A Rising Thunder

way,” Magellan informed him. “Although, to be honest, I don’t think we’re going to need as much more as you may believe.”

The ammunition ship HMS Bandolier emerged from the terminus, stuffed to the deckheads with missile pods and additional Mark 16 missiles for his cruisers, while he was speaking, and he smiled.

“My pinnaces will be headed your way within the next twenty minutes, Captain Palffi,” he continued. “My Marines will come aboard your control platforms shortly thereafter. I have no desire for anyone to get hurt, and I trust you’ll feel the same. I warn you, however, that my Marines will be in battle armor and they will be authorized to use lethal force if they’re attacked or forcibly resisted. Is that understood?”

Palffi glared at him, and Magellan cocked his head.

“I asked if that was understood, Captain,” he said in a considerably cooler voice, and his eyes hardened.

“Understood,” Palffi got out finally, and Magellan allowed his own expression to ease slightly.

“Good. As I say, I would genuinely prefer for no one to be hurt on either side. I’m not going to pretend I’m not as pissed off as any other Manticoran, but I’m also aware that no one here in the Stine System bears any responsibility for what’s happened in the Talbott Quadrant. I’d just as soon not contribute any more to the bad blood between the Star Empire and the League then I have to under the letter of my orders.”

“Really?” Palffi looked at him skeptically, then shrugged. “Maybe you do mean that, but it doesn’t matter what you’d ‘just as soon’ happen, Commodore. Not anymore. You’ve stepped across the line this time, and you’re a hell of a long way away from home.”

“Manticorans are accustomed to being a long way away from home, Captain. And we’re accustomed to taking care of ourselves when we are. No doubt a sufficiently strong SLN detachment could push me off this terminus, but I guarantee you that before it does, it’ll lose many times the tonnage of my squadron.”

“Sure it will.” Palffi snorted contemptuously. “I’m sure Battle Fleet’s wallers will just be scared to death of your cruisers, Commodore!”

“They will be if they’ve bothered to read the reports about what happened at Spindle,” Magellan replied calmly. “These are exactly the same class of cruisers which captured or destroyed Fleet Admiral Crandall’s entire fleet, Captain Palffi.”

The Solarian’s face went suddenly blank and stiff. For a moment, he only stared at Magellan. Then he inhaled sharply and shook himself.

“Pardon me if I don’t exactly shake in my boots,” he said in a voice which seemed to have lost just a bit of its previous certainty. “But there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do to stop you. Just exactly what do your Marines plan to do after they board my platforms?”

“Mostly just keep an eye on you until I can contact President Zell and get some transport dispatched out here to take your people off.”

“You’re kicking us off our own platforms?”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” Magellan conceded. “I prefer to think of it as getting your people safely out of the line of fire, however. If the Solarian Navy is rash enough to attempt to retake control of this terminus by force, I don’t want any stray missiles taking out control platforms full of innocent bystanders.”

Palffi’s eyes examined his expression closely for several seconds. Then the Solarian nodded slowly.

“Appreciate it,” he said grudgingly, with obvious reluctance.

“As I say, Captain Palffi, I’d really prefer for no one to get hurt. So we’ll just get you and your people out of the way. Because,” Magellan’s expression hardened once again, his eyes bleak, “if the League does try to retake this terminus, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Where’s Rajani?” Nathan MacArtney demanded. His expression was not a happy one, which struck Innokentiy Kolokoltsov as a bit ironic, under the circumstances.

“He’s off-planet,” the senior permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs said dryly. “I understand he’s out at Hyperion One for a staff conference on the best way to go about mobilizing and modernizing the Reserve…just on the off chance the Manties actually decide to fight after all, you understand.”

MacArtney flushed angrily at the none too subtle jab. He started to say something sharp, then visibly restrained himself. Which was wise of him, Kolokoltsov thought acidly. He and Rajampet had burned a lot of credit with their fellow Mandarins.

“I wonder how long he can stay out there?” Malachai Abruzzi asked sourly.

“Until the energy death of the universe, as far as I’m concerned.” Omosupe Quartermain’s tone was even more sour than Abruzzi’s, and Kolokoltsov snorted.

“I’m sure he’s actually getting some work done while he’s out there — if only to cover his ass when the newsies start hounding him. But it is convenient for him, isn’t it? For now, at least.”

Hyperion One was the SLN’s primary Sol System space station. It was not only the Navy’s largest single construction and service platform but the HQ location for its Logistics Command. LogCom was responsible for the vast number of superdreadnoughts mothballed not only there but at Battle Fleet installations in half a dozen other star systems. Hyperion One also orbited the planet Mars, not Old Terra, which left it roughly four light-minutes inside Sol’s hyper limit yet much closer to the asteroid smelters which still produced the bulk of the Sol System’s industrial resources — a compromise between security and convenience which was looking a little less secure, in Kolokoltsov’s opinion, given the preposterous missile ranges the Manties were supposed to be attaining. At the moment, however, it offered Rajampet a different sort of security. The current distance from Old Chicago to Hyperion One was just over four light-minutes, which made any sort of real-time conversation impractical, to say the least. Coupled with the admiral’s concern over the security of their communications, it put him safely beyond reach of the pointed interrogation he obviously knew awaited him.

“Convenient or not, he’s for the long drop,” Abruzzi said flatly. MacArtney looked as if he wanted to argue, but the permanent senior undersceretary of education and information went straight on. “No matter how we try to spin this one, someone’s got to take it in the neck. You don’t have this kind of disaster without determining who’s responsible for it and giving him the ax, Nathan, and you know it. He’s the senior uniformed officer of the Navy. That makes him the logical choice. For that matter, he’s the one who really is responsible for it!”

“That’s going to touch off a firestorm in the Fleet,” MacArtney said after a moment. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying the Navy’s going to see it as a bunch of civilians stabbing the uniforms in the back to cover their own backsides.”

“Of course they are!” Agata Wodoslawski snorted. “If they don’t see it that way, they’ll have to admit their precious Navy couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse!”

More than one other person attending the high-security electronic conference winced. That sort of language was rare out of Wodoslawski, but it did capture the gist of their collective opinion rather neatly.

“What I want to know is what the hell Filareta thought he was doing,” Kolokoltsov said flatly.

He’d replayed the recordings the Manties had sent along with Eleventh Fleet’s preliminary casualty reports again and again, seen the exchange between that cold-blooded bitch Harrington and Filareta. Kolokoltsov was no trained naval officer, but it had been obvious even to him that unless Harrington was lying — and she hadn’t been; that much should certainly have been clear to Filareta — Eleventh Fleet had stood the proverbial chance of a snowball in hell. She’d had him — had him dead to rights — and she’d given him the option of surrendering, but the maniac had chosen to fire instead!

“I don’t know what he was thinking,” MacArtney admitted bitterly. “And nobody ever will, now.”