Storm From the Shadows

"But now we've got this situation with the Solarian League, and even if we didn't, brute vengeance, however tempting in the short term, is the worst possible basis for any sort of lasting peace. We're not Rome, and we can't plow Carthage up and sow the ground with salt. So, riddle me this, Mr. Foreign Secretary. If we demonstrate that we can blow the Peeps' Capital Fleet out of space, destroy the entire orbital infrastructure of Eloise Pritchart's capital system, and then tell her we're prepared to blow up however many additional systems it requires for her to see reason, what do you think she'll say?"

Chapter Forty-Five

"I take it we haven't heard back from Admiral Byng, Bill?"

"No, Ma'am," Commander Edwards agreed.

"Somehow, I rather thought you would have mentioned it if we had," Michelle said with a faint smile. Then she turned back to Adenauer and Tersteeg. "What's the status on their impellers?"

The ops officer and the EWO had maneuvered the Ghost Rider platforms closer to the Solarian ships to keep an eye on them. Now Adenauer looked up in response to Michelle's question, and her expression was unhappy.

"We were trying to get close enough to get a read off their nodes, Ma'am, but I don't think we needed to bother. We just picked up first-stage initiation on their wedges, and they're already turning on attitude thrusters. They're headed out."

"Frigging idiots," Michelle muttered under her breath, once again feeling the temptation to let God handle the sorting chore.

"All right, Bill," she sighed aloud. "I suppose we have to give these dumbasses one more try. Prepare to record."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Michelle glanced up at the master plot while she waited. Her force had been headed in-system for forty-three minutes now, accelerating towards the planet at a steady six hundred and three gravities, which left the Nikes with seventy gravities in reserve. Their closing velocity was up to 21,271 KPS, and they'd reduced the range from just over one hundred and ninety-two million kilometers to just under a hundred and fifty-six million. Given that geometry, the effective powered envelope of the Mark 23s in the pods riding the outsides of her ships' hulls was well over seventy-two million kilometers against a stationary target, and the effective range against Byng and his ships would only increase as he accelerated towards them and increased their closing velocity.

"Live mike, Ma'am," Edwards told her, and she nodded to him and turned back from the plot to face the pickup.

"Your time limit has expired, Admiral Byng," she said coldly, without preamble. "I can only assume from your current heading and the fact that your impellers are about to come on-line that you intend to engage me. I caution you against doing so. Be advised that I have the capacity to destroy your ships from far beyond any range at which you can possibly threaten us. Be further advised that if you do not immediately cease your attempt to close with my ships or flee the system rather than accept my government's requirements and standing down, I will demonstrate that capability to you in a fashion which not even you can ignore. Gold Peak, clear."

"Clean recording, Ma'am," Edwards confirmed after a moment.

"Then send it," Michelle said flatly.

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Eight minutes and forty-three seconds after it had been transmitted, Michelle's message reached SLNSJean Bart, and Josef Byng's face darkened with fury as Willard MaCuill directed the message to his com.

That arrogant little bitch! Who the hell does she think she is, talking to me—talking to the Solarian League—that way?

He felt his jaw muscles aching from the effort of restraining his snarl, and his nostrils flared wide as he sucked in a deep, angry breath. There was dead silence on the flag bridge for several seconds, then MaCuill cleared his throat.

"Will there be any response, Sir?" the communications officer asked in a painfully neutral voice.

"Oh, yes," Byng grated. "There'll be aresponse, all right, Willard! But not with any com transmissions!"

"Yes, Sir."

MaCuill turned back to his own displays, his shoulders tight, and Byng felt a fresh spasm of anger. Was his own staff starting to buy into the ridiculous claims about the Manties' "invincible weaponry?" He started to snarl something at MaCuill, then made himself stifle the urge. The last thing he needed was to begin sounding like some hysterical old woman himself!

"Sir," Karlotte Thimár said in a very careful tone, "Captain Mizawa would like to speak with you."

"Oh, I bet he does," Byng growled. "I don't suppose he's screening to apologize for reading mail that wasn't addressed to him?" he added, twitching his head towards his now-blank com.

"I'm sorry, Sir," MaCuill said, "but the Manties' last message wasn't addressed specifically to you. It carried a general heading . . . to all ships, Sir."

Byng's face took on a dangerously mottled coloration, and he glared at the communications officer.

"And why the hell didn't you mention that little fact to me before?" he snarled.

"I'm sorry, Sir," MaCuill repeated, "but the address block was displayed in the message header. I . . . assumed you'd seen it."

Byng bit back an even more furious response, then closed his eyes, clenched his folded hands tightly behind him, and tried to suppress the anger boiling inside him. After several moments, he opened his eyes once again and smiled tightly at Thimár.

"Well, I suppose that if the good captain wants to speak to me, the least I can do is take his call," he told the chief of staff, and slid back into his command chair once more. He paused for one more second, then tapped the acceptance key.

"Yes, Captain?" He kept his voice as neutral as possible, although he knew it was still giving away more of his i

"Admiral." It was obvious Mizawa was working hard at keeping his own voice nonconfrontational, which only made Byng perversely more angry as the flag captain continued. "I realize you and I haven't exactly seen eye-to-eye on several matters of late, but I strongly urge you to consider the possibility that this Admiral Gold Peak really has the capability she's talking about."

"Captain, that's ridiculous," Byng replied. "I know about the rumors of impossible range on Manty missiles. Good God, I did read the ONI appreciations before I headed out here, you know! And I know the missiles Technodyne deployed in Monica had enhanced drive systems to increase their range. For that matter I know that R and D back home has been looking into adopting the same concept for some time now. But I also know how big the Technodyne missiles were, and so should you, if you've read the same reports. That's the main reason we haven't pursued the same concept ourselves, you know. We simply don't have the magazine capacity, or shipboard launchers big enough, to accommodate anything with drives the size of the ones Technodyne used in Monica . . .  and neither does anyone else! We saw the launch tubes on these damned big-assed 'battlecruisers' of theirs at Monica, if you'll recall. There's no way in the galaxy they could fire a missile that size out of those launchers! I'll grant you that their wallers might—conceivably—have the tubes for them, but no way in hell does one of these ships have them! And we've got Javelins in the magazines, not those crap Pilums Technodyne supplied to Monica. Not to mention the fact that none of the Monicans had Halo, either."

"Sir, I realize all of that's true," Mizawa said. "But the Javelin is still a single-drive missile. A damned good one, yes, but only single-drive. If the reports about the Manties' cruisers at Monica having multi-drive weapons are accurate, then these people certainly have them, too."