Mission of Honor

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“You screened, Pat?” Sir Thomas Caparelli asked as his face appeared on Patricia Givens’ com display. “I’m sorry I was out of the office, but Liesel told me you’d said it was urgent when I got back. And also that I wasn’t to use my personal com?”

“That’s right,” Givens replied. “And I did tell her I needed you to screen back on a secure com.”

She looked better than she had immediately after the disastrous attack, Caparelli thought, but “better” was a purely relative term. The shadows of guilt had retreated in her eyes, yet he was beginning to think they would never completely disappear, and the near hysteria of a certain portion of the Star Empire’s news media hadn’t helped. He doubted there was anything they could have said that she hadn’t already said to herself—he knew that was true in his own case—but the angry, panic-driven sense of betrayal coming from that particular group of newsies and editorials had inspired them to hammer the “blatant intelligence failure” far harder than they’d hammered the rest of the Navy.

Realistically, neither he nor Givens could have expected anything else, Caparelli supposed. Public opinion had been wound tight enough with the combined euphoria of the Battle of Spindle and the looming threat of war against the Solarian League, and it was perfectly understandable why the psychological impact of the devastating onslaught had hit the Star Empire’s subjects like a sledgehammer. And it was perfectly reasonable for those same subjects to want the heads of whoever had allowed it to happen. As a matter of fact, Caparelli agreed with them in many ways; that was why he’d submitted his resignation—twice. Unfortunately, in his opinion, it had been rejected twice, as well.

The first rejection had come from Hamish Alexander-Harrington, who’d pointed out—again—that no one could have seen something like this coming and that holding any individual or group of individuals responsible would be a blatant case of scapegoating.

Caparelli hadn’t been able to logically dispute the first lord’s analysis, but that didn’t mean he’d agreed with it. Nor did it mean he was able to accept it, whatever logic might say. So he’d submitted his resignation a second time, this time directly to Queen Elizabeth… who’d returned it to him unread with an admonition “not to be silly.” She’d accompanied that pithy bit of advice with a firm injunction to take his resignation back, to tear it up, and never to submit it to her again. First, because she agreed with Earl White Haven, and secondly (and, he suspected, even more pragmatically), because his abrupt departure from the Admiralty would look like a case of scapegoating. In the queen’s opinion, the hysterical segment of public opinion represented a distinct minority, and she had no intention of allowing herself or the Grantville Government to fan the hysteria by looking as if they were racing about in a panic of their own, looking for someone—anyone—to blame.

And so, out of a sense of duty more than anything else, he’d stayed. And he’d supported White Haven when the first lord rejected Givens’ resignation, as well. Which was why the two of them were still sitting in their offices having this discussion three and a half T-weeks after the attack.

He realized he’d allowed a silence to settle while his thoughts rattled back around the newly worn ruts in his brain, and he gave himself a shake.

“Sorry, Pat. Woolgathering, I guess.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” she said with biting irony, then inhaled sharply. “Sorry,” she said in turn.

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “But now that we’re both here, what was it you needed to tell me?”

“Actually, this may be something we need to take to the PM and Her Majesty,” Givens said, her expression and her tone both suddenly much more serious. “One of my people just brought me something from one of our ‘black’—in this case, very black—Beowulf conduits.”

Caparelli stiffened very slightly. Beowulf was, by any measure, Manticore’s staunchest ally within the Solarian League. It was also the home system’s biggest single trading partner, and a lot of Manticorans had married Beowulfers—and vice versa—over the centuries since the Junction had been discovered. The Harrington family was a case in point. Or, he corrected himself grimly, it had been, at least. When there’d been a Harrington family.

Beowulf was also the only League member system which had been kept routinely up to date on Manticoran military developments. The Beowulf System-Defense Force and the Royal Navy had been quietly in agreement that it would be in both services’ best interests if Beowulf didn’t suddenly began introducing Manticore’s new tech goodies into its own ships, where they might find their way into the SLN’s less than pristine hands, and the BSDF had somehow mysteriously failed to provide any of those “observers” the SLN had been so busily ignoring for so long. But that didn’t mean Beowulf didn’t have a very good basic grasp of what Manticore had been up to. Not only that, but Beowulf was the only non-Manticoran star system which had been included from the beginning in planning for Case Lacoön, and there were all sorts of open channels of communication between the Beowulf Planetary Board of Directors and Her Majesty’s Government.

Which was all well and good, but one of those little secrets polite people never mentioned was that even allies spied on one another. There were lots of reasons for that, particularly if the allies in question were less than totally confident about their “ally’s” long-term intentions. That wasn’t the case here, but another reason—and one which had operated in the case of Beowulf more than once—was because “spies” could exchange information that couldn’t be exchanged openly. The sort of information that, for one reason or another, one government couldn’t risk openly handing to another, no matter how friendly they were. And any “black” Beowulf conduits which reported to Pat Givens and ONI almost certainly came under that heading.

“All right,” he told her. “I’m braced.”

“This,” Hamish Alexander-Harrington said, “is not good.”

It was probably the most unnecessary observation he’d ever made, and he knew it. Still, someone had to break the ice of shocked dismay and get the conversation moving.

His wife glanced at him, her lips moving in a shadow of a smile as she sensed his thoughts, but his brother—seated across the conference table from them—snorted harshly.

“I suppose you could say it comes under that heading,” he said. “Of course, it’s had a lot of company there lately, hasn’t it?”

“How much confidence do you have in this source, Admiral Givens?” Elizabeth Winton asked from her place at the head of the table.

“A high level, Your Majesty,” Givens replied, and White Haven noticed that she looked more alive, more engaged, than he’d seen her since what everyone had come to think of as The Attack. “We haven’t used this particular conduit very often. In fact, this is only the third message—aside from a handful of ‘is this channel still open?’ sort of exchanges—that’s been passed through it, and it’s been in existence for the better part of seventy T-years. Both of the other messages that came to us this way proved to be completely accurate, which is significant in its own right. More to the point, in my own mind, at least, that’s a long time to maintain a back channel ‘just in case.’ Someone’s invested a lot of effort in making sure it stayed open despite any changes in personnel—at either end. Which, to be honest, is the main reason I’m inclined to put so much trust in it now.”

“If the information’s as reliable as you believe it is, then I can see why they didn’t want to pass it to us openly,” William Alexander said.

“I suppose that technically it does come under the definition of treason against the Solarian League,” Elizabeth agreed.

“That’s arguable, Your Majesty,” Sir Anthony Langtry said. The queen looked at him, and he shrugged. “First, ‘treason’ is a particularly elusive term as defined—more or less—in the Solarian Constitution. Secondly, if the warning’s accurate, someone could make a good case for Rajampet’s plans being the real act of treason. He’s bending Article Seven into a pretzel if that’s what he’s using to justify this.”

“Not that anyone’s going to call him on it, Tony,” Honor Alexander-Harrington observed, and her soprano voice was almost as shadowed as Patricia Givens’ eyes. “Or, not in time to do us any good, at any rate.”

“I’m afraid that’s entirely too likely,” Elizabeth said, smiling at Honor in unhappy agreement.

“So, if we assume the information is accurate, what do we do with it?” Grantville asked.

“That depends in part on how serious the actual military threat is, Willie,” the queen replied, and looked at the first space lord. “Sir Thomas?”

“In some ways, that’s harder to say than I’d like, Your Majesty,” Caparelli told her. “If the numbers are correct—if they’re really talking about throwing four hundred or so of the wall at us—then the initial attack is going to be toast, to use Hamish’s favorite term. We’ve got almost that many wallers of our own, all of which are longer-ranged and far better protected in any missile duel than the wallers Admiral Gold Peak took out at Spindle, and that doesn’t even include our system-defense pods. So I’m totally confident of our ability to defeat this force decisively. The only question, to be brutally honest, would be whether or not any of them survived long enough to strike their wedges.”

He paused, looking around the conference table, and his steely confidence was plain to see.

“Unfortunately, a lot depends on what the thinking behind this is, and, frankly, we don’t know that. One thing I do know is that if we defeat another Solarian task force—although this one, frankly, is going to be big enough no one’s going to be able to get away with calling it anything except a ‘fleet,’ which is going to present its own problems when it comes around to psychological impact time—it’s going to have an enormous influence on Solarian public opinion where we’re concerned. As I see it, there are two possible extremes to their potential reactions. First, they could be so horrified by the devastating nature of the SLN’s defeats that they could turn completely against any future operations. Possibly even completely enough to present Kolokoltsov and the rest of them with a genuine challenge to their control of the League. Second, though, they could be so horrified and infuriated by the devastating nature of their defeats that they basically give Rajampet a blank check. There’s room for all sorts of variations between those two extremes, of course, but I think that’s what it really comes down to. And in some ways, unfortunately, I think it’s a crapshoot which way they’ll jump.”

“Hamish? Honor?” Elizabeth looked at them, eyebrow arched.

Honor glanced at her husband for a moment, then squared her shoulders and faced Elizabeth with Nimitz pressing his cheek into the side of her neck from the back of her chair.

“I think Sir Thomas has it pretty much right, Elizabeth,” she said. “To be honest, even if the League threw its entire active wall of battle at us in a single wave, we could be fairly confident of defeating it. Throwing in their wallers in dribs and drabs is simply going to make the job even easier from our perspective. The only real worry, in the short term, is the question of our ammunition supply, and judging from what happened at Spindle, I’m pretty sure we’ve got enough to deal with their entire active superdreadnought strength.

“Unfortunately, if we end up having to do that, it’ll make a huge hole in our supply of missiles, which will present all kinds of potential problems if we can’t work something out with Haven after all. Which, of course, doesn’t even consider what we might need against Manpower.”

Her voice turned harder and flatter on the last word, and the light glittering in her brown eyes for just a moment sent a shiver down Elizabeth Winton’s spine. Most of the Star Empire’s senior officers and political leaders were careful to emphasize—in public, at least—that they still didn’t know exactly who’d attacked the home system. There was no doubt whatsoever in Honor Alexander-Harrington’s mind, however.

And there was no doubt in Elizabeth’s mind exactly what Honor intended to do about it. It wasn’t that Elizabeth disagreed with her; it was only that even after all these years, the queen still hadn’t realized that when it came down to it, Honor Alexander-Harrington’s granite determination was even more merciless than her own famed temper. Colder and less outwardly expressive, perhaps, and definitely slower to awaken, yet that made it only more deadly in the end.

“If we could count on facing only the League, I think we’d probably be pretty much okay for the first couple of years,” Honor continued after a moment. “It’s going to take them longer to get substantial numbers of the Reserve refitted, activated, and manned—and trained—than it’s going to take us to get our missile production started up again. They’ve got enough battlecruisers and cruisers in Frontier Fleet to pose a significant threat to our commerce if they resort to a full bore guerre de course and use them as raiders, but thanks to the wormhole network, we actually have the ‘interior lines,’ so they’d be even more vulnerable to commerce raiding than we are.

“But the one thing we wouldn’t be able to do is take the war to them until we got the missile supply back under control, and that means they’d have a lot more time to react to their technological inferiority. Without an adequate, reliable supply of missiles, we can’t go after them. If they choose not to go after us while they look for answers to our hardware advantages, then by the time we’ve got our missile lines back in full production, they’ll probably be well on their way to producing new designs that are a lot more survivable and a lot more dangerous. And, even worse, we’ve lost so much industry that there’s no way in the galaxy we could hope to stay in shouting range of their production capability. If they turn out six times as many ships, we lose, even if their ships are individually only half as good as ours.”

“And the fact that, as you say, we can’t take the war to them means we can’t exploit those fracture lines of the League’s you pointed out to us,” Elizabeth said, nodding her head in grim understanding and agreement.

“Exactly.” Honor reached up to stroke Nimitz and met her queen’s eyes levelly. “If this information is accurate, if Rajampet really is planning on feeding another four hundred wallers into the furnace, it’s going to get really, really ugly, no matter what happens. Worst-case scenario, frankly, is that in defeating them we inflict enough losses to provide the rallying point Sir Thomas was talking about. Assume each of those ships has a complement of sixty-five hundred, which is actually on the low side. That would still give us over two and a half million people aboard the wallers alone. Potentially, that’s two and a half million fatal casualties, on top of the losses Crandall took at Spindle. More likely, we’d kill a lot less than that outright and take the rest prisoner, but I’m not sure that would be a lot better from a psychological perspective. To be honest, I’m inclined to think that’s exactly what Rajampet has in mind.”

White Haven stirred beside her, and she looked at him.

“I’m not one of the Sollies’ greater admirers myself,” he said, “but deliberately courting that kind of death toll purely as a political maneuver seems a bit too cynically calculating to me, even for a Solly.”

“That’s because deep down inside you’re a straightforward, decent sort of person, Ham,” his brother said grimly. White Haven’s gaze moved to him, and Grantville shrugged. “You might want to remember Cordelia Ransom and Rob Pierre. The number of casualties Honor’s talking about here are actually a lot lower than the casualties Pierre was willing to inflict just by launching his pogroms against the Legislaturalists, much less fighting us. Ransom wouldn’t have turned a hair at sacrificing three or four times that many people if it suited her purposes, and let’s not even get started on that sociopath Saint-Just!”

“But—” White Haven began, then stopped, and Grantville nodded.

“That’s right, Ham.” His voice was almost gentle now. “We’re used to thinking of Peeps as political sociopaths. From what I’ve seen so far out of Kolokoltsov and his crew—and especially out of Rajampet, so far—they’re at least as bad. Maybe even worse, because I don’t think any of them have the personal involvement or the legitimate basis for outrage that Pierre, at least, definitely did have. To them, it’s just a matter of gaming the system the way they’ve always gamed it.”

“Which leaves us in one hell of a mess, doesn’t it?” Queen Elizabeth summed up, and no one in that conference room disagreed with her.

“Are you serious, Admiral Trenis?”

Eloise Pritchart tried to keep the disbelief out of her voice as she gazed at the director of the Republican Navy’s Bureau of Planning. That position made Linda Trenis the Republic of Haven’s equivalent of Patricia Givens, and, over the years, especially since the fall of the People’s Republic, she’d become accustomed to presenting reports some of her superiors initially found… somewhat difficult to credit. Now she simply looked back at the president and nodded.

“Yes, Madam President, I’m quite serious.”

“But, let me get this straight—you don’t have any idea who sent you this particular information?”

“That’s not precisely what I said, Madam President. I know exactly who handed it over to us. No, I don’t know the identity of the person who actually provided it at the source, but I do know where it came from—in general terms, at least.”

“But, excuse me, Linda,” Thomas Theisman said, turning to face her and the president, with his back towards the panoramic window of Pritchart’s Péricard Tower office, “why in the world would somebody in Beowulf suddenly drop this kind of information on us of all people?”

“That’s something I’m less prepared to theorize about,” Trenis said. “I have some thoughts on the subject, but that’s all they are at this point.”

“Well, if you have any thoughts on this subject, you’re well ahead of me,” Pritchart said candidly, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. “So let’s hear them, Admiral.”

“Of course, Madam President.”

Linda Trenis was a highly organized woman. One of her greatest strengths when it came to building tightly reasoned analyses was the way she carefully considered every snippet of information before fitting it in place. It was painfully evident that the thought of presenting what could be no more than her preliminary, off-the-cuff impressions to the Republic’s head of state wasn’t very high on her list of favorite things to do. But she’d known it would be coming, so she drew a deep breath and began.

“There could be a lot of reasons for someone in Beowulf to want us to know about this. Frankly, it’s unlikely any of them would be because they like us so much, though. Mind you, I don’t think they’ve ever disliked us as much as Manticore did, and I think that’s been even more true since the restoration of the old Republic, but ‘not as much as Manticore’ doesn’t mean they actually care for us all that much. Once upon a time, we were actually on pretty good terms with them, but that relationship started going down the tubes when the Legisaturalists came in. The Technical Conservation Act was the kiss of death as far as the Beowulfans were concerned, and they cut off military and intelligence cooperations with us a hundred and forty years ago… which, obviously, wasn’t the case where Manticore’s concerned. So there’s never been much doubt that if they had to choose between the two of us, they’d choose Manticore in a heartbeat. And, to be honest, if I lived right on the other side of the Junction from Manticore, I’d probably make the same choice.”

Pritchart and Theisman both nodded, and Trenis shrugged.

“I think, then, that we have to begin from the assumption that they told us about this because they thought it would help Manticore, not because they thought it would hurt them. At first, I couldn’t see any reason they might think that. Then, as I considered it, it occurred to me that they might have a better appreciation of how we’re thinking here in Nouveau Paris than we’d realized.”

“I beg your pardon?” Pritchart blinked, and Theisman frowned.

“What I’m trying to say, Madam President, is that we’ve had a natural and understandable tendency to concentrate our counterintelligence activities against Manticore. Now, though, I’ve started wondering just how thoroughly Beowulf might have penetrated the Republic.”

“Beowulf, Linda?” Theisman sounded dubious, and Trenis looked at him. “We’re an awful long way from Beowulf,” the secretary of war pointed out. “Why should they worry about penetrating us ? And if they have, why haven’t they been feeding any information they’ve gathered to the Manties?”

“To take your second question first, Sir, we don’t know they haven’t been feeding information to the Manties, do we?” Despite herself, Trenis smiled slightly at Theisman’s expression. “As to why they should worry about penetrating us, we are the people who’ve happened to be at war with their next door neighbor—and friend—for the last twenty T-years. People don’t talk about it a lot, but Beowulf’s intelligence agencies are pretty good, and I think it would make sense for them to keep an eye on the people fighting a star system barely six hours away from their own home system.”

Theisman’s expression segued into a thoughtful frown, and Pritchart nodded.

“At the same time,” Trenis continued, “I’m inclined to think they either haven’t gotten very much from us, or else that they’ve chosen for reasons of their own not to share what they have gotten with Manticore. It may be that Manticore’s been sharing information with Beowulf, and that, as a result, Beowulf’s known Manticore already had almost everything Beowulf could have provided. Let’s not underestimate what the Manties are capable of in this area all on their own. On the other hand, I’m inclined to wonder if the Beowulfers might not have stepped up their efforts after that assassination attempt on Alexander-Harrington and what happened to Webster and on Torch.”

“Oh?” Pritchart tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing. Trenis wasn’t on the list of people who knew about Albert Giancola or Kevin Usher’s suspicions about Yves Grosclaude’s highly convenient—or in convenient, depending upon one’s perspective—demise.

“Madam President, we didn’t do it. And, frankly, something like this indicates a completely new capability on somebody’s part. Given the way Beowulf feels about Mesa, and given the fact that Manpower wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to rent out a new assassination tool, and that any analyst has to look very closely at the possibility that we’re looking at some new bioscience technique, I think it’s likely Beowulf’s suspicion focused on Mesa well before anyone else’s did. If that’s the case, it would be logical for them to assume Manpower had rented it to us, especially in light of the attempt on Duchess Harrington. And if they did think that, one way to find the Mesa connection would have been to come at it from our end.”

Pritchart realized she was nodding slowly. It was all purely speculative, of course, but it made a sort of sense. In fact, it might well make a lot of sense, especially—as Trenis had suggested—in light of Beowulf’s hatred for and suspicion of all things Mesan.

“Assuming there’s anything at all to what I’ve just said,” the admiral continued, “I think it’s possible, even probable, that after what happened at Monica, New Tuscany, and now Spindle, Beowulf’s concluded that we really might have been innocent bystanders, at least where the assassinations were concerned. From which it follows that whoever was behind the Webster murder and the attack on Queen Berry was trying to sabotage the original summit talks between you and Queen Elizabeth. And from that, it’s only a fairly short step to assuming we’ve genuinely wanted to end the fighting ever since you sent Countess Gold Peak back to Manticore with the summit offer. More than that, if they really have managed to get any sort of penetration here all in Nouveau Paris, I’d say it’s probable that they’re aware of how favorably we reacted to Duchess Harrington’s arrival and Elizabeth’s offer to negotiate after all, as well.”

“You’re saying someone in Beowulf thinks we’re likely to want a solid, reasonable treaty more than we’d want to take advantage of Manticore’s possible distraction?” Pritchart said thoughtfully, although there was still a pronounced hint of skepticism in her tone.

“I think it’s possible, Madam President.”

“It may be possible, Linda, but it sounds sort of high-risk to me, coming from somebody who thinks of himself as Manticore’s friend,” Theisman remarked.

“It could be,” Trenis acknowledged. “On the other hand, what have they really told us? That the Sollies are stupid enough to reach back into the sausage machine and go after Manticore again? Sure, if we’re inclined to try to take advantage of the Manties’ position after their home system’s been hammered, and knowing the League is going for their throat from the front, we can start putting our plans together a little sooner. But that’s really all this would do for us, and I don’t think anyone in Beowulf would be stupid enough to think we’re stupid enough to actually jump Manticore unless the Star Empire’s already been pretty much pounded flat. So, in that sense, telling us about the Sollies’ plans doesn’t translate into any sort of meaningful military advantage.”

“You’re thinking somebody in Beowulf, probably someone fairly high up in the decision-making tree, is thinking in terms of the diplomatic implications of this news,” Pritchart said slowly.

“I’m thinking that’s a possibility, Madam President. Don’t forget, though, that all of this came at me just as cold as it’s coming at you. I may be completely out to lunch here. But whatever else is going on, never forget how long Beowulf and Manticore have been friends. And who handed this to me. To be honest, we’d always thought Beowulf’s chief of station for their intelligence services here on Haven was their commercial attache. Now, though, assuming the whole thing isn’t some huge deception measure after all, they’ve effectively confirmed that it’s actually been their naval attache all this time… and she came out into the open on their ambassador’s specific instructions. Bearing in mind the relationship between them and the Manties, I just don’t see why Beowulf’s ambassador would authorize someone to hand us anything they expected to hurt the Star Empire.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Theisman said. “But the law of unintended consequences hasn’t been repealed, as far as I’m aware.”

“And, there’s another side to this,” Pritchard said. Theisman looked at her, and she shrugged. “McGwire, Younger, and Tullingham,” she said flatly, and the secretary of war grimaced.

Trenis looked puzzled. Pritchart saw the expression and, after a moment, decided to explain.

“You’re right about the Administration’s desire to conclude an equitable treaty with Manticore, Admiral Trenis. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees on exactly what the term ‘equitable’ implies. And, frankly, there are some fairly influential players outside the Administration who are going to regard this fresh threat to the Star Empire—especially after what happened to their home system—as grounds for us to harden our position. They’re going to see all too clearly that the Manties’ back is to the wall, and they’re not going to see any reason at all why we shouldn’t use that to force concessions out of Manticore, instead of the other way around.”

“Which,” Theisman said dryly, “might not be the most productive possible way to approach Elizabeth Winton at a moment like this.”

Trenis winced slightly, and Pritchart chuckled.

“Frankly, I can’t say I’m totally averse to the prospect of achieving better terms myself,” the president admitted. “I’d particularly like to knock that notion of reparations on the head, even though I can’t really say the Manties are unjustified in looking for them. What I’m concerned about, though, is that this fresh development is going to embolden the congressional critics of our decision to negotiate with Manticore in the first place. There wasn’t a lot they could do to spoke our wheel while Eighth Fleet was right here in the Haven System as a pointed reminder of how little choice we had. Now they’re going to decide the Solarian threat has just given us a club to hold over the Manties’ head, and that’s going to produce all kinds of… unfortunate repercussions.”

Despite her chuckle of a moment before, there was absolutely no amusement on Eloise Pritchart’s face as she shook her head.

“This Administration is still too badly wounded by what happened in the Battle of Manticore for me to ignore what the opposition is likely to do with this information in Congress. Put another way, at this moment I don’t have the moral authority and public support numbers I had before Operation Beatrice, so I can’t bully Congress into doing what I want without building a consensus first, and this is going to make it a lot easier for the opposition to keep me from doing that. And that means that whatever Beowulf may be thinking, and however badly I want to return to the negotiating table and get this war ended, this little revelation is a lot more likely to derail, or at least seriously impede, the negotiating process than it is to speed it up.”