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"Two points occur to me, Sir," Shoupe replied. "First, I think sending a ship the size of aNike to a small, poverty-stricken star system like Pequod, to act as a glorified customs cutter, is going to look like an overreaction. Your point about showing resolution without looking like we're afraid comes to mind. And, second, at the moment Commodore Onasis' division is the only real concentrated firepower at your immediate disposal. I don't think sending off twenty-five percent of it, before we at least hear back from Admiral Gold Peak about how things went when she visited Monica, would be an ideal solution."
"Um." Medusa scratched the tip of her nose for a moment, then nodded. "Both excellent points, Captain. But if we're not going to send a battlecruiser, what do we send?"
"Well," Shoupe said after glancing at Khumalo and getting his nod of approval for her to continue, "I'm inclined to suggest that we pretty much sit tight until we get that first squadron ofRolands out here, Milady. We still haven't actually seen any of them, of course, and I realize the deployment schedules we've gotten so far are still provisional and subject to revision. But aRoland is bigger than a lot of light cruisers, and I doubt the Admiralty is choosing their skippers by just pulling names out of a hat."
"That's not a bad idea at all, Loretta," Khumalo said approvingly. "She'd be big enough to make the point that we're serious, but she'd still officially be 'only' a destroyer. And as you say, Admiral Cortez is going to be handpicking their COs. I doubt we'll be lucky enough to get another Terekhov out of the deal, but whoever we do get is definitely going to be first-string."
"And delaying until we get additional units from home would make it clear we're moving deliberately, not rushing around in some sort of panic," Medusa agreed.
"Not to mention the fact that Admiral Gold Peak would probably appreciate it if we didn't start chopping up her squadron into pe
Vice Admiral Jessup Blaine tried not to feel too bored as he worked his way through the routine reports and paperwork. It was nice to have his own task group to command, and to have two full squadrons of pod-laying ships of the wall at his beck and call, as it were. And it was nice that Quentin O'Malley's battlecruisers had returned to him from Monica.
It was also boring. There simply wasn't very much for a fleet commander to do, assuming he had a competent staff (and Blaine did), when he was tied down to picket duty, however large or important the picket in question might be. He certainly couldn't go looking for trouble, and there were only so many wargames, simulations, and exercises which he could contrive. Exercises against the fortresses protecting the Lynx Terminus, two-thirds of which were now fully on-line, were actually more interesting, and he'd been impressed by the fortresses' capabilities. Aside from that, though, all he really had to do was to hover in the background, like a watching, distant presence, while his staff and his squadron and starship commanders got on with the interesting bits of training and administering their commands.
Oh, stop whining,Jessup! he told himself severely. When you were a captain, you thought the XO had all the real fun. And when you were an XO, you thought it was the department heads. And when you were a department head, you thought it was the division officers. Which was probably pretty much true, now that I think about it.
His lips twitched in a smile at the thought, and he scrawled his electronic signature and thumbprint across the signature block of yet another fascinating report on the status of his attached repair ships' inventories of spare emitter heads for laser clusters. Precisely why he had to sign off on that was one of life's little mysteries.
I'll bet Admiral D'Orville doesn't sign off on parts inventories. Blaine took a certain perverse satisfaction from the thought. He's probably got some staff weenie hidden away down in the bowels of his flagship to take care of things like that. And well he should, too. In fact, I ought to take a look around and find someone Icould dump it—
His thoughts broke off as a lurid priority icon flashed suddenly and shockingly in the corner of his display. He stared at it for perhaps a heartbeat or two. In his entire naval career, he had never seen that particular icon outside a training exercise or a drill, a tiny corner of his brain reflected, and his hand flashed out to stand the acceptance key.
"Blaine!" he snapped the instant his flagship's communications officer of the watch appeared on the display. The officer looking out of it at him looked absurdly young to hold senior lieutenant's rank, and her youthful face was paper-white.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Admiral," she said, speaking so rapidly the words blurred together at the edges. "We just received a priority message from the Admiralty. It's Code Zulu, Sir!"
For just a moment, Blaine felt the breath freeze in his chest. She had to be mistaken, a part of his mind tried to insist. Either that, or he must have misunderstood her. In naval use, Code Zulu had only one meaning: invasion imminent. But no one, not even the Peeps, could be crazy enough to take on the defenses of the Manticoran home system!
"Is there an enemy strength estimate attached, Lieutenant?"
Blaine was astounded by how calm his own voice sounded. It certainly wasn't because he felt particularly calm! In fact, he realized distantly, it was purely a reaction to the lieutenant's expression and the tension sputtering like a shorting power cable just under the surface of her voice.
"Yes, Sir, there is." The communications officer drew a deep breath, and despite everything, Blaine felt a flicker of amusement at her automatic response to the steadying influence of his own tone. But that amusement didn't last long.
"The Admiralty's initial assessment is a minimum of three hundred of the wall, Sir," she said. "Initial course projections indicate they're headed directly for Sphinx on a least-time approach."
Blaine felt as if someone had just slugged him in the belly. Three hundred of the wall? That was . . . that wasinsane. The one thing Thomas Theisman had persistently refused to do as the Republic of Haven's Secretary of War was to commit the men and women under his command to the sort of death-ride offensives the Committee of Public Safety had once demanded of them.
But maybe it isn't a death ride, Blaine thought around the icy wind blowing through the marrow of his bones.Three hundred wallers . . . probably towing max pod loads . . . and with D'Orville forced to position himself to cover the Junction, as well . . .
Jesus Christ, he realized suddenly, coldly. This could actually work for them! And if it does . . .
"Immediate signal to all squadron and divisional commanders," he heard his voice telling the lieutenant on his display.
"Yes, Sir." The young woman's relief as she found herself doing something comfortingly familiar was obvious. "Live mike, Sir," she said a moment later.
"People," Blaine told his pickup, "they need us back home. Activate Ops Plan Homecoming immediately. I want your impellers up and your ships moving in thirty minutes. Blaine, clear."
The lieutenant tapped a control, then looked back up at him.
"Clean copy, Sir," she confirmed.
"Attach the complete text of the Admiralty's dispatch," he instructed her.
"Yes, Sir!"
"Then get it sent, Lieutenant. Get it sent."
Blaine killed the co