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# Chapter Forty-Three

"I'm afraid we have another one, Your Grace."

Honor looked up from the report on her display, and her mouth tightened as she tasted Mercedes Brigham's emotions. The chief of staff's mood wasn't dark enough for a report of heavy casualties, but if there was no death in it, there was something else. Something which had provoked a fresh anxiety in her.

"How bad this time?" Honor asked quietly.

"Not as bad as the last one," Brigham reassured her quickly. "And a hell of a lot better than what happened to Jessica Epps. The dispatch is from Captain Ellis—"

"He has Royalist, doesn't he?" Honor interrupted.

"Yes, Your Grace," Brigham confirmed, and Honor nodded. Royalist was a Reliant-class ship, like Honor's own one and only battlecruiser command, HMS Nike. The Reliants were no longer the latest, most modern ships in the Royal Navy's inventory, but they remained large and powerful units, capable of taking on anything below the wall, and they'd had priority for refits and upgrades.

"He and his division were picketing the Walther System, over in the Breslau Sector. They'd been on station there for just under five days when an Andermani cruiser squadron entered the system. As per your orders, Ellis transmitted a warning to the Andies to stay clear of his ships."

Honor nodded again. Her standing instructions to all of her units now required them to instruct any Andermani warships they might encounter to maintain a minimum separation of twenty million klicks between themselves and any Manticoran or Sidemorian vessel or be fired upon. The same warning carried a brief summary, outlined as dispassionately as possible, of what had happened in Zoraster from the Manticoran viewpoint. She had no doubt that any Andermani skipper who received that warning and had already made up her mind about who'd fired the first shot in Zoraster would be less than impressed by the Manticoran version. In fact, in some cases that summary would probably only inflame tempers which were already running high. But she couldn't afford to assume that every Andermani ship already knew what was happening, and she wanted it firmly on the record that the Andies had not only been warned to stand clear of her ships but told why they were to do it, as well.

Not that it will do all that much good if one of my units does open fire, she thought. But at least my skippers will be covered, whatever Janacek and his geniuses back home decide about my judgment.

"Apparently," Brigham continued, "the Andies weren't impressed by his warning. They split up into two four-ship divisions and started maneuvering to sandwich Ellis between them. According to his report, he was inclined to play tag with them in order to maintain our position on freedom of navigation, but he'd deployed his long-range recon drones, and one of them got close enough to pull a clear visual up the kilt of one Andie wedge. It saw this, Your Grace."

The chief of staff handed over a memo board, and Honor keyed the flatscreen display alive. Unfortunately, its image was too tiny for her to make out any details, so she pressed another control and activated the holographic display, instead. The much larger "light sculpture" version of the imagery appeared above the board, and she frowned. There was something odd about it. . . .

"What are those things?" she murmured, mostly to herself, and felt Nimitz raising his head on the back of her chair to gaze at the imagery with her as he tasted her intent curiosity. Then her lips tightened.

"Those are missile pods," she answered herself, and looked up at Brigham with arched eyebrows.

"More precisely, Your Grace, according to Ellis—and George's first run at the data agrees with him—those are half missile pods. It looks like they sawed a conventional pod in half lengthwise and bolted the resulting abortion onto the ship right at the upper turn of the hull."

"My God." Honor looked back at the imagery and did a quick mental estimate. Assuming that the spacing of the handful of undersized pods she could see was maintained uniformly for the length of the ship between its hammerheads, then the cruiser floating before her had to have mounted at least thirty-five or forty of them. "What about the lower turn?" she asked.

"We don't know, Your Grace. Let's face it, Royalist was dead lucky to get as much as she did. If I had to guess, though, I'd guess they probably mounted them top and bottom both. If it were me, that's certainly what I would have done, and I think we have to assume the Andies are at least as smart as I am." She smiled with absolutely no humor. "Assuming they are top and bottom, George and I estimate they probably have between sixty and eighty of them in each broadside. That gives them a maximum salvo throw weight of between three hundred and four hundred birds."

Honor's lips pursed in a silent whistle of dismay. No non-pod ship in her order of battle could even come close to that heavy a broadside. And mounting the pods directly onto the hull of the ship also put them inside the cruiser's impeller wedge and sidewalls, protecting them from the proximity "soft kills" which threatened pods deployed behind ships on tractors. Which meant the ship would be much freer of the "use them or lose them" constraints which normally affected pods deployed by light and medium combatants.

"Unless they've upgraded their fire control suites massively," she thought out loud, "no ship this size could manage a salvo that heavy."

"No, Your Grace," Brigham agreed. "They wouldn't have the telemetry links, even if they could see past the wedge interference of that many missiles to guide them in the first place. But if they use them right, they can probably fire broadsides of up to fifty, maybe even sixty, missiles each. Assuming that there's some way for them to see around the pods themselves, that it is."

"I see your point." Honor rubbed the tip of her nose in thought. The long row of pods was mounted well clear of the cruiser's standard weapon decks. As Mercedes had observed, they were carried at the turn of the hull, where the central spindle of a warship curled over into the relatively flat top and bottom of her hull. Those areas, protected by the impenetrable roof and floor of her wedge, were effectively unarmored. And they were also where most warships mounted additional active sensor arrays for their missile defenses and offensive fire control. The main arrays would be clear, but not the supporting ones used to manage individual missile telemetry links or for dedicated laser cluster fire control. Which meant that the Andie's pods almost certainly had to be interfering with her ability to see her targets . . . not to mention incoming fire.

"I'll bet you these things are designed to jettison," she told Brigham. "Probably mounted on some sort of external hard point."

"That's what's George and I think," Brigham said with a nod. "For that matter, that was Ellis' conclusion, as well."

"Yes, Ellis." Honor shook herself and turned off the holo display, then leaned back in her chair and frowned at the chief of staff. "You say he got this visual using his long-range drones?"

"Yes, Your Grace. And he doesn't think the Andies spotted them, either. Which is a little reassuring. At least they haven't broken all of Ghost Rider's advantages!"

"Let's not fret ourselves into assigning them superhuman powers, Mercedes," Honor said with a small, crooked smile. "I'm sure they have some additional surprises for us, but by the same token, I'm sure we have some for them. And everything we've seen out of them so far is still effectively a case of their playing catch-up with where we already are. Which inclines me to think that whether they want us to realize it or not, they have to be at least as nervous about what we might be able to do to them as we are about what they might be able to do to us."

"No doubt that's true," Brigham replied with a dry chuckle. "On the other hand, Your Grace, my sympathy for what they may be worrying about is decidedly limited just now."

"Yours and mine both," Honor assured her. "But getting back to Walther. What did Ellis do when he got the visual?"

"Well, it took him a few minutes to recognize what he was looking at," Brigham told her. "When he did, he realized his two battlecruisers would be on the extremely short end of the stick if missiles started flying. By the same token, he was determined not to be driven out of the system. So he deployed close-in drones, and the mid-range EW platforms, and accelerated to meet one of the two Andie forces."

"He took on four cruisers armed like this one—" Honor tapped the deactivated memo board "—with just two Reliants?"

"Well, according to his report, he figured he'd probably gotten a better look at them than they could have gotten at him," Brigham said. "So in addition to the decoys he'd put out to duplicate his ships' emissions signatures for the bad guys' fire control, he also deployed an additional two dozen decoys behind each battlecruiser."

She paused, and Honor looked at her suspiciously.

"What sort of decoys?" she asked.

"He had them set to look like missile pods, Your Grace," Brigham told her, and chuckled at Honor's expression. "And he was careful to hold his accel down to something he could have managed with that many pods on tow, too."

"He was running a bluff on them?"

"Precisely, Your Grace. And it looks like he pulled it off, too. Apparently, however aggressive the Andies might be feeling, they didn't want to take on a pair of battlecruisers, each of whom were prepared to put two hundred and fifty missiles into space in a single broadside."

"I wouldn't have wanted to either," Honor agreed. Then she frowned. "Still, if your estimate of their own broadsides is accurate, then theoretically four of them could have put out three times the weight of fire they figured both of Ellis's ships together could have laid down."

"That's why I said this incident wasn't as bad as the last one, Your Grace. No shots were fired, and the Andies backed off. They didn't maintain the full twenty million-klick separation Ellis had demanded, but they were careful to stay well outside anything approaching standard missile range. And eventually, they cleared Walther and went on about their business. Ellis had a couple of fairly anxious days first, but we got out of this one without any shooting. Which, given the disparity in the weight of fire, might indicate that they had orders not to pick a fight."

"Um." Honor rubbed her nose in more, then shook her head unhappily. "Actually, I think, Mercedes, we just lucked out this time. I think we had an Andermani squadron commander who wasn't particularly eager to die for her Emperor and figured that at least some of her ships were going to catch it right along with Ellis' battlecruisers if it came down to it. And if these people had orders not to pick a fight, what about those idiots at Schiller?"

It was Brigham's turn to look unhappy, and she nodded slowly. The confrontation in the Schiller System had ended far less happily than the one at Walther. The Andermani senior officer in that case had seen fit to ignore the senior Manticoran officer's warning to maintain separation when he caught the Manticoran patrol separated. Instead, the understrength three-ship Andermani division of light cruisers had continued to bore in on the single Manticoran heavy cruiser which had been operating in a detached role.

Fortunately, in that instance the Andies obviously hadn't had any of their handy-dandy strap-on missile pods. The three light cruisers had continued to close, and the Manticoran cruiser Ephraim Tudor had opened fire when they approached to within fifteen million kilometers.

The brief engagement which followed had not gone well for the Andermani. Apparently, the best powered attack range for missiles carried by their medium combatants was no more than twelve million kilometers, for they'd closed to that range before launching their first birds. It also seemed obvious that Ephraim Tudor's electronic warfare capabilities had been better than theirs. They'd scored three hits on the Manticoran cruiser, inflicting damage that was surprisingly light . . . and killing nine of her crew. Another seven members of her company had been wounded, but in return for that damage, one of the Andermani light cruisers had been battered into an air-leaking, powerless wreck. One of the others had also suffered serious damage to her impeller ring, judging by the drop in her wedge strength and acceleration, and whoever was in command on the other side had decided it was time to exercise discretion. Both of the light cruisers still capable of combat had rolled up on their sides, interposing the roofs of their wedges against additional incoming fire from Ephraim Tudor, and maneuvered to cover their crippled sister in their impeller shadows.

In compliance with Honor's orders to minimize tensions as much as possible, Ephraim Tudor had broken off the engagement when it became obvious the Andies were maneuvering to avoid further action. Honor had no reports on exactly how bad Andermani casualties had been, but she knew they had to have been much heavier than her own. Not that the thought was going to offer much comfort to the families of her dead.

"Maybe the Andie SO in Walther had heard about what happened in Schiller," Brigham suggested. "It's obvious that they haven't been able to match the defensive side of Ghost Rider—or, at least, to find a way around that side. Maybe what Ephraim Tudor managed to do to them is making them more cautious."

"It's possible," Honor conceded. "But given the time interval, any courier from Schiller would have had to cut it pretty tight to pass that word to the second force before it headed out for Walther. And whatever was going through their heads when Ellis decided to run his bluff, it certainly looks like they'd been planning to crowd him, at the very least, before he managed to convince them he had so much firepower in reserve."

"Well," Brigham said, "at least we've gotten all of our units warned by now. And unless someone's managed to ambush one of our people even after we'd warned them, we shouldn't lose any more ships without making the Andies pay the ferryman."

"I know." Honor smiled again, more crookedly than before. "I know, Mercedes. The only problem is that I'd just as soon not kill anyone. Vengeance won't bring back anyone we lose, and the more shooting incidents we have, even if we 'win' all of them, the tenser things are going to get out here. If there's any chance of containing this thing, we've got to get a handle on it before it spins entirely out of control."

"You're right, of course," Brigham agreed. "But Sternhafen's response to your message doesn't strike me as a good sign. If he's so unwilling to consider even the possibility that his man could have made a mistake that he's officially rejected any board of inquiry, it doesn't sound like he's very interested in containing the situation, does it?"

"No," Honor agreed somberly, remembering the uncompromising communique Admiral Sternhafen had released to the Silesian and interstellar media in response to her message to him.

"No, it doesn't sound like it," she admitted.

* * *

"Perhaps, Herr Graf, you would be so kind as to explain this to me?" Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange, requested in tones of icy courtesy as he tapped the message chip. It was in the color-keyed folio which identified an official naval press release, and it lay on the corner of the desk which belonged—so far, at least—to Admiral Xiaohu Pausch, Graf von Sternhafen.

That, of course, was subject to change.

"There is nothing to explain, Gross Admiral," Sternhafen replied in a flat, politely defiant voice. "A Manticoran heavy cruiser fired upon one of our merchant ships after Kapitän der Sternen Gortz had repeatedly instructed it to break off its attack run. Under the circumstances, Kapitän der Sternen Gortz had no option but to engage the Manticoran to protect the safety of our own nationals. In the ensuing engagement, provoked by the Manticorans, there was very heavy loss of life on both sides. Given those self-evident facts I saw no reason to subject the Emperor's dignity to the humiliation of a Manticoran-directed 'investigation' into the actions of a navy of a sovereign power. Not only would submission to such a thinly veiled demand on Harrington's part have been insulting and demeaning to both His Imperial Majesty and the Navy, but the obvious prejudice of the Manticorans would have made any 'impartial' verdict's conclusion that we were at fault inevitable. I had no desire to participate in such a farce for the benefit of exonerating the officer actually responsible for this atrocity, and as His Imperial Majesty's representative in Silesia, I so informed the Manticoran commander at Sidemore in no uncertain terms. And in order to foreclose the possibility of allowing her to score any sort of propaganda triumph out of this, I acted to get the true version of events into the media's hands as rapidly as possible, as was my obvious duty."

"I see. And you have Kapitän der Sternen Gortz' own sworn testimony as to precisely what events occurred in Zoraster, I suppose?"

"Of course not, Gross Admiral," Sternhafen half-snapped, his outward courtesy fraying noticeably under the lash of Rabenstrange's frigid sarcasm.

"Ah, yes. I'd forgotten. Kapitän der Sternen Gortz is dead, is he not, Admiral?" The smallish gross admiral smiled coldly at the considerably taller Sternhafen and watched the other man visibly bite his tongue. There were advantages, Rabenstrange reflected, to being the Emperor's first cousin.

"And because Gortz is dead," he continued after a moment, "it's impossible for you to ascertain with complete certainty precisely what he did or didn't do, is that not correct?"

"We have the testimony of the three surviving bridge personnel," Sternhafen replied hotly. "All of them agree that—"

"I've viewed their statements, Herr Graf," Rabenstrange interrupted him. "None of them were communication ratings, however. They were concentrating on other duties at the time, and their memory of precisely what Gortz said to this Captain Ferrero is extremely vague and scarcely reliable. Moreover, what little they can tell us, vague as it is, pertains only to Gortz' side of the conversation, because none of them actually heard Ferrero's transmissions to him. So the fact that they agree that their captain reacted nobly and selflessly to a totally unprovoked Manticoran attack upon an innocent merchant ship might be just the slightest bit suspect, don't you suppose, Herr Graf?"

"I protest your tone, Gross Admiral," Sternhafen said curtly. "I'm fully aware of your rank, and of your position in the Imperial Family. However, I am still His Imperial Majesty's commander in Silesia until you formally relieve me of my duties. And while I am the Silesian commander, I am not required to submit to your verbal abuse of myself or of the personnel—especially of the personnel who have given their lives in the Emperor's service—under my command!"

"You're quite correct," Rabenstrange told him after a brief, taut moment of silence. "Of course, the question of precisely what command you'll ever hold again remains open." He smiled thinly as Sternhafen's eyes flinched ever so slightly away from his own. Then he drew a deep breath, folded his hands behind him, and made himself take a quick turn around Sternhafen's ground-side Sachsen office.

"Very well, Herr Graf," he said finally, turning back to face the taller man once more. "I'll attempt to amend my manner. But you, Graf, will answer my questions. And I warn you now, I am not interested in defensive temporizations. Is that understood?"

"Of course, Your Grace," Sternhafen replied stiffly.

"Very well," Rabenstrange repeated. "The point I was attempting to make was that so far as I've been able to determine from your reports, neither you nor anyone in your command made any attempt to discover whether or not Duchess Harrington's hypothesis as to what transpired in Zoraster might be accurate before you summarily rejected her offer of a joint investigation."

"Your Grace," Sternhafen sounded dangerously patient, but Rabenstrange decided to let it pass . . . for now, "Harrington will naturally attempt to put the best possible face upon her captain's actions. No doubt you'll argue that I must feel the same temptation in Gortz's case, and you may well be right. However, this particular Manticoran ship had established a clear pattern of arrogance and confrontation in previous encounters with Hellbarde. I believe any fair reading of the Fleet base's file copies of Hellbarde's communication log of Captain Ferrero's previous messages will bear out Kapitän Gortz' view of Ferrero as a dangerously provocative woman.

"When the final encounter between these two ships occurred—in, may I point out, the sovereign territory of a third star nation and definitely not Manticoran territory—Ferrero was clearly maneuvering with the intention of stopping and, at the very least, searching an Imperial-flag merchant vessel proceeding about its lawful concerns. That, at least, was the completely reasonable conclusion of Kapitän der Sternen Gortz. While the testimony of the surviving fire control ratings as to the precise content of the message traffic exchanged between Jessica Epps and Hellbarde may not be conclusive, all three of them agree messages were exchanged. Moreover, all three agree that Kapitän der Sternen Gortz's demand that Ferrero break off her harassment of the vessel in question was not only rejected by her but clearly preceded her decision to open fire upon that vessel.

"Under the circumstances, I repeat, I fail to see what other option Gortz had. In my opinion, Ferrero acted in typical Manticoran fashion, arrogantly assuming—and demanding—that an Imperial warship stand by with its hat literally in its hands while she violated the sovereignty of the Empire's flag. It's my belief that we ought to be discussing posthumous decorations for Kapitän der Sternen Gortz and his crew, not trying to fasten blame for this . . . episode upon them as any so-called 'joint' investigation under Manticoran authority would certainly do."

Rabenstrange stared at him for a long moment, and then the herzog's nostrils flared.

"Graf von Sternhafen," he said, enunciating each word with extreme precision, "while I intend to make all due effort to address you with the courtesy you've reminded me a station commander in His Imperial Majesty's service deserves, you make that extremely difficult. I am interested in getting to the bottom of what happened; as nearly as I can tell, you are primarily interested in justifying Kapitän der Sternen Gortz's actions in their totality. And, I repeat, you apparently made no effort whatsoever to investigate Duchess Harrington's statements or to consider the possibility that, however patriotic and noble he may have been, Kapitän zur Sternen Gortz might—might, I say!—have committed an error in this instance."

"Errors were certainly made, Gross Admiral," Sternhafen replied. "They were not, however, made by Kapitän der Sternen Gortz."

Rabenstrange forced himself not to shout in the other man's face. It was difficult. And not least because the herzog found himself in fundamental disagreement with his imperial cousin's Silesian policy. Despite his own lofty birth and accomplishments, Chien-lu Anderman was not an especially vain man. He saw no point in pretending to be any more modest than he was, either, but he wasn't one of those individuals who worried particularly about what others might think of him or about matters of reputation and "face."

Despite that, he was aware that the Emperor regarded him more as a favored brother than as a mere cousin, and that very few individuals in the Andermani Empire had as much influence with Gustav as he did. But there were limits in all things, and try though he might, he'd been unable to dissuade Gustav from embarking upon his grand adventure in the Confederacy.

Truth to tell, Rabenstrange found it impossible to fault Gustav's basic determination to secure the Empire's legitimate frontiers in Silesia. Unlike the Star Kingdom of Manticore, the Andermani Empire was physically close enough to Silesia to suffer occasional border violations by Silesian pirates and freebooters. That situation had become even worse (although, he admittedly, not enormously so) in the wake of the steady trickle into the Confederacy of outlaw warships which had once belonged to the People's Navy. Which, if one wanted to look at it that way, was at least partly the fault of the Manticorans, since it was their war with the People's Republic which had ultimately created the situation. And whatever implications Silesian instability might have had for the Star Kingdom's merchant marine, that instability offered no direct, immediate threat to the security of Manticore's territory or citizenry at large. The fact that Manticore had presumed for so long to dictate Andermani behavior in Silesia under those circumstances certainly explained the long-standing, deep-seated anti-Manticoran prejudices of old-line wardogs like Sternhafen. For that matter, Rabenstrange himself was far from immune to the same sort of burning anger when some fresh example of Manticoran high handedness fanned the flames.

But this was the wrong way to go about seeking redress. Rabenstrange had argued strenuously against the policy of gradually increasing the pressure on Manticore. Not because he disagreed with Imperial Intelligence's estimates of the fundamental gutlessness of the High Ridge Government, but because of the dangerous potential for provocations to get out of hand and spill over into acts of war. Far better, he'd argued, for the Ministry of State to formally inform the Star Kingdom that the Emperor proposed to press his legitimate security interests in Silesia. Get it all out in the open. Give High Ridge his options and call in the debt the Star Kingdom owed the Empire for the way in which Andermani "neutrality" had favored it in its confrontation with the People's Republic of Haven. And if Manticore persisted in refusing to concede the Empire its just due, then pursue the military option, openly and straightforwardly.

But other counsel had prevailed. Other advisers had convinced Gustav that the application of sufficient pressure would not only inspire a spineless leader like High Ridge to withdraw unilaterally from Silesia but also remind the Confederacy government that resisting his eventual demands might be . . . unwise. And if no explicit demands upon or threats to Manticore were made, then the possibility of accidentally backing someone like High Ridge into a position in which public opinion might force him into a hardline response would be substantially reduced. The belated offer of covert Havenite support which Ambassador Kaiserfest had reported after his conversations with Secretary of State Giancola had been the clinching factor in the triumph of the faction which favored gradually ratcheting up the pressure in Silesia. Rabenstrange's own argument that such a policy offered far more fertile ground for misunderstandings and accidents had been rejected.

And so they had all come to this—to precisely the sort of incident Rabenstrange had feared from the outset might occur. And it was his responsibility to drive the policy he'd argued against through to a successful conclusion.

Which he would. Whether he agreed with it or not was immaterial at this point. But that didn't mean he was prepared to plunge blindly ahead into open warfare with the Star Kingdom if there were any way he could avoid it.

Unfortunately, it was looking more and more as if he might not have that choice. And it was people like Sternhafen, and the recently deceased Gortz, who had made that true.

"Allow me to explain to you, Graf von Sternhafen," he said finally, "that, in the delightfully pithy Manticoran phrase, Kapitän der Sternen Gortz 'screwed the pooch' in a truly spectacular display of stupidity." Sternhafen swelled angrily, but Rabenstrange continued in that same level, biting tone.

"Unlike you, I did conduct a certain amount of research. And I found it trivially simple to confirm that the vessel squawking Sittich's transponder code was not Sittich." Sternhafen stared at him, and Rabenstrange smiled thinly. "I base that statement not simply on the data in Duchess Harrington's message to you, Herr Graf, but also on the data your own vessels secured from the local Silesian security LACs who were in sensor range of the incident. Based upon its observed tonnage alone, the vessel Jessica Epps was moving to intercept was not an Andermani-flag merchant—or, at least, not the one it claimed to be. And since I assume that as a conscientious servant of His Imperial Majesty you've seen to it that all units under your command have current, updated copies of the Registry of Merchant Vessels, I must also assume that it would have been possible for Hellbarde's sensors to establish that that same vessel was squawking a false transponder code . . . and thus violating the sovereignty of our flag in contravention of solemn interstellar law. Given those facts and deductions, I see no reason to doubt the remainder of Duchess Harrington's analysis and explanation. In short, Herr Graf, your 'heroic' Kapitän der Sternen Gortz managed to kill virtually his entire crew and the complete company of a Manticoran heavy cruiser out of sheer, incompetent stupidity, and all in the name of allowing a vessel engaged in the filth and perversion of the interstellar genetic slave trade to escape interception and capture!"

"There's no proof of any such thing!" Sternhafen snapped, but something flickered in his eyes, and Rabenstrange snorted.

"The problem is that there's no proof at all," the herzog shot back. "And because you—you, Herr Graf, and no one else—refused even to consider the possibility that Gortz might have been in error, this entire situation is in the process of spiraling completely out of control."

"I did no more than exercise my legitimate authority as the Empire's representative in Silesia, and I'm prepared to face whatever inquiry His Imperial Majesty may feel appropriate," Sternhafen replied. His effort at noble defiance fell considerably short of total success, and Rabenstrange's lip curled.

"That's very courageous of you, Herr Graf. Unfortunately, His Majesty isn't prepared to have your incredible incompetence aired for all the galaxy to see. Obviously, I've had no time to confer with him on this matter, but the instructions I was given before being sent out here leave me in no doubt as to what the Imperial policy will be in the wake of this incident. By issuing your formal statement 'explaining' the Zoraster Incident, you've committed us to a policy of denying that the Star Kingdom might have acted properly in this case. I can do nothing else, no matter how much I might wish to, because to admit anything else at this late date would look like an act of weakness, rather than the act of strength an immediate and thorough investigation would have been."

"Caving in to the Manticoran version of events would have been the act of weakness!" Sternhafen protested.

"That conclusion," Rabenstrange said coldly and precisely, "is the product of your own stupidity and prejudice against the Star Kingdom. It would have been a simple matter for us to investigate from a position of strength. For us to move in and secure temporary control of the entire Zoraster System in order to be certain all relevant evidence still in the system was preserved. We could have asserted our authority to conduct the investigation ourselves, and I have no doubt whatsoever that High Ridge would have instructed Duchess Harrington to give us a free hand in that investigation . . . which she would have been inclined to do in the first place because, unlike you, she is a decent and open-minded individual. But that concession from High Ridge would have established his government's acceptance of our primacy as the interstellar police force with paramount jurisdiction in this instance, thus granting us equality with the Star Kingdom in dealing with Silesian lawlessness. And when, at the end of our investigation, our report to the galaxy at large didn't attempt to whitewash the actions of our commander on the spot, we would have emerged from the incident as a mature, responsible force in Silesia. Our willingness to admit when we ourselves were the ones at fault would have made us a voice of reason in a region whose anarchy and lack of effective central authority promote outrages like the slave trade which provoked the entire tragic incident. Which, you idiot, would have given us the moral highroad for our annexation of critical territory here as the means of putting an end to that same anarchy!"

Despite himself, his voice rose to a shout with the final sentence, and he clenched his fists behind him, glaring at Sternhafen. The other admiral seemed to wilt inside his spotless white uniform tunic, and Rabenstrange made himself close his eyes and draw another deep, cleansing breath.

"Now, after you've chosen to reject Harrington's proposal and rushed to proclaim the official verdict of the Empire without any investigation whatsoever, I have no choice but to maintain the farce to which you've committed His Imperial Majesty. An opportunity which would have allowed us to turn this entire wretched incident decisively to our advantage has been totally foreclosed by your narrowminded, knee-jerk need to announce to the galaxy at large that the Manticorans were at fault. And because I can't repudiate your official announcement without revealing to the entire universe just how stupid our policy has been, I'm probably going to find myself faced with fighting the war against the Star Kingdom which His Imperial Majesty so earnestly wished to avoid."

The herzog smiled very coldly at Sternhafen.

"I suspect, Herr Graf, that the Emperor may have just a little to say to you upon this subject himself."

* * *

"I did warn you they were becoming increasingly hardline," Arnold Giancola said in an artfully regretful tone.

Eloise Pritchart glared at him, too angry, for once, to maintain the sort of carefully crafted mask which had preserved her from detection by StateSec's minions. Giancola settled back in his chair, presenting a properly submissive mien while deep inside he savored her obvious fury.

"Yes, Arnold, you did warn me," she told him with savage, icy precision. "Which isn't particularly useful, just at the moment."

"Sorry," he replied as sincerely as possible. "I didn't mean to sound as if I were saying 'I told you so.' It's just that I've been seeing them moving in this direction for so long without being able to do anything about it that—"

He shrugged helplessly, and the President turned her back to stare out the window of her office at downtown Nouveau Paris while she fought to control her own temper.

The traditional, archaic hardcopy of Elaine Descroix's response to the Republic's most recent note lay on her desk, and a corner of her mind was a bit surprised that the sheer, white-hot fury which had filled her as she read it hadn't ignited the paper on which it was printed. Descroix had finally abandoned the platitudes and vague, generalized nothings with which the Star Kingdom's negotiators had strung out negotiations for so long. Her new note was a combination of an arrogant lecture on the People's Republic's long history of interstellar misbehavior coupled with curt observations that "confrontational, antagonistic expressions of anger and impatience do not contribute to the mature resolution of differences between interstellar powers." It also included a flat refusal to acknowledge that the Republic, as the direct successor of the "brutally oppressive prior regimes of the People's Republic," had any right "at this late date to wrap itself in a supposed mantle of moral authority" and demand the return of its territory to its sovereignty. Apparently, Pritchart noted furiously, that was true even if the citizens living in the territory in question requested in a freely voted upon plebiscite to do exactly that! In essence, Descroix's note represented a thinly veiled ultimatum demanding that the Republic of Haven submit completely to the total package of the Star Kingdom's diplomatic demands as the price for a formal treaty.

"Obviously," she told the crystoplast of the window, never turning to look at Giancola, "High Ridge and Descroix aren't impressed by the reasonableness of our proposals."

"If they were interested in reasonable proposals," Giancola pointed out diffidently, "we could have had a peace treaty years ago. And while I argued before our last note that adopting a still more . . . assertive stance might be counterproductive, I have to admit that at least it's had the effect of openly crystallizing their position. Madame President, much as we may dislike admitting it, the demands contained in their response are, in my opinion, precisely where they've been headed from the beginning of this process. I know you haven't wanted to hear that. I know we've disagreed at many times during these negotiations. I even know you have certain concerns about my loyalty and commitment to the official positions of this administration's diplomacy. But whatever our differences in the past may have been, surely the entire tenor of this response represents an admission by the High Ridge Government at last of its intention to forcibly annex the Republican star systems its naval forces currently occupy."

Something inside Eloise Pritchart tied itself into a knot as his respectful, reasonable tone washed over her. The fact that she still didn't trust him didn't necessarily invalidate his observations or his conclusions, she reminded herself yet again. And whatever she might have thought about his motivations, he wasn't the one who'd drafted the infuriating, arrogant, dismissive note lying on her blotter.

She gazed out at Nouveau Paris, and as her eyes rested on the gleaming walls of the New Octagon, a sudden sense of decision flowed through her. She gazed at the Navy's central HQ for a moment longer, then turned at last to face Giancola once more.

"All right," she said flatly. "If they want to play hardball, then we'll damned well play hardball."

"Excuse me, Madame President?" he asked, and the sudden edge of concern in his voice wasn't entirely assumed. He'd never seen Pritchart quite this angry before—never realized she could be this angry—and he felt a brief, uncharacteristic uncertainty about his ability to continue to manage events properly.

"I said I'll play the game just as hard as they want to play it," she told him, and crossed to her desk to punch a combination into her com. The connection went through almost instantly, and she nodded briskly as Thomas Theisman's face appeared on her display.

"Madame President," Theisman said. He seemed unsurprised to see her, but then, only eleven people in the entire Republic of Haven had the combination to his personal New Octagon com.

"Arnold Giancola is in my office with me, Tom," she told him without preamble. "He's brought Descroix's official response to our last note, and it isn't good. Not good at all. They're clearly refusing to give a single centimeter."

"I see," Theisman said cautiously.

"I think," she continued in that same, flat voice, "that it's time to convince them of the error of their ways."

* * *

"I wish I weren't telling you this," Thomas Theisman said into the visual pickup as he recorded the "Eyes-Only" message for Javier Giscard. "Unfortunately, I am."

He drew a deep breath.

"This letter is for your personal information, but the official dispatch accompanying it should be considered a war warning. At the present time, Eloise has informed me that she has no intention of firing the first shot, but in my opinion the risk that someone will fire it has just gone up considerably."

He paused, reflecting upon the fact that he was speaking to the man who loved Eloise Pritchart and probably knew her better than anyone else in the universe, with the possible exception of Kevin Usher. But Giscard was aboard his flagship, orbiting SXR-136, not in Nouveau Paris.

"Eloise and Giancola are drafting a new note for the Manties. It will no longer request that they consider our new proposals. Instead, it will insist that they accept our demands. She's assured me that she doesn't intend—at this time—to specify the potential consequences if they fail to accept them, but it's obvious to me that her language is going to be more than merely 'stiff.'

"We've discussed the operational assumptions and concepts of Case Red Alpha in some detail. She understands that for it to succeed, we need to maintain the advantage of surprise. She also agrees that it's essential for us not to launch an offensive without clearly demonstrating to both domestic and foreign public opinion that we had no choice, however. And, frankly, I hope and believe she continues to agree that renewed hostilities against the Star Kingdom are a disaster to be avoided at almost any cost."

At least the first verb in that final sentence, he reflected, was still accurate. Unfortunately, he was no longer as confident as he would have liked to be that the second one was.

"This is not an order to commence operations," he said firmly. "It is, however, a heads-up. Eloise's new note will be dispatched to Manticore within thirty-six standard hours. I don't think anyone in the capital—not even Giancola—claims to have any idea how High Ridge will respond to it. But it looks like we're going to find out."

* * *

Arnold Giancola sat in his private office. It was very late, and he smiled in amusement burnished by an undeniable touch of anxiety as he contemplated the text of the document on his reader. The hour was entirely appropriate, he reflected. By long and venerable tradition, conspiracies were supposed to be executed by dark of night.

Not that he would have admitted to anyone else that what he was doing constituted anything conspiratorial, of course, but whatever he might have said to others, there was no point trying to deceive himself. Some might even argue that what he was about to do was illegal, but he'd researched the question with some care, and he rather doubted that a court would have agreed. He might be wrong, but his own judgment was that his actions represented at best a gray area. After all, he was the Secretary of State. Any communication with a foreign government was his responsibility, and the exact way in which that communication was delivered was arguably a matter for his judgment.

Still, the fact was that Eloise Pritchart and he had discussed this particular note at length and agonized over its phrasing. The President obviously expected him to send it in the exact form to which they'd both finally agreed. Unfortunately, she hadn't given him any formal instruction to that effect, and—upon more mature consideration, based solely on his extensive experience with the Department of State and the Manticoran government and acting on his own authority as Secretary of State—he had identified a few small modifications which would make it far more effective.

Although, he admitted with a thin smile as he studied the revised text, the effect towards which it was directed might not be exactly the one the President had had in mind. . . .

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