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# Chapter Fifty-Three

"Starlight, you are Alpha-One for transit at the inner beacon."

"Astro Control, Starlight copies Alpha-One for transit. Beginning final approach to insertion now."

"Starlight, Astro Control shows you on nominal approach. Enjoy your trip. Astro Control, clear."

"Thank you, Astro Control. Starlight, clear."

Lieutenant Commander Sybil Dalipagic watched the data code of the Silesian Confederacy diplomatic courier blink out of existence as it disappeared into the Junction's central terminus on its way to Basilisk. As she'd informed Starlight's astrogator, the dispatch boat's flight path had been nominal, but that hadn't kept her from sweating the transit, anyway. Diplomatic couriers were the one type of vessel with which Astro Control could not establish direct telemetry links. Dalipagic shuddered to think what would have happened if she'd even suggested to Starlight that she could have handled the entire transit much more safely and efficiently from her own console. The very idea would have violated at least half a dozen solemn interstellar accords, although in Dalipagic's professional opinion, those solemn accords were pretty damned stupid. It wasn't as if establishing an interface and an override with the ship's maneuvering computers would have in any way compromised the sacred integrity of its diplomatic files. Or, not at least if the people the dispatch boat belonged to had an IQ recorded in double digits.

She snorted in familiar amusement at the thought. Her brother-in-law had served for almost forty T-years aboard the ships of the Royal Manticoran Mail Service. The RMMS was never used for secure diplomatic dispatches, but there were plenty of other people who wanted to be sure their mail was transmitted in complete security. Which was why the mail ships' secure data banks were completely separated—physically, not just by electronic firewalls—from any other computer they carried. Somehow, Dalipagic thought, it was . . . unlikely that a diplomatic courier wouldn't have built in security measures at least that good. Which would just happen to have obviated any possibility that she could have hacked into Starlight's dispatches simply by interfacing with the dispatch boat's astrogation systems. Hell, not even a hacker as celebrated as the Navy's Sir Horace Harkness could have managed that!

Not that any properly paranoid diplomat was likely to let her do any interfacing anytime soon. For that matter, even Manticoran couriers were often picky as hell about the degree of remote access they granted Astro Control. Of course—The comfortable, well worn rhythm of Dalipagic's thoughts faltered abruptly as the master plot suddenly altered. She stared at the thick rash of icons which had dropped unannounced out of hyper and begun decelerating towards the Junction. There were at least forty of them, and alarms began to whoop and wail as the ACS sensor platforms identified them as warships.

There was a brief, breathless pause—a break in the quiet background chatter of controllers in contact with transiting merchantmen—as the crimson-banded light codes of potentially hostile superdreadnoughts and battlecruisers headed directly for the terminus. The icons of the standby forts, far less numerous than they once had been, changed color, flashing almost instantly from amber to the blood-red of combat readiness, and the two battle squadrons assigned to support them changed color almost as rapidly.

It couldn't be an attack, Dalipagic's brain insisted. No one would be stupid enough to try something like this! But even as a part of her mind insisted on that, another part reminded her that there were no military transits at all scheduled for today.

The transitory instant of silence vanished as suddenly as it had come. Urgent, priority directions went flashing out over the communications and telemetry links as Astro Control reacted to the sudden, unanticipated threat. Merchantmen already on final held their courses, but anyone more than fifteen or twenty minutes back in the transit queue was already being diverted. Not without massive confusion and protests, of course. The last thing any merchant skipper wanted was to find herself stuck in the middle of a shooting confrontation between a fleet that size and the Junction's active forts. And the way that every one of them wanted to avoid that possibility was by making her own transit through the Junction. They could always take refuge from whatever might be about to happen in the Junction's vicinity by retreating into hyper-space, but if they didn't make their transits now, they might be delayed for weeks, or even months, with catastrophic consequences for shipping schedules.

Their protests at being diverted were vocal, imaginative, and frequently profane. Intellectually, Dalipagic understood and even sympathized with them. Emotionally, all she wanted was for them to get the hell out of the way.

She was explaining that, in a tone of complete, courteous professionalism, to a particularly irate and vituperative Solly, when the master plot changed yet again. The crimson bands disappeared from around the incoming warships, replaced by the friendly green of allied units.

Well, Dalipagic thought as she recognized the data codes of units of the Grayson Space Navy, this should be interesting.

* * *

"I don't care about that!" Admiral Stokes snapped into his com. "You can't just come barging through my Junction and screw my traffic profiles all to hell!"

"I'm afraid we can," Admiral Niall MacDonnell replied calmly. His expression, as his tone, was politely courteous, but it was also implacable. "Under the terms of our alliance with the Star Kingdom, units of the Grayson Navy have unlimited and unrestricted access to the Junction. I intend to exercise those options, and my message to you constitutes formal notification of that intention as per Article XII, Section 7, paragraph (c)."

"Not without clearing it ahead of time, you won't!" Stokes shot back. The Astro Control CO glared at the image on his com screen.

"On the contrary," MacDonnell corrected in that same, calm voice. "The treaty of alliance specifically provides for unannounced, emergency transits which take absolute priority over all routine traffic."

"Emergency transits," Stokes grated, "are one thing. Just turning up unannounced, sashaying into the middle of my transit patterns, and screwing an entire day's work all to hell is another. I'm not about to interrupt the normal traffic through the Junction just to allow you to carry out some sort of training exercise, Admiral!"

"Yes, you are, Allen," another voice said. Stokes' mouth froze in the open position, then closed with an almost audible click as another officer leaned forward into the field of MacDonnell's pickup. The newcomer wore the black-and-gold of the Royal Manticoran Navy, not the GSN's blue-on-blue. His ice-blue eyes were hard, and he smiled thinly as he saw the stunned recognition in Stokes' expression.

"Admiral MacDonnell," Hamish Alexander said coldly and precisely, "is acting under the direct orders of High Admiral Matthews and Protector Benjamin, himself. He is requesting transit instructions in strict accordance with Article V of the treaty of alliance between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Grayson Protectorate. If you require it, I'm sure he will be most happy to transmit the relevant section of the treaty for your perusal. In the meantime, however, the first elements of his task force will be arriving at the Junction threshold in approximately twelve minutes. They will be anticipating an immediate departure, via the Junction, for Trevor's Star. If they aren't assigned priority transit vectors upon arrival, I suspect that the repercussions will be . . . interesting."

Stokes' face turned an intriguing shade of puce. His assignment to command Manticore Astro Control coincided with Baron High Ridge's assumption of the premiership. ACS was a civil service organization, despite its military ranks, but it came under the authority of the Ministry of Trade. Like his colleague Janacek, at the Admiralty, the Earl of North Hollow had wielded a clean broom when he took over at Trade, and Stokes had been his handpicked choice for the Junction. Like many of North Hollow's allies, he was not held in particularly high esteem by Earl White Haven. Nor had White Haven ever made any effort to conceal that fact.

"Look," Stokes half-snarled, "I don't really give a good goddamn about all of that crap! If you want to use the Junction, fine. But you'll damned well take your own slot in the transit queue instead of coming through here and bumping anybody in your way!"

"We'll make transit as we arrive," White Haven replied coldly, "or there will be a formal protest from Protector Benjamin on Foreign Secretary Descroix's desk by this time tomorrow." He showed his teeth briefly. "Admiral MacDonnell brought it with him in case it might be needed. And that protest will be accompanied by a report from Admiral MacDonnell specifically listing the names of the Manticoran officers who refused to honor the Star Kingdom's solemn obligations under interstellar covenant. A covenant from which the Protectorate will offer to withdraw if the Star Kingdom finds its reciprocal obligations under it odious. Somehow, Allen, I don't think you want to be named in Admiral MacDonnell's report."

Stokes' expression seemed to congeal like cold gravy. Its angry flush faded abruptly into something much paler and tinged with green. The Junction lay four hundred and twelve light-minutes from Manticore-A. At the moment, the capital planet itself was on the far side of the primary, which added another twelve light-minutes. Of course, ACS had been provided with grav-pulse communicators as soon as they became available. Although the capital planet lay beyond direct transmission range of even the latest generation FTL systems, repeater stations had been emplaced to cover the gap, which meant that the sheer distance between Stokes and the city of Landing no longer imposed the delays of simple light-speed transmission lags. At the moment, however, that was of scant comfort to Admiral Allen Stokes.

However quickly his message could reach the capital, there was still going to be an inevitable period of confusion and consternation at the far end of the com link. Nobody was going to want to stick his neck out until he'd had time to consult a copy of the treaty, his own immediate superiors, at least three attorneys, and probably a justice of the Queen's Bench. As White Haven had just observed, however, the first Grayson warships would reach the transit threshold in little more than ten minutes. Which meant that no one on Manticore was going to take the heat off of Stokes in time to do him any good.

The Astro Control commander was quite certain that both Stefan Young and Sir Edward Janacek were going to be livid the instant they heard about this. And he was equally certain that the two of them would relieve some of their frustration by taking it out on whatever unfortunate officer gave the Graysons permission to make transit. But if he didn't give them transit authority, and if White Haven was telling him the truth about the strength of protest Benjamin was prepared to lodge, the consequences for one Allen Stokes' career would probably be even worse. Whatever Janacek's view of the value of the alliance with Grayson might be, neither he nor North Hollow was about to court responsibility for wrecking it. And especially not at a moment when diplomatic tensions with the Republic of Haven were at their highest level since the war. So if Stokes defied MacDonnell—and White Haven—and his refusal to let the damned Graysons trample all over his traffic patterns blew up into a major diplomatic incident, he would almost certainly become the sacrificial victim offered up in its wake.

He drew a deep breath and glowered at White Haven, but even he knew that his expression lacked the voltage of true defiance.

"I feel certain," he said, with all the dignity he could muster, "that the high-handedness of this arrogant disruption of the Junction's normal civilian transit patterns will be protested at the highest level of government. There are, after all, proper procedures—procedures allies observe as a matter of simple, minimal courtesy. I, however, am not prepared to compound the diplomatic exchanges which this . . . incident will inevitably generate. I continue to protest in the strongest possible terms, but we will clear your units for immediate transit upon their arrival. Stokes, clear."

The com screen blanked, and Hamish Alexander looked at Niall MacDonnell and grinned.

"I don't think he likes us very much," the Earl of White Haven observed. "What a pity."

* * *

"Well," Commander Lampert said quietly, his eyes on the date-time display, "that's that."

"What?" Captain Reumann looked up from the message board in his lap. He let his command chair come fully upright, and swiveled it to face his executive officer. Lampert waved one hand wordlessly at the time display, and Reumann followed the gesture, frowned in brief thought, and then chuckled humorlessly.

"You know, Doug, the die was actually cast, if I may be permitted a somewhat purple phrase, when the Admiral sent Starlight on her way. It's not like we could have called anything back once she headed off into hyper, you know."

"Oh, I realize that, Sir." Lampert shook his head with a lopsided grin. "I suppose it's just that I'm a compulsive stage watcher."

" 'Stage watcher'?" Reumann shook his head. "I'm afraid am not familiar with that one."

"We're the ones who insist on chopping complex operations up into discrete stages so that we can check them off, one at a time." Lampert shrugged. "I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's how I keep things organized."

"Well, I certainly can't complain, then," Reumann told him. "Without you to keep the Sovereign organized, God knows where we'd be. But somehow I don't think the Admiral would be very happy about the results."

"Executive officer's job, Sir," Lampert replied with another shrug. "All the same, I'll feel better this time day after tomorrow."

"You'll feel better this time day after tomorrow if the ops plan works," Reumann corrected, and Lampert grimaced.

"I seem to recall having heard somewhere that it was an officer's job to project cheerful confidence, Sir."

"Indeed it is. And it's also an officer's job to remain constantly aware of potential difficulties which may interfere with the successful completion of the tasks assigned to him. Like, for example, the Manty navy." Reumann chuckled again at Lampert's expression.

"Sorry," he said after a moment, with an edge of contrition. "I don't really mean to give you a hard time, Doug. Just put it down to the peculiar way I deal with defusing my own tensions."

" 'S another thing execs are there for, Skipper." Lampert shrugged. "If the Master after God can relieve his tension, thereby improving his own efficiency, just by abusing his hapless executive officer, then said hapless executive officer is only too pleased to suffer for the good of the Service."

"Yeah. Sure he is." Captain and first officer grinned at one another, but then, as if by unspoken agreement, their eyes slid once more to the time display on the bulkhead, and their grins faded.

When it came down to it, Reumann reflected, Lampert was right. Maybe they couldn't have changed the schedule, and no doubt they truly had been committed from the moment Admiral Giscard activated Operation Thunderbolt on the instructions of President Pritchart and the Congress. But there was something more than merely symbolic about Starlight's departure from Trevor's Star to Basilisk via Manticore. Battle divisions and squadrons had been departing First Fleet's rendezvous for several days, each force heading off for its own individual objective. In fact, all of First Fleet had dispersed in accordance with Thunderbolt's minutely organized timetable, and no one could possibly have called any of them back. So the Rubicon had actually been crossed well before Starlight reached Trevor's Star. But there was still a special significance to the dispatch boat's mission, even if Reumann couldn't possibly have offered a logical explanation for why that was true.

Maybe it was simply the scale of the operations. Or perhaps it was knowing how many megatons of warships and how many thousands of Navy personnel were waiting with Second Fleet in Silesia for the arrival of that single, small vessel. Or perhaps it was even simpler than that. Perhaps it was just fear that something would still go wrong. That the Silesian Ambassador's crew would screw up their mission, or let something slip . . . or even intentionally betray the Republic whose monumental bribe had convinced the Ambassador to make his ship available to it. So much coordination depended on such a tiny ship. Somehow, the universe hadn't seemed quite so vast—or the dispatch boat quite so minute—when Thunderbolt had simply been an ops plan. Now it was reality, and Patrick Reumann had discovered that he was only too well aware of the fragility of their communication link to Second Fleet.

He gave himself a stern mental shake. What was really happening, he told himself firmly, was that he had opening night jitters. That, and the fact that despite all of the upgrades in the Republican Navy's weapons and hardware, despite all of the doctrine and tactical development Shannon Foraker and her team had carried out at Bolthole, and despite all of the simulation runs, all of the training exercises, which Javier Giscard had put First Fleet through, there was still that edge of dread. That sense of challenging Fate itself by going up against the enemy fleet which had shattered the Republic's Navy like so much glass in the final months before the cease-fire. Intellectually, Reumann knew that the Manties were far from superhuman. He only had to glance through the intelligence reports and the analyses of the incredibly stupid policies Janacek and High Ridge had instigated since assuming power to know that. But what his brain knew and his emotions expected weren't necessarily the same thing, and he felt a familiar flutter somewhere deep inside as he, too, looked at the time display and realized that, in barely thirty-two hours, the Republic of Haven would once again be openly at war with the Star Kingdom of Manticore.

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