Страница 61 из 99
"But if you deploy yourself on the wrong bearing," one of Garret's staff officers said quietly, "they may slip past and get the attack in anyway. And with your ships out of position, our own defensive systems are unlikely to stop warheads with modern penetration aids, Captain."
"I'm sure the Captain's thought of that, Commander Calgary," Garret said uncomfortably. It was clear Protector Benjamin had had a long talk with him, but Honor simply nodded, for Commander Calgary's point was well taken.
"You're correct, Commander. But there are offsetting considerations." She spoke firmly, minimizing the slurring of her words. "They know where Grayson is. If their goal is simply to bombard, they can launch from extreme range at near-light velocity. Once their missile drives go dead, even our sensors will have trouble localizing them for point defense. My ships could intercept most of them, but we're talking about nukes. We have to catch them all, and our best chance for that is while they're still in boost phase."
Calgary nodded his understanding, and she went on.
"Admittedly, moving away from Grayson will open the threat window. We have, however, certain technical advantages we believe are unknown to Haven."
A stir went through the Graysons, and she felt Truman's residual unhappiness beside her. What she proposed to describe to the Graysons was still on the Official Secrets List, and Truman had opposed its revelation. On the other hand, even Alice had to admit they didn't have any choice but to use it, and that meant telling their allies about it.
"Advantages, Captain?" Garret asked.
"Yes, Sir. Commander McKeon is our expert on the system, so I'll let him explain. Commander?"
"Yes, Ma'am." Alistair McKeon faced the Grayson officers. "What Captain Harrington refers to, gentlemen, is a newly developed reco
He paused, and several heads nodded.
"Our R&D people have been working on a new approach, however, and for the first time, we now have a limited FTL transmission capability."
"An FTL capability?" Calgary blurted, and he was far from alone in his astonishment, for the human race had sought a way to send messages faster than light for almost two thousand years.
"Yes, Sir. Its range is too limited for anything other than tactical purposes—our best transmission radius is only about four light-hours at this time—but that's quite enough to give us a marked advantage."
"Excuse me, Commander McKeon," Admiral Matthews said, "but how does it work? If, that is," he looked at Honor, "you can tell us without compromising your own security."
"We'd rather not go into details, Admiral," Honor replied. "Less because of security, than because it's too technical for a quick explanation."
"And," Matthews gri
Honor was appalled by his remark, but then a rumble of chuckles came from the other side of the table. She'd been afraid of stepping on sensitive toes by flaunting her ships' technical superiority, but it seemed Matthews understood his people better than she did. And perhaps it was his way of telling her not to worry.
"I imagine that's true, Sir," she said, smiling with the right side of her mouth, "at least until we bring you up to speed on molycircs and super-dense fusion bottles. Of course," her smile grew, "once the treaty is signed, I expect your navy is going to get much nastier all around."
The Grayson chuckles were even louder this time, tinged with more than an edge of relief. She hoped they didn't expect a God weapon to come out of her technological bag of tricks, but anything that bolstered their morale at this moment was well worthwhile, and she nodded for Alistair to continue.
"Basically, Admiral," he said, "it's a reversion to old-fashioned Morse code. Our new-generation RDs carry an extra gravity generator which they use to create extremely powerful directional pulses. Since gravitic sensors are FTL, we have effective real-time receipt across their maximum range."
"That's brilliant," a captain with Office of Shipbuilding insignia murmured. Then he frowned. "And difficult, I'd imagine."
"It certainly is," McKeon said feelingly. "The power requirement is enormous—our people had to develop an entire new generation of fusion plants to pull it off—and that's only the first problem. Designing a pulse grav generator and packing it into the drone body came next. As you can probably imagine, it uses up a lot more mass than a drive unit, and it was a monster to engineer. And there are certain fundamental limitations on the system. Most importantly, it takes time for the generator to produce each pulse without burning itself out, which places an insurmountable limit on the data transmission speed. At present, we can only manage a pulse repetition rate of about nine-point-five seconds. Obviously, it's going to take us a while to transmit any complex messages at that rate."
"That's true," Honor put in, "but what we propose to do is program the onboard computers to respond to the most likely threat parameters with simple three or four-pulse codes. They'll identify the threat's basic nature and approach in less than a minute. The drones can follow up with more detailed messages once we've started responding."
"I see." Matthews nodded quickly. "And with that kind of advance warning, we can position ourselves to cut them off short of optimum launch range against the planet."
"Yes, Sir." Honor nodded to him, then looked at Admiral Garret. "More than that, Admiral, we'll have time to build an intercept vector that lets us stay with them instead of finding ourselves with a base velocity so low as to give us only a limited engagement time before they break past us."
"I understand, Captain." Garret plucked at his lip, then nodded. "I understand," he repeated, and she was relieved at the absence of acrimony in his tone. "If I'd realized you had this capability, I would have approached the entire problem differ—" He stopped himself and smiled crookedly. "Of course, if I'd bothered to ask you, I might have known about it sooner, mightn't I?"
Honor saw amazement on more than one Grayson face, as if they couldn't quite believe what they'd just heard him say, and she wondered how to respond, but then he shrugged and smiled more naturally.
"Well, Captain, they say there's no fool like an old fool. Do Manticorans use that expression?"
"Not to senior officers, Sir," Honor said demurely, and Garret startled her by bursting into laughter. His guffaws reminded her of a neighing horse, but no one could have doubted their genuineness. He couldn't get a word out through them, though he pointed a finger at her and tried hard, and she felt herself gri
"Point taken, Captain," he gasped at last, and there were smiles on other faces on his side of the table. "Point taken, indeed." He settled himself in his chair and nodded. "Do you have any other ideas, Captain Harrington?"
"Well, Sir, as you know, we've evacuated our own noncombatants aboard our freighters." Garret nodded, and Honor shrugged. "Commander Truman's report included an urgent request for reinforcements. I'm certain that request will be granted, but those are slow ships, Sir. I'd have preferred to send one of my warships, but I can't spare Apollo if we may be facing two modern cruisers, and Troubadour's node damage would restrict her to impeller drive. More, she couldn't get much above the gamma band without reliable Warshawski sails. If one of your hyper-capable ships could be sent—?"