Worlds of Honor

highly visible component of the Erewhon Merchant Marine.

(Not so highly visible, but not escaping the Manticorans, was that some of the bulk carriers were rather over-built for their work, with features that smelled ever so slightly of Solarian League naval dockyards. A bribe to the Erewhonese, a reserve in case the Sollies ever needed troop lift in this area, or something else entirely?)

Still more unfortunately, Silvestria wasn't going to get that generation. A T-year and a half ago, the long expansion of the People's Republic of Haven had run so hard into the obstinate independence of the Star Kingdom of Manticore that long-simmering tension had flared into open war.

Erewhon's allies and patrons, the Solarian League, had also coveted the Manticore Junction. Although the Sollies were a little less crude about it than the Peeps, there was little love lost between the Assembly on Old Earth and the Star Kingdom, and they were definitely neutral in a way that let them transfer technology to the Peeps. Perhaps even worse, from Manticore's viewpoint, the League's security concerns made it extremely nervous about anyone intervening anywhere close to any of the Junctions that it already claimed or—as in the case of Erewhon— controlled indirectly through military and economic treaties.

So even when it became obvious that the Peeps were putting down a mission in the Kingdom of Chuiban, the Star Kingdom could not intervene as openly. Fortunately, it didn't have to. One of the Admiralty's secret assets, carefully saved up for just such a situation as this, was covert advisers like Major Ryder and her team.

'Break ranks and gather round,' the major said. It took a moment for the other Royal Marines and the Royal Navy contingent to stop looking around for the vast multitude that Ryder seemed to be addressing. Thirty men and women sitting in chairs could hardly form ranks in the first place!

'We were all there for Exercise Juno,' she said, when the team had formed a semi-circle around the map. 'Those of us who weren't with the shore party made the inland run. What do the Republic's prospects look like to you? Anyone?'

Master Chief Sick Berth Attendant Loren Bexo replied first, which did not surprise Major Ryder. He knew more about healing casualties than any other two SBA's she'd ever known. He also knew more than he would usually admit about inflicting the casualties in the first place. Why he was no longer an Assault Marine was his personal business, but that background made him even more invaluable to the Silvestria mission than he would have been otherwise.

'If the next mobile force to get ashore anywhere within two hundred klicks north or south of Port Malcolm is real, instead of simulated, the Republic is hip-deep in hexapuma shit,' Bexo said. 'Anything brigade-sized stands a good chance of encircling the city and cutting off all three passes to the Highlands.'

'What about the guns at the passes?' a Navy lieutenant (j.g.) said. 'Couldn't they keep the passes open?'

'Not against targets in the forest, unless they had very good aerial observation,' Ryder said. Probably not even then, she added mentally. Silvestria was short of heavier metals like iron; steel was expensive. The Guard's best artillery was assigned to the coastal defenses of Port Malcolm; what was left to hold the passes would not have raised eyebrows on an Old Earth battlefield centuries before the Diaspora.

'The Guard can block the roads to the Highlands by cutting down trees across them,' a Marine sergeant pointed out. 'As a matter of fact, I understand that's part of the plan anyway.'

Ryder had a visceral reaction to both wagging tongues and dressing down subordinates in public. The two reactions fought to a standstill, giving an ache to her stomach and an edge to her voice.

'A thoroughly secret part, unless I've forgotten our briefing from the Director of the Guard. Which he was courteous enough to give us personally.'

'Ah, well—I got a personal—briefing—from somebody who's on the tree-chopping crew. And she pointed out the problem, too. There's not enough airlift to get the Malcomers upland, let alone the rest of the Lowlands. They'd have to go by road, and fallen trees would block any ground vehicles, not just a mobile enemy.'

And the one railroad could be broken by blowing any one of five bridges from the air or even from orbit. Ryder sighed. It looked as if the sergeant had fraternized but given no more than he gained—which was not a bad way for such an affair to go, and besides, she was not really in a position to throw stones.

'I have to agree,' Ryder said. 'No harm done this time, Sergeant, but everybody remember about mistimed curiosity. If we didn't have the goodwill of the Guard, we wouldn't be even close to having six hundred combat-ready Sea Fencibles. The Republic is giving us everything they can afford and maybe a little more. We all have some sort of body armor, but half their artillery crews are still wearing fatigues and helmets!

'So don't let's us embarrass them unnecessarily, all right?'

Everyone agreed enthusiastically, maybe even sincerely, but she saw the reservations on every face. It would take more than cooperation, it would take miracles, to give the Canmore Republic some sort of offensive capability before Carl Euvinophan's private army was ready to cross the Central Sea and become that non-simulated mobile brigade.

Then the red on the map would be a trail of equally non-simulated bodies. It almost helped that the oldest tradition of the Marine advisers (nearly ten years old) was to be among the corpses when the smoke cleared. That meant fewer hard decisions to make during the fighting, and none at all afterward.

The Kingdom of Chuiban's main western port was not blacked out. That would have made no sense, even if the Canmore Republic had possessed a halfway-decent satellite network or even a reliably friendly eye aboard the orbital freight station. A satellite net or the station would have been over Buwayjon several times before the tanks were safely under cover, and tanks gave off impressive heat signatures even from orbit.

Fortunately, the freight station was under the control of the foolish, decadent, elitist, and obstinately neutral Erewhonese. They kept it as neutral as they were. Also, they had not sold either contender on Silvestria more than a few basic weather satellites.

When somebody on Silvestria suddenly flourished a satellite network, it would be the Kingdom of Chuiban. And the satellites would work–Citizen People's Commissioner Jean Testaniere had handpicked the models himself, then personally run the diagnostic and maintenance tests on them. It might be considered dangerously elitist for a People's Commissioner to exhibit so much technical competence, but it was simply dangerous to trust one's life to electronics left in the hands of people who did not know one piece of diagnostic nanoware from another.

The first tanks were now turning off the pier and rolling up Mongkut Avenue, from which all civilian traffic had been barred by white-gloved Field Police. There were too many of them to all be from the city's modest Royal Army garrison; some of warlord Euvinophan's own Field Police company had to have arrived with the vehicle convoy.

A challenge floated through the thin mist, and a response came back. The challenger was the Commissioner's bodyguard, Citizen Sergeant Pescu of the State Security; the response came from Citizen Captain Paul Weldon, of the People's Navy.

Testaniere wondered how long Weldon had been in town. The commissioner hadn't heard the pinnace land, and both Weldon and his two pilots were fond of making a noisy entrance.

'Greetings, Citizen Captain,' Testaniere said. They shook hands, the greeting of equals, although privately Testaniere wondered if the Citizen Captain would ever have risen above Lieutenant Commander under the Legislaturalist regime.

Testaniere was sure that he himself would have risen at least to foreman if he had stayed at the shop long enough. He had always had the self-confidence which comes with mastering a particular body of knowledge— which he was elitist enough to know was hardly universal among the ranks of the People's Commissioners, State Security, or even the armed forces of the People's Republic!

'Fraternal greetings to you, Citizen Commissioner,' Weldon replied. He sniffed the air. 'A fine night for our work, eh?'

'I could wish it were not quite so fine,' Testaniere said. 'A good thick fog would hide us from eyes closer than the Republic's.'

'You doubt the loyalty and discretion of the people looking forward to the day of liberation from a monarchy?' Weldon's incredulity was not entirely an act.