Mission of Honor

what— in the way of meaningful improvements, at least—eluded him, but he supposed her idea of producing an 'industrial mobilization plan' couldn't hurt. At least it would be something they could show the newsies.

'Which brainstorm would that be?' The sourness in Wodoslawski's smile had nothing to do with the excellent wine which had accompanied supper.

'The one about redeploying every single Frontier Fleet battlecruiser to raid Manticoran infrastructure,' Kolokoltsov said dryly.

'Actually, compared to some of the other ideas he's come up, that one sounds almost reasonable.' MacArtney's tone was considerably more sour than Wodoslawski's smile had been.

'Fair's fair, Nathan,' Abruzzi said. 'None of us have come up with any better ones.'

'Yes?' MacArtney growled. 'Well, it wasn't our precious Navy that screwed the pooch either, now was it? And it wasn't one of us who 'forgot' to tell the rest of us that that idiot Crandall was already in the Talbott Cluster! Not to mention that he was the one who assured us no 'magical Manticoran missiles' were going to get through his defenses!'

MacArtney, Kolokoltsov reflected, was the angriest and arguably the most frightened of their quintet. That undoubtedly had a great deal to do with the fact that Frontier Security reported to him . . . and that of all of them, he was the most aware of just how catastrophic the blow to the Solarian League Navy's prestige was really likely to be out in the star systems of the Verge.

'And then there's the whole Green Pines thing,' MacArtney continued in tones of profound disgust. Abruzzi seemed to stiffen, but the interior underscretary waved a dismissive hand. 'I'm not blaming you for that one, Malachai,' he did not, Kolokoltsov noticed, say what he did blame Abruzzi for, 'but even that's going to turn around and bite us on the ass if we're not careful thanks to Rajani! You've got the reliable newsies behind us when it comes to demanding a Frontier Fleet investigation, all right. Fine. Great! Exactly what we wanted . . . when Rajani was telling us how unstoppable his damned fleet was. The problem is that we've whipped up too much fervor in some quarters. They want us to go ahead and make the Manties admit their involvement and pay Mesa a huge indemnity, and the Manties've just proved we can't make them do anything! Not if Rajani's superdreadnoughts keep getting popped like zits, anyway!'

'I think we can all agree that neither Rajani nor the rest of Battle Fleet have precisely covered themselves with glory,' the foreign affairs undersecretary observed out loud. 'On the other hand, much as I hate to admit it, the same thing could be said of all of us, whether as individuals or as a group.' He looked around the table, and his level brown eyes were serious. 'We all took the Manties much too lightly. We didn't really press Rajani, because— let's be honest here, now—none of us really thought it mattered. No matter what the Manties might have tucked away in the way of military surprises, it didn't matter, did it? Not compared to our basic tech capabilities and the size of Battle Fleet.'

'I don't think that's entirely fair, Innokentiy,' MacArtney protested. 'We discussed the possibilities, and he —'

'Sure, we 'discussed' a whole range of possible responses,' Kolokoltsov said bitingly. 'But what we didn't for even one minute consider was simply going ahead and admitting Byng was a frigging idiot who'd fucked up, murdered the crews of three Manticoran warships with absolutely no justification, and then gotten himself and everyone else aboard his flagship killed doing something even stupider. And unless my memory fails me, Nathan, a great deal of the reason we didn't consider doing that was the fact that we agreed with Rajani that we couldn't afford to let a batch of neobarbs 'get away' with something like New Tuscany because of the way Jean Bart 's destruction would undermine the Navy's prestige.'

MacArtney glared at him, but this time he kept his mouth shut, and Kolokoltsov smiled thinly.

'Well, unless I'm sadly mistaken, the destruction or capture of over seventy ships-of-the-wall, plus every single member of their screen, plus their entire supply group, by a force of Manticoran cruisers , has probably had at least some slight 'undermining' effect of its own, wouldn't you say?'

MacArtney's glared grew even more ferocious for a moment. Then it seemed to fold in on itself, and he sat back in his chair, shoulders slumping.

'Yes,' he admitted heavily. 'It has.'

'Well,' Abruzzi said a bit tartly, 'I'm sure all that levelheaded admission of reality is very cathartic, and I suppose it's something we really do have to do. On the other hand, deciding who's to blame isn't going to have much impact on getting out of this damned hole. Unless, Innokentiy, you want to suggest we go ahead and acknowledge that this is all the League's fault and ask the Manties if they'd be so kind as to allow us to lick their boots while we make amends.'

Kolokoltsov started a quick, hot retort. He managed to stop it before any of the syllables leaked out, but it wasn't easy. Especially when he recalled how airily Abruzzi had assured everyone the Manties were only posturing for their own purely domestic political ends. It wasn't as if they'd really been prepared to risk a direct confrontation with the might of the Solarian League ! Oh, goodness, no!

'No, Malachai, that isn't exactly what I had in mind,' he said after a moment, and the shutters which seemed to close behind Abruzzi's eyes told him the education and information undersecretary had recognized the careful—and hard held—restraint in his own coldly precise tone. 'Mind you, in a lot of ways, I really would prefer to settle this diplomatically, even if we did end up having to eat crow. When I think of what this is going to cost, I'd be even be willing to substitute dead buzzard for the crow, if that offered us a way to avoid paying it. Unfortunately, I don't think we can avoid it.'

'Not after pumping so much hydrogen into the Green Pines fire, anyway,' Wodoslawski agreed glumly. 'I'd say that's pretty much finished poisoning the well where diplomacy's concerned. And now that the newsies have hold of what happened to Crandall, as well, any suggestion on our part that we ought to be negotiating's only going to be seen as a sign of weakness. One that turns loose every damned thing we've been worrying about from the beginning.'

'Exactly.' Kolokoltsov looked around the supper table. 'It's no use recognizing how much less expensive it would've been to treat the Manties' claims and accusations seriously.'

In fact, Kolokoltsov couldn't think of another single event—or any combination of events, for that matter—in his entire lifetime which had come even close to having the impact this one had. The citizens of the Solarian League had been told so often, and so firmly, that their navy was the largest and most powerful not simply currently but in the entire history of mankind that they'd believed it. Which was fair enough— Kolokoltsov had believed it, too, hadn't he? But now that navy had been defeated. It wasn't a case of a single light unit somewhere, one whose loss might never even have been noted by the League's news establishment. It wasn't even a case of a Frontier Fleet squadron surrendering to avoid additional loss of life. Not anymore, anyway.

No. It was a case of an entire fleet of ships-of-the-wall—of Battle Fleet's most powerful and modern units— being not simply defeated but crushed . Humiliated. Dispatched with such offhand ease that its survivors were forced to surrender to mere cruisers of a 'neobarb' navy from the backside of nowhere.

The newsies who'd charged off to the Talbott Cluster to cover the New Tuscany incidents had gotten far more than they'd bargained for, he thought grimly. They'd come flooding home in their dispatch boats, racing to beat the Royal Manticoran Navy dispatches bearing word of the battle—and of Admiral O'Cleary's surrender—back to Manticore. The first rumors of the catastrophe had actually reached the Old Earth media even before the latest Manticoran diplomatic note—this one accompanied by Admiral Keeley O'Cleary in person—reached Old Chicago.

The public hadn't taken it well.

The initial response had been to brush off the reports as yet more unfounded rumors. After all, the news was impossible on the face of things. Cruisers—even battlecruisers— simply didn't defeat ships-of-the-wall any more than antelopes hunted down tigers. The very suggestion was ludicrous.

But then it began to sink in. Ludicrous or not, it had happened. The greatest political, economic, and military power in the explored galaxy had been backhanded into submission by a handful of cruisers. Estimates of fatalities were still thankfully vague, but even the Solarian public was capable of figuring out that when a superdreadnought