War Of Honor

Chapter Forty

Shannon Foraker stood in Sovereign of Space's boat bay once more and watched Lester Tourville's cutter settle into the docking arms. This time, however, she wasn't waiting for Thomas Theisman or Javier Giscard, as well. Theisman was back in Nouveau Paris . . . and Giscard stood beside her, behind Captain Reumann and Commander Lampert. She glanced sideways at the man who had become the second ranking officer of the Republican Navy and felt an undeniable pang of sorrow as she realized she was already an outsider in this boat bay.

The cutter finished docking, the pressure light blinked green, Tourville swung himself from the personnel tube into Sovereign of Space's internal gravity, and the side party snapped to attention. Bosun's pipes twittered, and the lieutenant at the side party's head returned Tourville's salute.

"Permission to come aboard?" Tourville requested formally.

"Permission granted, Sir," the lieutenant replied, and stepped aside as Reumann moved forward to offer Tourville the traditional captain's handshake of greeting. Giscard stepped forward with him; Foraker did not, because Reumann was no longer her flag captain.

"Welcome aboard, Lester." Giscard greeted Tourville warmly, and the commander (designate) of Second Fleet smiled back at him.

"Thanks, Javier." He shook Giscard's hand, then looked past the other admiral and smiled at Foraker. "Hello, Shannon."

"Sir." She returned the greeting with an edge of formality which dismayed her when she recognized it. It wasn't his fault, or Giscard's. In fact, it wasn't anyone's fault. But as she looked at the two of them, she felt excluded, just as she'd felt when Theisman broke it to her that Sovereign of Space was about to become Giscard's flagship, instead of hers.

Tourville's expression showed momentary surprise at the brevity of her response. But the surprise vanished as quickly as it had come, and she saw a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. Of course he'd understand, she thought. She'd spent too much time on his staff for him not to realize exactly how she must be feeling at this moment.

She shook herself and gave herself a sharp mental scold for allowing her unhappiness to splash on to anyone else. Then she produced a smile for him. It might have been a tad lopsided, but it was also genuine, and she knew he recognized the unspoken apology for her terseness.

"Well," Giscard said, in a voice which was just hearty enough to show he, too, had caught the undertones, "we've got a lot to talk about. So I suppose we'd better get started."

He gestured at the waiting lift shaft, and his subordinates moved obediently towards it.

"So that's the bare bones of the current deployment plan," Captain Gozzi said, winding up the first stage of his briefing the better part of two and a half hours later. "With your permission, Admiral," he continued, turning to speak directly to Giscard, "I'd like to open the floor to general questions before we move on to the consideration of specific details."

"Of course, Marius," Giscard told his chief of staff, and glanced at the other two flag officers present in Sovereign of Space's flag briefing room. "Lester? Shannon?"

"From what I seem to be hearing here," Tourville observed, frowning from behind a cloud of fragrant cigar smoke at the floating holo map of the region around Trevor's Star, "this is no longer a hypothetical deployment."

It wasn't precisely a question, but Gozzi nodded anyway.

"That's correct, Sir. The Octagon sent us the preparatory movement orders this morning."

"It sounds as if things are getting even dicier," Captain DeLaney said, her expression unhappy, and Tourville nodded in agreement with his own chief of staff.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," he said, and frowned.

"I know none of us are particularly happy about this situation," Giscard said with massive understatement, "but at least you're getting what you handle best, Lester—a detached, independent command."

"'Detached!'" Tourville snorted. "That's certainly accurate enough. Just who had this brainstorm, anyway?"

"That's not something I've been specifically told," Giscard replied with a wry smile. "Having said that, it has all the earmarks of something Linda Trenis would have come up with."

"Figures. Linda always was too smart for her own good."

"You don't think it will work?" Giscard asked, one eyebrow raised, and Tourville puffed on his cigar some more, then shrugged.

"I think it should do what it's supposed to do," he acknowledged. "I guess what bothers me about it is that sending Second Fleet clear to Silesia seems to indicate that someone is beginning to think a lot more seriously in terms of reopening a can of worms I don't think any of us want reopened."

"It sounds that way to me, too," Foraker put in. "That's one reason this whole deployment plan worries me."

Even as she spoke, Foraker reflected upon how insanely dangerous it would have been for any flag officer to express reservations about her orders under the Committee of Public Safety. But she didn't serve the Committee; that was the entire point.

"I don't think anyone in Nouveau Paris is taking the possibility of a resumption of hostilities lightly," Giscard said. "I know Secretary Theisman isn't, as I'm sure all of us are aware." He gazed at Tourville and Foraker until both of them nodded, then shrugged. "By the same token, it's his job—and ours—to be ready if worse comes to worst anyway. On that basis, do you have any reservations, Lester?"

"Other than those I think any of us would feel about going up against someone as good as Harrington that far from any of our own support bases, no," Tourville conceded. "I like the fact that I don't do a thing without positive orders from home. At least we don't have to worry about my starting a war because no one got me the orders not to in time!"

"Shannon?"

"Actually," Foraker said unhappily, "I do have a few reservations."

"Oh?" Giscard eyed her speculatively. "What sort of reservations?"

"I can't escape the feeling that we're running the risk of strategic overreach," she replied. "In most ways, I have to agree that Case Red is . . . well, for want of a better word, elegant. It requires a degree of coordination I'm not entirely happy about, but it avoids the mistake the Legislaturalists made by starting with detached forces which were too far apart to stay in communication with one another. Except, of course, for Second Fleet."

Giscard nodded. As soon as this conference ended, he and the newly designated First Fleet would depart the Haven System and head for his new station in the SXR-136-23 System. It had never received a name to replace its catalog designation because the thoroughly useless red giant had absolutely nothing, not even any planets, to attract anyone to it. It did, however, offer a handy anchor around which to park a fleet safely out of sight. And it just happened to be located less than forty light-years northwest of Trevor's Star.

The logistics ships to support First Fleet were already in place, orbiting SXR-136's dim central fires with sufficient supplies and spares to sustain the entire fleet on station for up to six months. If it turned out to be necessary to leave First Fleet there for longer than that, the fleet train would detach ships in relays to bring back what was needed. And if the balloon went up, every single task group (except Second Fleet) set up by the carefully orchestrated war plan known as Case Red Alpha would depart from SXR-136. Its components would sail at staggered intervals which would place each of them at its objective at precisely the same time, but they would all depart from the same place, under the same orders, without risking the strategic miscue which had sent Admiral Yuri Rollins to the Hancock System early. Of course, it helped that, with the exception of Grendelsbane, all of those objectives lay within no more than a hundred and twenty light-years of Trevor's Star.

"Unfortunately," Foraker continued, "the fact that this plan provides for better coordination doesn't change the fact that we're going to be attacking in a lot of places at once. Which means dispersing our forces to a much greater degree than I'd really prefer."

"That's a valid concern," Giscard agreed. "I think, though, that it's an element of risk we're just going to have to accept. And if we're going to be dispersed, at least the Manties are spread even thinner."

"There is that." It was Foraker's turn to nod.

"And," Captain Gozzi pointed out respectfully, "the ops plan does provide for us to hit our objectives in sequenced attacks, Ma'am. We'll be concentrating superior forces for each attack, and starting with their nodal positions to take out their response forces first."

"I know." Foraker frowned. "Given our resources and the mission objectives, this certainly looks like the most effective employment of our forces. I suppose when it comes right down to it, a lot of my concerns stem from the fact that I know how much of our planning is based on what we've been doing out at Bolthole."

She grimaced and glanced at her own chief of staff.

"Five and I—all our people—have tried to be as constructively critical of our own work as we could. But none of our conclusions have been tested in battle yet. Our simulations are solid . . . if the intelligence data on Manty hardware on which we based them is accurate. But we can't know for certain that it is. And even if the numbers are good, we're going to be committing an awful lot of ships, manned by people who're going to be going into battle using new hardware and new doctrine, both of which are completely untested where it really counts. I think we've all seen too much of Murphy not to realize how many things could go wrong, however well we've done our jobs at Bolthole. Under those circumstances, I'd really prefer a bigger numerical advantage at the critical points than it's going to be possible for us to achieve in light of how astrographically dispersed our ops area is."

"I can appreciate your concerns," Giscard said after a moment. "At the same time, I suspect at least a part of them stem from your own conscientiousness. And I think you may be underestimating the quality of the work you and your people have done. Oh, I don't doubt for a minute that we're going to hit at least some holes in the doctrine, or that we're going to find out some assumption about Manty capabilities wasn't sufficiently pessimistic. But Lester and I have gamed out a dozen battles in the simulators, using your new hardware and your new doctrine, and from what we've seen there, you've managed to increase our combat effectiveness by a factor of at least ten."

He shook his head.

"That's one hell of a lot better than we've ever had before going up against the Manties. If we manage to catch them still dispersed, then I think we're going to chew them up badly."

"I hope you're right, Sir. But I still think we ought to be throwing an even heavier punch at Trevor's Star. That's their strongest point . . . and they've been kind enough to concentrate virtually all of their modern ships there, outside of the ones assigned to Home Fleet, anyway. If we destroy that force, then we can spread out from Trevor's Star and gather in all of the other objectives easily, because they won't have anything in the area that could possibly stop us."

"But if we hit Trevor's Star concentrated," Tourville pointed out, "and they managed to get dispatch boats away—which they would do, Shannon, given the direct wormhole connection to Manticore—they might very well manage to redeploy their other covering forces before we could reach them with our own attacks. I don't see anything they could do that would actually stop us, but they could certainly concentrate sufficient forces on the more critical objectives to make it much more expensive for us to take them."

"I know. But by the same token, if they get dispatch boats away through the terminus, the only place they can go is the Manticore System. They're not going to be able to get from there to other systems inside our borders significantly before we can get to those same systems from Trevor's Star. The only dispatch boats we really legitimately need to worry about are the ones that won't be using the terminus in the first place."

"I appreciate your concerns," Giscard repeated. "But that aspect of the ops plan is effectively locked by this point. Unless someone presents a specific, demonstrable flaw, I don't see any real prospect of its being changed."

"And all I can offer are non-specific worries that may very well be based on my own concerns about where I could have dropped the ball out at Bolthole," Foraker conceded. She smiled crookedly. "I know. I guess I just had to be sure I got it said."

"Of course you did. That's part of your job." Giscard chuckled. Then he cocked his head at her. "And what about Second Fleet's assignment?"

"Obviously, the fact that I'd like to throw a heavier attack at Trevor's Star means I'd prefer to keep Second Fleet closer to home and commit it there. And the possibility that the Andermani might find Second Fleet's presence so close to their own doorstep objectionable doesn't exactly appeal to me, either. Left to my own devices, and given the fact that NavInt tells us Duchess Harrington has so few SD(P)s and CLACs, I think I'd probably choose to leave her entirely alone in the initial attacks. If we manage to pull off the rest of Red Alpha, then her task force shouldn't be enough to significantly improve the Manties' chances in a counteroffensive even after they recall her. But I have to admit that part of my desire to employ Second Fleet elsewhere may stem from the fact that, like Lester, I have a . . . lively respect for the Duchess' tactical talents. Something about letting sleeping dogs lie," she snorted. "Aside from that, the plan seems sound enough. At least, I don't see how we could come up with a better one to accomplish the same objective."

"If I may, Admiral Giscard," Captain Anders said quietly, "I do have one additional concern I haven't heard anyone address yet."

"What sort of concern, Captain?"

"Grayson, Sir." Several people glanced at one another, and Anders produced a brief smile. "I've been looking at NavInt's most recent estimates of their SD(P) strength," he continued. "I don't know if the Staff's planners are making sufficient allowance for what they might do with that strength."

"At the moment," Captain Gozzi replied before Giscard could speak, "they've sent a substantial chunk of that strength off on a training cruise, Five. And even if they hadn't, it's going to take them some time to figure out what's happening. Even assuming that their navy and the RMN were still on the same sort of terms they were before the cease-fire, there ought to be more than enough delay before they could respond for us to be in possession of Trevor's Star and all of the rest of our objectives."

"I know that's the analysts' conclusion," Anders acknowledged. "And they may well be right. But given the Graysons' performance to date, I'd prefer something a bit more definite than 'may well be right' where they're concerned. Admiral Foraker mentioned letting sleeping dogs lie in Silesia. My own preference would be to keep Second Fleet closer to home to cover against the possibility that the Graysons are quicker off the mark than we think they'll be."

"That thought certainly has merit," Giscard said, waving Gozzi off when his own chief of staff started to respond once again. "But Grayson's possible reaction is another one of those risks we're simply going to have to accept. I think NavInt's analysts are almost certainly right about how quickly Grayson will be able to respond once they realize an attack is underway. I think they're also right about Janacek's attitude towards Grayson. He resents and loathes them as uppity neobarbs with no respect for their betters, so the last thing he's going to want to do is call them in to reinforce his own forces. Hell, he probably hasn't even done any contingency planning with them for how they might respond to an attack if we launched one! Which doesn't even consider the possibility that he and High Ridge have managed to alienate Grayson to an extent which would make Mayhew hesitate to respond in the first place."

"With all due respect for NavInt, Admiral, I don't think I'd put too much reliance on that last point. It's certainly legitimate to think in terms of the physical limitations on how quickly they can respond, but Grayson and the Manties have been through a lot together. I don't see Mayhew cutting his allies adrift. Especially if we're the aggressor."

Giscard gazed at Foraker's chief of staff thoughtfully for several seconds, then shrugged.

"I wasn't going to bring this up," he said. "And what I'm about to say doesn't leave this compartment."

He paused until all of them had nodded.

"All right. Captain Anders may very well be entirely correct in his estimate of the relationship between Grayson and the Star Kingdom. To be perfectly honest, Secretary Theisman tells me that the analysts at NavInt and ForInt are pretty badly divided over exactly how bad relations between the Protector and the High Ridge Government have actually become. However, there are at least some strong indications that the Manticoran Alliance is no longer as . . . solid as it was. Specifically," he continued as eyes narrowed speculatively around the conference table, "we've been in contact with the Republic of Erewhon. Obviously, no one has discussed Case Red Alpha with the Erewhonese, but last week the Erewhon Ambassador initialed an agreement in principle for a defensive military alliance with us."

"Erewhon is coming over to our side?" Lester Tourville asked in a very careful tone of voice, clearly unable to believe he'd heard correctly.

"So I've been assured," Giscard replied. "There's no way to extrapolate from that to what Grayson might do, and no one's suggested to me that we've had any sort of direct diplomatic contact with Grayson, either. But if Erewhon is willing to make its own arrangements with us, I'd certainly call that an indication that High Ridge has managed to do a lot more damage to his alliance network than he probably realizes."

"That's one way to put it, Sir," Anders snorted. "Especially if you're given to understatement!" He paused, thinking hard, then shrugged. "All right, Sir. I'm still itchy about what Grayson might do, but I'll admit it looks like there's even more grit jamming the works of the Manty Alliance than I thought there was."

"Which is probably about the best we can hope for, realistically," Giscard replied with a shrug. "We're dealing with uncertainties no matter what we do. Anyone who thinks it could be any other way is dreaming. But my own feeling is that if we find ourselves forced to go back to war at all, this ops plan offers our best chance of winning."

Several hours later, Shannon Foraker watched through the viewport of her pinnace as Sovereign of Space broke orbit, accelerating away from the planet of Haven towards the rest of First Fleet.

It was hard to watch her go. Harder even than she'd expected it to be.

"Hate to see her go, don't you, Ma'am?" a quiet voice asked, and she turned her head to look at Captain Anders.

"Yes," she admitted. "Yes I do."

"Admiral Giscard will take good care of her," Anders reassured her, and she nodded.

"I know he will. And I know Pat will, too. But after so long, it just seems hard to see her as anyone else's flagship."

"I don't doubt it. But that's not all of it, Ma'am," Anders said almost gently, and she frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"Ma'am, you're not like me. I'm an engineer first, and a tac officer second; you're exactly the other way around. That's why you want to be out there, making Red Alpha work and executing the tactical doctrines you designed. That's the real reason you hate to see her go as much as you do."

"You know," Foraker said slowly, "for a wirehead, you're a remarkably perceptive person, Five." She shook her head. "I hadn't considered it from that perspective, but you're right. Maybe I didn't think about it that way because I didn't want to admit how very right you are."

"You couldn't be who you are and feel any other way about it, Ma'am," he told her. "But the bottom line is that as good as you are as a tac officer, the Navy and the Republic need you worse at Bolthole than they need you with First or Second Fleet. It's not where you want to be, Ma'am; it's only where you need to be."

"Maybe you're right," she said softly, turning to look back out the port at the steadily accelerating superdreadnought. "Maybe you're right."

But as she watched Sovereign of Space dwindle in the distance, she knew she didn't want him to be.