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"I think... I think I can, actually," O'Shaughnessy said after a moment.
"Excuse me?" Khumalo blinked at him.
"If— and I say if— someone in the League's been deliberately stirring up and arming people like Nordbrandt and Westman to destabilize the Cluster, and if that same someone's prepared to upgrade the Monicans' naval capabilities, then it could actually make sense," the civilian said slowly.
"If they expect Monica to take us on, it had better be one damned massive upgrade of their capabilities!" Khumalo snorted.
"Granted. But maybe not quite as massive as you're assuming, Admiral."
Khumalo started to say something quickly, but O'Shaughnessy shook his head.
"I'm not questioning your naval judgment. But if Terekhov and Van Dort have put this together the way it sounds to me they have, then this is essentially a political operation which simply happens to have a military component. Oh," he waved both hands, "it's far too complicated, and it requires a degree of confidence verging on blind arrogance, but God knows the Sollies have demonstrated plenty of arrogance in the past. I think it's literally impossible for the sort of people who'd try something like this to conceive of a situation they can't control-or at least spin the way they want it-because they're so confident they have the power of the entire League behind them."
"Maybe so, but it's still ridiculous," Khumalo said. "Let's say they've tripled the Monican Navy's combat power." He barked a harsh laugh. "Hell, let's say they've increased it by a factor of ten ! So what? We could still wipe them out in an afternoon with a single division of SD(P)s or a squadron of CLACs!"
"Possibly. All right, probably ," O'Shaughnessy amended at the rear admiral's exasperated look. "But it's entirely possible that whoever put this thing together doesn't really care what happens to the Monicans. All they may care about is creating a pretext-an armed clash in the Cluster-that gives the Monicans an initial victory or two. Are you going to argue that an upgraded Monican Navy couldn't defeat your presently deployed forces? Especially if it caught them dispersed, by surprise, and engaged them in separate, isolated actions with its own forces concentrated for each attack?"
Khumalo glared again, but this time he was forced, grudgingly, to shake his head.
"Well suppose the Monicans did just that, and then called in Frontier Security, claiming we'd started it and asking for Solarian peacekeeping forces. What do you think would happen then?"
Khumalo's jaw clamped hard, and O'Shaughnessy nodded.
"It sounds to me as if Terekhov's already neutralized the terrorist movements which were supposed to destabilize things from the civilian, political side," he said. "If the Monicans or their Solly partners are looking for something they can use to spin the Solly media, they may already have everything they need, but at least it's not going to get any worse. And if he can neutralize the Monican Navy-assuming the Monicans really are part of a coordinated operation-he may just manage to stall the entire operation."
"Then you think he's right?" Shoupe asked.
"I don't have the least idea whether he's right or not," O'Shaughnessy said flatly. "In fact, I'm busy praying he's dead wrong. But I think it's possible he isn't, and if there really is something to his suspicions, then I hope to God he manages to pull this off."
"I don't know what I think," Khumalo said after a few heartbeats of silence. "But if he is right, we're going to need more firepower than I have right now. Loretta," he turned to his chief of staff, "draft a message to the Admiralty, highest priority. Attach copies of Terekhov's dispatches— all his dispatches-and request immediate reinforcement of the Lynx Terminus. Further inform them that I'll be ordering the remainder of my present forces to concentrate to cover the southern edge of the Cluster and that I'm moving on Monica personally with every ship available here in Spindle as soon as possible. Inform them," he looked across at the Provisional Governor, meeting her eyes levelly, "that although I remain uncertain of Captain Terekhov's conclusions, I endorse his actions and intend to support him to the best of my ability. I want that off by dispatch boat to Lynx and Manticore as quickly as humanly possible."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Shoupe said crisply, eyes gleaming with approval.
"It's going to be too late to make very much difference to Terekhov, either way, Loretta," the rear admiral said quietly.
"Maybe so, Admiral," she replied. "But maybe not, too."
"I sure hope this is going to work, Sir," Aikawa Kagiyama said quietly.
He and Ansten FitzGerald sat on Copenhagen 's flight deck as the freighter accelerated steadily inward from the system's hyper limit. The merchantship's bridge was actually smaller than Hexapuma 's, but it seemed incredibly vast because it was uncluttered by the elaborate plots, data displays, weapons consoles, and multiple command stations of a warship. It had been rather nice, in many ways, to have the space during the thirty-three-day voyage from Montana. At the moment, however, it simply served to remind Aikawa that he was aboard an unarmed, unarmored, absolutely defenseless, slow merchant vessel about to enter a potentially hostile star system under false pretenses.
It was not a pleasant thought.
"Well," FitzGerald said thoughtfully, glancing across at the midshipman ma
Despite the tension, Aikawa actually chuckled, and FitzGerald was glad to see it. The young man's humor still lacked the spontaneity and edge of mischievous wickedness which normally typified it, but at least he was no longer troubled by obvious bouts of depression. The Captain had been right. Assigning him to Copenhagen and working his posterior off had done wonders. And FitzGerald was also grateful for the time it had given him to get to know the youngster better. With only five officers, including Aikawa, in the entire ship, he'd learned more about each of them in the last T-month than in the previous six.
Not that learning more about some of them had been as pleasant as learning about others.
The freighter's acting captain glanced at the small com screen which showed the view from the optical pickup mounted on Lieutenant MacIntyre's skinsuit helmet. The engineering officer's perso
"Just hold it a minute, Danziger!" he heard the lieutenant snap suddenly. "I'll tell you when I'm ready to kick it loose, damn it! Don't you people ever pay attention to what you're doing?"
"Yes, Lieutenant. Sorry about that, Lieutenant," the senior sensor rating replied, and FitzGerald winced. Calling an officer by his rank was certainly proper procedure, but it could also become a backhanded swipe at one as junior as MacIntyre was. Especially when it was used in every single sentence... and delivered in the elaborately correct tone Danziger had just employed.
I'm going to have to have a little talk with her once we get back to Hexapuma. I hope it'll do some good. Although I'm not all that confident it will.
"All right," MacIntyre said more calmly a few minutes later. "All systems check. Let's get it out of here."
The working party lifted the massive drone-well over a hundred tons-easily in the depressurized cargo hold's micro-gravity. They walked it aft to the gaping hatch, big enough to engulf some destroyers bodily, and used presser-tractor jacks to kick it clear of the ship. MacIntyre kept her eyes on it, which had the effect of holding it in the center of FitzGerald's display, and the commander felt a flicker of relief as the drone's emergency reaction thrusters flared. Its onboard programming obviously had it, and it was adjusting its position to be certain it passed cleanly through the open kilt of Copenhagen 's impeller wedge before lighting off its own very low-powered wedge.
"Drone successfully deployed, Sir," MacIntyre a
"Very good, Ms. MacIntyre. Get the hold secured, if you please."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Well, Aikawa," FitzGgerald remarked as he returned his attention to the midshipman, "so far, so good. Now all we need to do is recover it again before we leave the system."
"We've been challenged by Monica Astrogation Central, Sir," Lieutenant Kobe a
"And about time, too," FitzGerald replied with just a bit more studied calm than he actually felt. "Even a light-speed system should've been asking us who we are before this," he added, and Kobe gri
"Shall I respond, Sir?"
"Now, now, Jeff!" FitzGerald shook his head. "This is a merchie, not a Queen's ship, and merchies don't do things the way men-of-war do. Let's not make anyone suspicious by being too on the bounce about all this. Astrogation Central will still be there whenever we get around to answering them."
"Uh, aye, aye, Sir," Kobe replied after only the briefest of pauses, and FitzGerald chuckled.
"At least a third of the freighters in space leave their com watch on auto-record, Jeff," he explained, "and Sollies are even worse about that than most. Generally, there's an alarm set to alert the fellow who's supposed to be keeping an eye on communications that a particular incoming message is important. More often than not, though, the computers aboard a ship like this are too stupid to make that kind of evaluation reliably, so the system simply records anything that comes in and otherwise ignores it until a message has been repeated at least once. At that point, it figures someone really wants to talk to somebody and sounds an alarm to get the com officer's attention. That's why we often have to hail merchantships two or three times."