"I think you're probably right about that," he said out loud, returning his attention to Pélisard. "And I also think that whatever the Manties may have to say to the Sollies, we're staying out of it. I want you to immediately stand down every military unit we have, Nicholas. Do it on my authority, and do it now. I'll get the official presidential directive to you from Alain ASAP, but let's not do anything to even suggest to the Manties that they should consider us a target."
Pélisard nodded, his expression an inextricable mix of agreement, chagrin, anger, fear, and humiliation at the helplessness of his own utterly outclassed ships and personnel in the face of such an impending clash of titans.
"And while Nicholas is doing that, Alesta," Vézien continued, turning to the Foreign Minister, "I think you'd better be thinking about the best possible way for us to reassure the Manties that all we want to do is get to the bottom of what happened here. And how to make it very, very clear to them that we didn't have one damned thing to do with that idiot Byng's decision to open fire!"
"What do we have, Dominica?" Michelle asked. "Anything?"
"As a matter of fact, Ma'am, we do," Commander Adenauer replied with a smile, and twitched her head at the lieutenant commander sitting at the console beside hers. "Max here is actually picking up the platforms Commander Kaplan left behind."
"Outstanding." Michelle smiled back at the operations officer, then turned to Maxwell Tersteeg. "So tell me what you know, Max," she said.
"Yes, Ma'am."
The EWO input a string of commands, and a detailed schematic of the New Tuscany System's inner planets and the space about them appeared on the master plot. The schematic swelled dramatically as he zoomed in on the planet of New Tuscany itself. The planet's two moons dominated the space about it, but that same volume was dotted with the icons of merchant ships in parking orbits, industrial shuttles plying back and forth between orbiting space stations, and the bright icons of warships, color-coded by class and all circled by the blood-red rings that indicated hostiles.
"Basically, Ma'am," Tersteeg continued, "there's been no change. We have these three destroyers here"—a green sighting ring enclosed three of the icons—"that have shifted orbits. They're about eleven hundred klicks outside and well ahead of the rest of their formation. It looks like they were probably moved out towards where Commodore Chatterjee's ships were destroyed, maybe for search-and-rescue. Aside from that, they haven't moved as far as I can tell."
"Do you have Byng's flagship IDed?"
"Yes, Ma'am. I got a good read on her emissions signature at Monica. Unless he's shifted his flag to another ship, this is her, right here."
A green carat indicated the gold-edged orange icon of a battlecruiser. There was a total of three matching symbols, each indicating an identified battlecruiser flagship, but Tersteeg's confidence that he'd picked out the right one was obvious.
"Good." Michelle nodded. "What about the status of their impellers?"
"Hard to be absolutely certain about that, Ma'am," Tersteeg admitted. "Commander Kaplan didn't want to get the platforms too close when she left them behind, so we're a bit far out for definitive readings. From what I can see, though, they aren't hot."
"Good," Michelle repeated, and patted him on the shoulder. "Keep me advised of any changes."
"Of course, Ma'am."
Michelle nodded and walked slowly across to her own command chair and settled into it. Naomi Kaplan's decision to leave the stealthy Ghost Rider platforms behind had just been amply justified, although Michelle had felt a certain undeniable concern over that decision when she'd first learned of it. Ghost Rider was one of the RMN's greatest advantages, and the thought of the Solarian League getting its hands on one of the platforms and figuring out how to reverse-engineer the technology hadn't been particularly comforting. But even then, she'd felt Kaplan's decision had been the right one. They were designed with every self-destruct device and security fail-safe R&D could figure out how to build into them, which probably meant the Navy in general, and one Michelle Henke in particular, worried more than they had to about their being compromised by simple capture, and even if that hadn't been true, the things had been designed to be used. Right off the top of her head, Michelle hadn't been able to think of a more important place to have used them, and the chances of anyone's managing to localize one of them, far less snag it for study without its on-board suicide charge destroying it first, had been minuscule. So any concern she had felt had been far too small a thing to prevent her from firmly endorsing Kaplan's decision in her own pre-departure dispatches to the Admiralty.
And as it happened, that decision was turning out to have been just as good as Michelle had thought it was. In powered-down passive mode, the way Kaplan had left them, their endurance had been good for far longer than the twenty-three T-days since the destruction of Commodore Chatterjee's destroyers. Now, in response to the properly authenticated command codes, they were fully awake once more, faithfully reporting everything they'd seen over those three T-weeks via grav-pulse, which amounted to real-time reporting at this range.
So I know where you are, Admiral Byng, she thought coldly. That's nice. If I have to kill people anyway, I'd like to make sure the idiot asshole responsible for it is on my little list when I do.
"What do you make of it, Ma'am?" Gladys Molyneux asked very quietly, and Abigail Hearns glanced at her. The junior-grade lieutenant's battle station was missile-defense, which put her at Abigail's elbow. Despite the quiet, waiting hush of Tristram's bridge, Abigail doubted anyone could possibly have overheard the nervous question.
"It's a little too early to be making anything of it, Gladys," she replied, equally quietly but with a slight smile. She saw confidence seeping back into Molyneux as the smile registered, then shook her head.
"The one thing I can tell you," she continued, "is that if those people over there"—a flick of her head indicated the icons of the orbiting Solarian battlecruisers—"have even a clue about what this task force can do, then they're a lot more nervous than we are right this moment."
She smiled again, and this time it was a cold, cruel smile.
Mother Church says vengeance is the Tester's, she reminded herself, and I believe that. But I also believe He can use anyone He wants as the instrument of His vengeance. And right this minute, I'm not feeling very forgiving, Gladys.
* * *
"Sir, Captain Mizawa would like to speak to you."
Josef Byng paused in the act of slipping into the tunic someone had fetched for him and looked at the bridge communications rating who'd spoken. He managed not to scowl, although it wasn't easy.
"Did the Captain say why?" he asked, sliding the tunic the rest of the way on and sealing it.
"No, Sir," the rating replied. His careful tone only emphasized the fact that everyone aboard Jean Bart knew all about the hostility between Byng and his flag captain.
"Very well." Byng tried to keep his own voice coolly professional as he acknowledged the rating's message, then took the two steps to his command chair. Rather than seat himself, he swiveled the com display around to face him and punched the acceptance key.
"Captain Mizawa," he said as the Frontier Fleet officer's face appeared.
"Admiral," Mizawa replied.
"I'm just a trifle busy at the moment, Captain," Byng said as pleasantly as he could. "What can I do for you?"
"Sir, I don't know if CIC has reported it to you, but Commander Zeiss is picking up a sudden cascade of gravitic pulses."
"Gravitic pulses?" Byng repeated just a bit blankly.
"Sir, according to the latest intelligence reports, the Manties have an effective FTL communications ability over relatively short ranges. One that's based on grav pulses."
"I'm aware of that fact, Captain." A hint of frost crept into Byng's tone in response to the patience edging Mizawa's voice, as if the Frontier Fleet officer were trying to explain Newtonian physics to a village idiot. Especially since those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned me
mos had touched upon the same point.
Now the bastard's going to pretend that he personally warned me all about it, isn't he? the admiral thought bitterly.
"Yes, Sir. I'm sure you are," the flag captain agreed. "But what concerns me are the reports that they've built the same capability into their reconnaissance drones. I think that's what Commander Zeiss is picking up."
"Reconnaissance drones," Byng repeated carefully.
"Yes, Sir. I think the Manty destroyers probably deployed them on their way in. Now these new Manties have tapped into them, and they're receiving real-time reconnaissance reports on us."
"I see."
Byng couldn't quite keep his incredulity out of his expression, although he managed to keep it out of his voice. But really! He was willing to concede that the Manties had at least some sort of ship-to-ship FTL communications ability—ONI had tentatively confirmed that much—but to build the same capability into something the size of a recon drone? Not even that stupid lieutenant of Mizawa's had suggested that! Or, at least, Byng didn't think he had, and he suddenly found himself wondering if perhaps he ought to have read those memos for himself rather than simply accepting Thimár's summary of their content.
He brushed that thought firmly aside. There'd be time enough to worry about it later; right now he needed to concentrate on the matter at hand, and he tried—really tried—to consider Mizawa's preposterous notion dispassionately. But no matter how hard he tried, it remained just that: preposterous.
R&D was beginning to experiment with the same FTL technology back home, and unlike many of his fellows, Byng had made it a point to follow at least the unclassified aspects of their efforts. According to them, just the power storage any grav-pulse installation would have required would have been impossible to fit into any drone-sized platform. And that completely ignored the fact that actually generating the pulse in the first place took the equivalent of an all-up impeller node, many times the size of any recon drone ever built!
"I appreciate the warning, Captain," he said after a few moments, choosing his words with some care as he spoke for the benefit of the flag bridge recorders, "but I strongly suspect that the reports about faster-than-light recon drone transmissions have . . . grown in the telling, let's say. As you may know, our own research people"—by which, of course, he meant Battle Fleet's researchers—"have been looking into this alleged capability of the Manties. Our own R and D indicates that it probably is possible, at least on the level of gross communication, but the sort of bandwidth which would be required for any useful reports from something like a recon drone is highly unlikely. And even if it were possible, the energy budget and the sheer mass of the hardware would almost certainly limit it to something the size of a starship."
"Sir, I haven't had access to the reports you have on the research side," Mizawa said, "but I have had access to other reports, including . . . Commodore Thurgood's. According to them, the Manties do have that capability."
White-hot anger flashed through Byng at Mizawa's obvious reference to his lieutenant's memos. He started to snap back quickly, but then he made himself pause. This had to be handled cautiously, and his chose his words with care.
"I'm familiar with the reports to which you refer, Captain." He allowed his voice to get a bit crisper, a bit more brisk. "I'm convinced that they're exaggerated, at the very least."
He and his flag captain locked eyes on the com, and he saw Mizawa's jaw muscles tighten briefly. Then the captain's nostrils flared, and he shook his head.
"I'm aware that many people feel those reports are exaggerated, Sir," he said then. "As a matter of fact, that was my own opinion before we were ordered to New Tuscany. But that was my opinion where the acceleration rates ascribed to Manty warships were concerned, as well." He looked at Byng levelly, challenging the admiral, but Byng said nothing, and the captain continued. "Whether the reports about their FTL capability are exaggerated or not, Sir, something is producing the pulses Commander Zeiss is picking up, and whatever it is, it's stealthy enough that we can't find it, even with the pulses giving us an exact bearing to it. To me, that spells a very capable reconnaissance platform."
"Your concerns are noted, Captain. Thank you for calling them to my attention. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'm needed elsewhere. Byng, out."
The admiral cut the circuit before his temper betrayed him into giving Mizawa the tongue-lashing his irritating insistence deserved. Reconnaissance drones! Granted, the Manties' acceleration rates were a little higher than Intelligence had believed. And granted that they might have a few other minor tricks up their sleeves, but even so—! The Solarian League was the most technically advanced star nation in the history of mankind. Did Mizawa honestly believe that a pinhead-sized "star kingdom" consisting of only a single star system up until only a very few years before could produce an R&D establishment that could actually outperform the League's? God only knew what the man was going to come up with to worry about next! Invasions of brain-devouring hordes from Andromeda, perhaps? Or possibly a deadly revolt by the galaxy's cocker spaniels, intent on devouring their masters one toe at a time?
Byng grimaced at his own thought, but, really, what else could he expect out of a Frontier Fleet captain? Especially one who already knew he'd made a mortal enemy of a Battle Fleet admiral? In fact, Mizawa probably didn't believe his own doom-saying predictions, but whether he believed them or not was really beside the point, in many ways, wasn't it? The captain was going to do anything he could at this point—including predicting disaster—to rattle Byng into mishandling the situation. Making the admiral look bad would be one of the most effective ways of making the captain look good, after all! Unfortunately for Mizawa, Byng knew all about playing that game.
"You know, Sir," Aberu spoke slowly, as if she didn't much care for what she heard herself saying, "it's just possible Mizawa is onto something."
"Good God, Ingeborg!" Byng looked at her in disbelief. "Are you going to climb onto the same paranoid bandwagon?"
"No, Sir," Aberu said quickly. "But CIC's relayed the same grav-pulse detection to me." A tip of her head indicated her console. "I agree with you that the idea of putting some kind of FTL transmitter into something the size of a drone is ridiculous, but we are picking up pulses from something, and we can't seem to find whatever it is, however hard we look for it. That's what I meant when I said Mizawa might be onto something."
"Well, whatever it is, it isn't any 'reconnaissance drone,' " Byng retorted testily. "Even assuming for the moment that they'd managed to come up with a way to meet the energy requirements, and then that they'd managed to develop something that could produce a worthwhile bandwidth, and then that they'd managed to squeeze it down into something that could be crammed into a drone's body, where the hell would the things have come from? Those Manty destroyers wouldn't have had any need to deploy them this close to us, and they sure as hell didn't have time to deploy any after we opened fire on them! And these Manties have been in-system for less than ten minutes! Whatever kind of transmitter technology they might have, they couldn't possibly have gotten reconnaissance drones this close to us this quickly. Not without producing some kind of FTL drive technology, as well, anyway, and I'd like to know what kind of stealth systems could hide that kind of energy signature at this short a range!"
"No, Sir. Of course not," Aberu said, and returned her attention to her own station.
* * *
"They should be receiving your initial transmission just about now, Ma'am," Commander Edwards told Michelle.
"Thank you, Bill," she replied, looking up from a quiet conversation with Lecter and Adenauer. She smiled at the com officer, then returned her attention to the chief of staff and ops officer.
"Uh, Admiral, we've . . . received a burst transmission from the bogeys. It's addressed to you, Sir."
"By name?" Byng asked.
"Yes, Sir." Captain MaCuill confirmed.
The communications officer didn't sound any happier than Byng fe
lt, and the admiral glanced across at Thimár . . . whose expression was as troubled as his own. There was no way the Manticorans could possibly know he was in New Tuscany. For that matter, there was no way they could know any Solarian unit was in New Tuscany. Unless . . .
A sudden chill touched his heart as the logic chain Nicholas Pélisard had already followed flowed through his own brain.
There was only one way the Manties could have put together a force this size and sent it to New Tuscany this soon after the destruction of their destroyers, especially a force which knew to ask specifically for him when it arrived. There hadn't been three Manty ships that day; there'd been four. That was the only possible explanation. There'd been just enough time for another ship, probably another destroyer, to make the trip to their central base at Spindle and for this force to have been dispatched to New Tuscany in response. Even so, the Manty authorities must have made the decision within hours of receiving their surviving unit's report, and for anyone accustomed to the glacial pace with which the Solarian League formulated policy, that speed of decision was almost as frightening as anything else.
And maybe Mizawa and Ingeborg have a point after all, he thought icily. I still don't see how anybody could have squeezed something like that into a reconnaissance drone. It just doesn't seem possible . . . unless they're using some sort of dispersed architecture? Multiple platforms, each containing only a small portion of the total system? Could that be it? But even if it is, how the hell are they powering the things?
His mind raced, trying to consider the possibilities, but it didn't really matter how they'd done it. What mattered was that they actually could have done it, in which case any drones out there wouldn't have been deployed by these newcomers. No, they would have been there all along. In fact, they'd have been deployed by Commodore Chatterjee on his way in. And if they had a standard light-speed communications link as a backup for their FTL systems, then they could have been reporting every single thing that happened via laser to that fourth ship, hiding out there in the dark, without anyone in-system suspecting or detecting a thing. Which would mean the Manties knew precisely what had happened three weeks ago. . . .