unhappiness was even more pronounced, and Burrows discovered that he shared it.

"I think there's probably something to the theory that the Manties aren't going to want to go on pushing things, especially assuming ONI's estimate of the damage they took in this attack on their home system is remotely accurate," he offered after a moment. "If the Strategy Board's right about that, turning up with four hundred-plus of the wall ought to inspire them to see reason."

"And if the 'Strategy Board' is
wrong
about that," Filareta's withering irony made it perfectly clear who he thought had really come up with the notion, "then turning up with four hundred-plus of the wall is going to get a lot of people killed."

"Yes, it is," Burrows agreed. "On the other hand, I have to say I think the estimates about the damage the Manties' system defenses must've suffered are probably pretty well taken." Filareta looked at him sharply, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I'm not saying they've been hammered as completely flat as the ops plan seems to be suggesting, but nobody could get in close enough to inflict that kind of damage inside the limit without fighting his way through a shit pot of their inner system defenses, at least. And if the loss reports for the Battle of Manticore are remotely accurate, they couldn't have had more than a hundred or so wallers of their own left even before this latest attack."

"Which I might find rather more reassuring if they hadn't pinned Crandall's ears back with nothing heavier than
cruisers
," Filareta observed rather caustically.

"I know I just said myself that I wish we had more information about what happened at Spindle," Burrows said. "But from the way I read what data we do have, I think what she really ran into was a bunch of missile pods deployed in the system-defense role."

"And your point is?"

"My point is that they were probably system-defense
pods
—I mean a specialized design specifically optimized for that role. Sure, all they
showed
us was cruisers, but as you just pointed out, Admiral Crandall never was the sharpest stylus in the box, and Manty stealth systems seem to be better than anyone thought they were. It's entirely possible they managed to get an entire dispersed defensive array emplaced without her spotting it. And the minimum powered envelope estimates I've seen are a hell of a lot higher than the range at which they took out
Jean Bart
. So I'm inclined to think that what they'd really managed to do was to deploy a specialized area-defense version of their pods, probably with substantially larger missiles to get that extra range. Think of them as . . . oh, old-fashioned mines with three or four normal drives shoved up their asses. It's the only way I can think of that they could've gotten the range, but missiles that big simply wouldn't be practical for shipboard weapons." Burrows shrugged. "Where the hell would you put the magazines?"

Filareta started a quick reply, then paused at Burrows' last question. He thought for a moment or two, then nodded.

"I hadn't really thought about that," he admitted. "If they've gone to missile-dominated combat, then they have to have struck some kind of balance between missile ranges and missile
size
, don't they? They've got to have enough rounds onboard to do the job."

"Exactly." Burrows grimaced. "I'm willing to concede that even their shipboard weapons will have a substantial range advantage, but it's not going to be as great as the advantage they had over Crandall. And the second point about their being a specialized system-defense variant is that the only 'proof' they polished her off with 'nothing heavier than cruisers' comes from the
Manties
. If I were they, and what I'd really used was a sophisticated, integrated system-defense weapon—one that probably
did
have an FTL component—I'd do
my
best to convince the League I'd done it with a scratch force of light ships, too . . . if I thought I could get away with it. But everything I've seen from our own intelligence and R&D people says that any kind of broadband FTL is going to require humongous platforms. The
smallest
estimate I've seen suggests that nothing much smaller than a waller could carry the system and a worthwhile weapons load. So since they obviously were using FTL against Crandall, they sure as hell weren't doing it from something as small as a heavy cruiser. To be honest, that—coupled with the size requirements for the missiles themselves—is why I'm convinced it had to be a system-defense set up. Crandall crapped out because they managed to get the dispersed platforms in-system and up and running before
she
got there."

Filareta nodded slowly, his eyes intent, but there was something else behind those eyes. Burrows could see that, even though he didn't have a clue what else the fleet admiral was turning over in his mind.

"So what you're saying is that whoever"—that "something else" behind Filareta's eyes flickered more strongly for a moment—"blew the piss out of their system infrastructure has to've done it
through
that same kind of defensive system."

"That's what it sounds like to me," Burrows confirmed. "And to do that, they have to have either crippled the system, or else at least run it out of ammunition. Frankly, it seems more likely that whoever it was had better intel on the Manties than we do and figured out a way to go after the remote platforms, which probably means the Manties' command net has just been shot full of holes. Even if they did it just by running them out of ammunition, though, it seems more than a little unlikely that the Manties will have been able to replace their expended missiles with their industrial structure so trashed. And even assuming that they've been able to replace their expenditures this time around, there's no way in hell they'll be able to take
us
out and be able to reload again before the next wave arrives."

"I'm sure our ghosts will take great comfort from that fact," Filareta said rather dryly, and Burrows snorted.

"I agree it would be a . . . suboptimal outcome, Sir," he acknowledged. "My point, though, was that the Manties have to be aware of the same facts. So when we turn up so unexpectedly, even if they have the physical capability to repel our attack, I actually think the Strategy Board's right about whether or not they'll have the intestinal fortitude to actually try doing it. And if we point out to them that the next wave's already in the pipeline, and is going to be even more powerful, I think it really is likely they'll recognize the writing on the wall and give it up."

"Um."

Filareta frowned, obviously pondering what his chief of staff had just said. He still looked a far cry from anything Burrows would have called cheerful, but his expression was at least a little lighter than it had been.

"I hope to hell you're right," he said frankly at last. "If you're not, then we're going to get reamed, even if we wind up taking them out in the end."

He paused, as if inviting Burrows to respond, but the chief of staff only nodded. After all, Filareta was absolutely correct.

"All right," the fleet admiral said finally. "Go ahead and bring Bill and Yvonne inside on this." Admiral William Daniels was the task force's operations officer, and Admiral Yvonne Uruguay was the staff astrogator. "I want our movement planned by the time our reinforcements get here." It was Filareta's turn to grimace. "There's no way we're going to make our specified schedule, but let's see how close we can come."

"Yes, Sir," Burrows agreed. Frankly, he'd be surprised if they could hit within a T-week of the operations schedule included with their orders from Old Earth. On the other hand, allowances for that kind of slippage were built into any interstellar fleet movement orders. They had to be.

Filareta turned to look back at the smart wall again, contemplating it for several moments. Then he inhaled deeply and nodded to the distant solar furnace which dominated the view.

"All right, John," he said again, never turning away from the wall. "Go talk to Bill and Yvonne. I want their preliminary reactions in time for lunch. And go ahead and schedule a full dress staff meeting for tomorrow morning."

* * *

The "private yacht" was about the size of most navies' battlecruisers, and almost as heavily armed. Which didn't prevent it from being one of the most luxuriously appointed vessels in the galaxy . . . as well as one of the fastest. It had made the passage from the Mesa System forty percent more rapidly than anyone else's ship could have managed it.

Albrecht Detweiler reflected on exactly what that implied as he stood to one side on what would have been the flag deck aboard an actual warship and watched the enormous space station, gleaming in the reflected light of the F6 star called Darius, growing larger on the visual display as MANS
Genesis
approached it. The station—known officially as
Darius Prime—
orbited the planet Gamma, Darius' only habitable world, and at the moment, it was over Gamma's night side, just approaching the terminator. The planetary surface below it sparkled with lines and beads of light, and there were four other stations to keep it company, although none of them were remotely the same size as Manticor's'
Hephaestus
or
Vulcan
.

Or the size they
had
been, at any rate.

His eyes moved to the ships taking form in the shipyards
Darius Prime
supported. Eventually, those ships would become the first units of the
Leonard Detweiler
class, he knew, although it wouldn't happen anywhere near as soon as he wished. The much smaller units of the
Shark
class in parking orbit beyond
Darius Prime
were visible evidence of why he wished that. Most of the still far from complete
Detweilers
were already larger than the
Sharks
—in many cases,
substantially
larger. When they were completed, they would be far, far tougher—and far more dangerous—than their smaller predecessors, and he was going to need the capability they represented as quickly as he could get it. Unfortunately, wishing couldn't change anything.

His lips twitched briefly at the thought, and he turned his attention to the
Sharks
.
Genesis
had arrived almost three hours before her scheduled ETA, yet it was evident the fleet was already home and waiting for him. Well, that was fine with him. No doubt the Mesan Alignment Navy would someday acquire the taste for formal reviews of the fleet—and the punctillious timing which went them—which seemed to be a part of every
other
navy in space. So far, it hadn't, and given how little use he had for pomp, he'd prefer for that to take as long as possible.

Not that they don't
deserve
a formal review
. His face hardened with mingled satisfaction and a degree of apprehension as he reflected upon the reports of Oyster Bay's effectiveness.
I don't think anyone else in history ever managed to pull off this successful an operation. Certainly not against someone as good as the Manties!

The casualty count had been higher than projected, and part of him regretted that. He supposed that was foolish of him, given where all of this had to lead eventually, yet there it was. He couldn't quite avoid thinking about all the children who'd never even seen it coming. Funny how that bothered him when thinking about all of the other millions who were going to be killed eventually didn't. He wondered if that was because those other millions were still an abstraction for him, still only a potential, whereas the dead from the Manticoran space stations and in the city of Yawata Crossing weren't. He
hoped
that wasn't the reason. All of those additional deaths were coming—he couldn't have changed that at this point even if he'd tried—and he couldn't afford to brood over them this way when they finally arrived.

Well, you won't
, he told himself.
By the time they come along, you'll have enough emotional scar tissue to keep you from losing any sleep. And, be honest with yourself, Albrecht—you'll be damned glad you do
.