Mission of Honor

'That would be outstandingly stupid,' White Haven agreed.

'I know. In fact, if it hadn't leaked on it's own, we'd have had to break the news ourselves before much longer. So, in a way, it's only forced our hand a bit earlier than we'd planned. But that still leaves the question of exactly what we do about it.'

'Do about it?' White Haven repeated, arching one eyebrow in obvious puzzlement. 'Do about what?'

'About how we respond publicly,' Grantville explained with more than a hint of exasperation. 'Specifically, about why it came in the form of a leak instead of from us. You know  how critical it is that we—'

He paused suddenly, eyes narrowing in abrupt suspicion, then snorted at his brother's quick grin.

'I suppose you think you're clever, Ham?' he said witheringly.

'Maybe not, but at least I've got a sense of humor,' White Haven replied.

'That's one man's opinion.'

White Haven chuckled. It really hadn't been all that funny, but anything that could amuse William even briefly was worth it at the moment.

'How are we going to respond?' he asked rather more seriously.

'You'll find out at nineteen-hundred, local,' William told him. 'That's when Elizabeth is going live system- wide.'

* * *

Elizabeth Winton's expression was solemn as she looked out of HD displays throughout the entire Manticore Binary System while the totally unnecessary official introduction came to an end.

It wasn't as if anyone was going to fail to recognize her, even though as a general rule the Queen of Manticore seldom addressed all her subjects at the same time. In fact, these days she couldn't. She couldn't even simultaneously address all of the subjects of the 'Old Star Kingdom,' far less the entire Star Empire, since no one could drive a signal through a wormhole junction to Trevor's Star or the Lynx Terminus. Normally, when she spoke publicly at all, it was to relatively small gatherings—at 'town hall meetings,' civic organizations, charitable associations, and similar events. Clips of her remarks from those occasions, and sometimes even entire speeches, were frequently rebroadcast, but the tradition was that the reigning monarch did not engage in partisan politics. Everyone knew she (or he) really did, given that the monarch was acting head of government as well as head of state, but not in the rough-and-tumble of political strife. Which meant the prime minister was the usual face of Her Majesty's Government, except on particularly critical occasions.

Like tonight's.

'Good evening,' she said quietly. 'I'm speaking to you tonight because the Star Empire— our Star Empire—faces what is undoubtedly the greatest challenge and threat in our history.'

She paused and reached up to gently touch the ears of the treecat stretched across the back of her chair, letting that sentence settle into her subjects' minds. Then she lowered her arm, folded her hands together on the antique desk blotter in front of her, and continued unflinchingly.

'The events of the past fifteen T-months have been the most traumatic period in the lives of every man, woman and child of the Old Star Kingdom of Manticore. No one could have imagined in her worst nightmares the sequence of events which began with the Battle of Monica, then continuted through the proposed summit meeting between myself and President Pritchart, then the assassination of Admiral Webster thirteen months ago, and the simultaneous attack on Queen Berry of Torch and my own niece. Then came the Battle of Lovat, one T-year ago—a decisive victory . . . followed less than three T-months later by the Battle of Manticore, with all the millions of dead and shattered ships which were left in its wake. And no sooner had we begun to recover from that desperate struggle, then we found ourselves plunged into a fresh confrontation—this time with the Solarian League itself—at New Tuscany. All of you know what happened when Admiral Josef Byng treacherously, and cravenly, massacred three ships of our Navy—three destroyers , fired upon by seventeen Solarian battlecruisers when they hadn't even raised their wedges or sidewalls. And all of you know what happened when Countess Gold Peak arrived at New Tuscany to demand an explanation and an accounting.'

She paused once more, then allowed herself to inhale deeply.

'The confrontation with the Solarian League was not of our seeking. We endeavored to make that point clear to the Solarian government, but our diplomatic efforts were rebuffed, and our warnings about the seriousness of our impending collision—and of the outside forces we had come to believe were deliberately bringing that collision about—were ignored. Which led, just under four T-months ago, to the Battle of Spindle, where a handful of our heavy cruisers completely defeated over seventy Solarian superdreadnoughts.'

An edge of iron pride showed in her voice, but her expression remained solemn, serious and focused.

'I'm sure all of you recall that moment of combined fear for the future and pride in our uniformed men and women when we realized not a single Manticoran, not one of our Grayson allies, had even been injured at Spindle. It seemed impossible that the vaunted Solarian Navy could have been so summarily and completely defeated.

'Which'—her voice dropped and hardened—'made the shock and horror of the attack on our home system immeasurably worse than it would have been anyway. It hit us at the very moment when our confidence and relief were highest, and it took us completely by surprise. The truth is that no one—not the Admiralty, not our intelligence services, not our diplomats, not our political leaders, not I, but no one —even saw that attack coming.'

She made the admission unflinchingly.

'We believe the attack was made possible through the development of a radically new starship drive technology. We believe we have, after a painstaking analysis of Perimeter Security's records, identified the hyper footprint of the attackers' arrival, although it wasn't recognized as such at the time. We also believe it would be extraordinarily difficult, if not outright impossible, for a similar operation to be repeated without the attackers being detected and engaged far short of their targets.

'Yet despite all that, the truth remains—we were attacked. The attack was totally successful. Millions of our citizens, thousands of visitors to our star system, and an unconscionable percentage of the intelligent species native to this, our home system, died in a deliberate, callous attack whose very nature precluded the notice to evacuate nonmilitary personnel required under the universally recognized rules of warfare. It was, by any standard anyone might choose to apply, the most successful, most devastating, and bloodiest surprise attack in the history of human warfare, and it left our industrial infrastructure crippled and in ruins.'

She paused once more, and throughout the Manticore Binary System literally billions of other human beings sat silent with her, staring at her face, wondering what she would say—what she could say—next.

'Even if we'd attempted to, there would have been no way we could have kept what happened here a secret,' she resumed finally. 'Although no one could definitively say even who was responsible for it, the fact that the attack had occurred, and its consequences, spread rapidly throughout the League. We do believe we know who was behind the attack upon us.' Her eyes hardened, and surprise rippled through her enormous audience. 'At this point, we can't prove our suspicions, but looking at everything which has happened over the past T-year, there is a very clear and discernible pattern. We know, without doubt, that we're still merely scratching the surface, that there are far more things we don't know than things we do know. But I am totally confident that we'll find the proof we require. We will discover who was behind that attack, where that attack originated, and who carried it out, and when we've proven those things to our complete satisfaction, we will act.'

Her voice was a sword, chilled steel with a razor edge, and her treecat companion's ears flattened as he showed bared, needle-pointed canines.

'In the meantime, however,' she continued, 'those in the League whose stupidity and arrogance made them so amenable to our enemies' manipulation have not suddenly become wise. As some in the media have been reporting, the Solarian League Navy, having failed to learn its lesson at Spindle, has decided to move directly against the Manticore System. We anticipate the arrival of several hundred Solarian superdreadnoughts in our space within the next two to three T-weeks.'

If the silence of her audience had been profound before, it became absolute as she made that