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"Aye, aye, Skipper. If it's there, I'll find it," she promised, and he squeezed her shoulder.
"Skipper, will you please tell me what's going on?" his exec pleaded, and Tribeca gri
"Come on into the briefing room, Fred." He sighed. "I might as well explain it to you and Commander Fargo at the same time."
"My God." Admiral Parks shook his head, staring at the message on his screen. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. How in hell did Peeps pull this off, Vincent?"
"I don't know, Sir." Capra pushed to his feet and prowled restlessly around the briefing room. "Oh, I can think of enough different ways to get the platforms into position; I just can't imagine how they came up with the stealth systems to hide them from us after they did it."
"I'd say Commander Tribeca's probably on the right track, Admiral," Zero O'Malley said. The intelligence officer scrolled back up to the pertinent portion of Tribeca's message and tapped it with a stylus. "We can't be sure till he gets back here with the relay and we tear it apart, but his preliminary description of it certainly suggests the fusion of more than one outfit's tech, and God knows there's enough Havenite trade with the Solarian League."
"But the League's embargoed military technology to both of us," Parks pointed out, and O'Malley nodded. Getting that embargo in place had been one of the Star Kingdom's more effective diplomatic moves, for it certainly favored Manticore's generally superior tech base over Haven's. It had also been hard to achieve, and only Manticore's control of the League's traffic through the Sigma Draconis terminus of the Manticore Worm Hole Junction had given the Foreign Office the clout to bring it off.
"Agreed, Sir, but I'm not suggesting this was an authorized technology transfer. The League's organized on an awful loose, consensual basis, and some of its member planets resent how hard we pushed for the embargo. It's possible one of them, or even a rogue defense contractor or a bribable League Navy officer, would be willing to violate it."
"Zero may be right, Sir," Captain Hurston put in, "but I don't think how they did it is as important just now as they fact that they have done it." The ops officer ran a hand through his hair, and his voice was worried. "And, of course, there's the question of where else they've done it. Yorik isn't anywhere near as critical as other Alliance systems, which suggests that it wouldn't have had overriding priority. Which, in turn, suggests—"
"That they've done it all along the frontier," Parks finished grimly, and Hurston nodded.
The admiral tipped his chair back and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, wishing he could believe Hurston was wrong. But he couldn't. If the Peeps had bugged Yorik with their damned invisible sensor platforms, then they'd done it elsewhere, as well.
He clenched his jaw and swore silently. Manticore had gotten too confident of its technical edge, refused to contemplate the possibility that the Peeps, equally aware of the differential, might take steps to redress it. And he himself had been as blind as anyone else.
"This changes everything," he said finally. "Our—my— belief that Admiral Rollins couldn't know we'd pulled out of Hancock no longer applies. Which," he forced himself to make the admission in a level voice, "means Admiral Sarnow was right all along."
He drew a breath and shook himself, then popped his chair upright, lowered his hands, and spoke crisply.
"All right, people. I screwed up, and it's time to try to fix it. Mark," he looked at Hurston, "I want you to tear every one of our contingency plans apart. Crank in the assumption that the Peeps have been watching our deployments all along the frontier for at least the last six months and find any spots in the plan that need adjustment in light of that capability. Zeb," he turned to the intelligence officer, "I want you to take charge of the relay Tribeca's bringing in. Strip it completely. Find out all you can about it—not just how it works, but anything you can tell me about the components and who made the damned thing initially. And see to it that Tribeca knows I intend to commend him strongly for his initiative."
The intelligence officer nodded, and Parks turned to Captain Beasley.
"Theresa, set up a com conference for—" he glanced at the chrono "—zero nine hundred. I want all squadron commanders, their staffs, and flag captains tied in. Then get courier boats off to Hancock, Zanzibar, and the Admiralty. Inform all of them of our findings, and instruct Admiral Kostmeyer to move immediately from Zanzibar to rendezvous with us at Hancock. See to it that Admiral Sarnow gets an information copy of our dispatch to her, as well."
"Yes, Sir."
"Vincent," Parks swung back to his chief of staff, "I want you to work with Mark on his pla
"Yes, Sir."
"Very well." Parks laid his hands on the table and squared his shoulders. "Let's get started, then. And let's just hope to God we're in time."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Honor closed the message file on her screen, tipped back her chair, and sipped her cocoa with a sense of mingled relief and regret. Yesterday's unexpected arrival of the light cruiser Anubis with dispatches from Admiral Danislav had brought Admiral Sarnow (and his flag captain) up to date on the latest information available to the Admiralty, and that information was downright frightening. There was no longer any doubt, in the Admiralty's view, that the PRH intended to launch an all-out attack... soon.
Honor agreed, and that agreement left her more worried than ever by Parks' dispersal. But at least Danislav had also confirmed that his dreadnought squadron, reinforced by an extra division the Admiralty had scared up, would arrive in a maximum of seventy-two hours. Unfortunately, Danislav had a reputation as an unimaginative, though determined, tactician... and he was senior to Sarnow.
She grimaced at the thought. Even with his ten dreadnoughts, Danislav was going to be far too weak to hold the system against serious attack. He'd need all the imagination he could find, and she hoped he'd have the sense to recognize Sarnows capabilities and rely upon them.
Unlike Parks.
She grimaced again and rolled another sip of cocoa over her tongue. Nimitz made a soft sound, and she smiled as he yawned, twitched his ears, and stretched along his perch, curling his tail in an oddly disdainful gesture to express his own opinion of Parks.
"My sentiments exactly," she told him with a chuckle. Much though she respected Nimitz's intelligence, she entertained no illusions about his ability to judge an admirals fitness for command. Except, of course, when his judgment matched hers.
She gri