but only if we start now. Any civilian starships who can evade are to do the same thing, but if the Manties bring them into range and order them to halt, they are to obey immediately. Make certain that's clearly understood.'
'And the LACs, Ma'am?' McGwire's voice was completely nonjudgmental as Carmouche announced her intention of abandoning the star system to the enemy.
'They're to return to base immediately, and those bases' personnel are to be evacuated dirt-side as rapidly as possible. After which they'll blow their fusion plants,' she replied flatly. 'I wish we had the personnel lift to pick up Diego's crews in passing, but we don't. And I very much doubt the Manties brought along transports to haul prisoners home with them, anyway.'
'That would require a bit of gall, Ma'am,' McGwire agreed. 'On the other hand, look how close to Haven they're operating. I'm afraid gall is one thing they obviously aren't short on.'
'Well, this is an anticlimax,' Alistair McKeon observed to his chief of staff.
'ONI can't get it right all the time, Sir,' Commander Orndorff said. 'The last time we looked, there was a substantial picket here. Obviously, times have changed.' She shrugged philosophically. She was a substantial woman, who produced a substantial shrug, and the treecat on her shoulder flirted his tail in agreement with his person's observation.
'As if you know anything about intelligence appreciations!' McKeon told the 'cat.
'Banshee made it all the way through the Crusher with me, Sir,' Orndorff pointed out. 'You might be surprised what he picked up along the way.'
'I might at that,' McKeon agreed, chuckling as he remembered the first treecat he'd ever met. Then he shook himself.
'All right, CIC is confident about its tracking data?' he asked.
'Yes, Sir,' another voice said. It belonged to Commander Alekan Slowacki, McKeon's ops officer and a relative newcomer to his command team. Now Slowacki gestured at the master plot's display of the Fordyce System, indicating a small cluster of red dots accelerating rapidly towards the hyper limit.
'That's all seven of the heavy cruisers Venturer's arrays picked up, Sir,' he continued. 'And this,' he pointed to another swarm of ruby light chips, 'is over a hundred LACs returning to base.' He shook his head. 'Their system commander, whoever he is, hasn't commed us to announce he's standing down, but he's obviously intelligent enough to know what would happen if he didn't.'
'And their missile pods?'
'No word on those, Sir. Probably the reason the system CO hasn't contacted you directly,' Slowacki said. 'He's not prepared to stand them down, as well, and he's afraid you might insist he do so.'
'Damned straight I would,' McKeon half-growled. Then he shook his head. 'Not that I'd be inclined to commit any atrocities if he declined. Mind you, it'd tempting, but Duchess Harrington would feed me to Nimitz, one bite at a time if I did anything like that!'
'That's probably an understatement, Sir,' Orndorff said with a ghost of a smile.
'Whatever.' McKeon brooded over the plot for several more seconds, then nodded decisively.
'Okay. They're abandoning the system-or, at least, they aren't going to defend it with anything except the pods-and according to Venturer and Mandrake, they don't have more than a hundred or so of those. I'm going to assume they have at least twice as many as we've actually found, however. And if they don't want to get their LACs killed, I don't see any reason we should get ours killed, either. Contact Admiral Corsini. I want only the Katanas deployed, strictly in the missile defense role. We'll take Intransigent and Elizabeth in, covered by Gottmeyer's cruisers and the Katanas. Corsini is to retain Atchison's cruiser division and the destroyers as a screen for the carriers and stay outside the hyper limit. If any unpleasant strangers appear, she's too immediately withdraw and return directly to Trevor's Star.'
'We could probably sweep up the pieces faster with a couple of LAC groups, Sir,' Orndorff pointed out in a diplomatic tone, and McKeon nodded.
'Yes, we could. On the other hand, a couple of SD(P)s can wipe out every significant platform out there in less than fifteen minutes if we have to. I'm not going to send in the LACs while holding the wallers out of missile range, and if I'm going to take the division in anyway, there's no point exposing Shrikes and Ferrets to potential lucky hits from the pods. If it takes us a little longer to do the job this way, so be it.'
'Aye, aye, Sir,' Orndorff said, and waved Slowacki towards the flag bridge's com section.
Captain Arakel Hovanian, acting commodore of the 93rd Destroyer Squadron, Republican Navy, glared at the master plot showing the icons of four CLACs, four battlecruisers, and seven destroyers and light cruisers sweeping inward from the hyper limit of the Des Moines System.
'Sir, Governor Bruckheimer is on the com,' Commander Ellen Stokley, the skipper of the destroyer RHNS Racer and Hovanian's flag captain said quietly.
'Switch it to my display,' Hovanian directed, and the small com flatscreen filled with the image of Governor Arnold Bruckheimer as the commodore slid into his command chair.
'Commodore Hovanian,' the Governor said without preamble. 'What the hell are you still doing here?'
'I beg your pardon?' Hovanian's eyes narrowed in surprise.
'I asked you what the hell you're still doing here,' Bruckheimer repeated flatly. 'Aside from the very high probability of getting yourself and all of your personnel killed, that is?'
'Governor, I'm responsible for the defense of this system, and-'
'And if you try to defend it, you're going to fail,' Bruckheimer interrupted brusquely. 'I can still read a tactical plot, you know.'
Hovanian had opened his mouth to reply hotly, but he closed it again with a click at the reminder that Bruckheimer was a retired admiral.
'Better,' Bruckheimer said a bit more conversationally. Then he cocked his head to one side, his eyes compassionate. 'Commodore-Arakel-you just got dropped straight into the crapper through absolutely no fault of your own. If they'd waited another three weeks, we'd have had some significant reinforcements waiting for them. But they didn't, and you don't have a single capital ship under your command. There are exactly twenty-six Cimeterres in this entire star system; I know even better than you just how thin our missile pods are stretched; and you've got less than half your own squadron present for duty. There's no way you're going to stop this with three destroyers, and,' Bruckheimer's voice hardened around the edges once more, 'if you try-and survive the experience-I will personally see you court-martialed. Do I make myself clear?'
'Yes, Sir,' Hovanian said after a long, still moment. 'Yes, Sir. You do.'
'Good.' Bruckheimer ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair and grimaced. 'We're going to have to come up with some sort of response to this strategy of theirs, but I'm damned if I know what the Octagon's going to do about it. In the meantime, get your people out of here before they all get killed.'
'Aye, Sir,' Hovanian said. He nodded to Stokely, who began issuing the necessary orders, then looked back at Bruckheimer. 'And... thank you, Sir,' he said to the man who had just saved his life.
'I wonder what other systems they're hitting today?' Admiral Bressand said.
'Maybe they aren't hitting any other systems, Sir,' Commander Claudette Guyard, his chief of staff said.
'Oh, please, Claudette!' Bressand shook his head.
'I didn't say I thought they weren't, Sir. I just pointed out a possibility.'
'Theoretically, anything is possible,' Bressand said. 'Some things, however, are more likely-or, conversely, less likely-than others.'
'True, but-'
Guyard paused as Lieutenant Commander Krenckel appeared quietly at her elbow.
'Yes, Ludwig?' she said.
'We've confirmed it,' Bressand's ops officer said. 'Assuming they haven't decided to try to spoof our identification for some reason, two of those ships are definitely a pair of the Invictuses that hit Hera. I'm guessing one of them is the Manties' Eighth Fleet's flagship.'
'Which means we probably are about to play host to 'the Salamander' herself,' Guyard observed. 'There's an honor-you should pardon the pun-I could have done without.'
'You and me both,' Bressand said, remembering his conversation with Poykkonen. 'Not that it's going to take any tactical genius to kick the crap out of us with this kind of force imbalance.'
'Maybe not, Sir,' Krenckel said. 'On the other hand, there's a sort of backhanded compliment in getting pounded by the other side's best.'
