A Rising Thunder

projecting an attack over that great an interstellar distance was likely to give the enemy too much time to recover his strategic balance.

“In fairness, I have to admit my reservations were nowhere near as pronounced as what I’ve just said might indicate. For one thing, I had no more idea than anyone else that the Havenites might actually ally themselves to the Manties. I don’t think anybody saw that one coming. I was simply concerned about getting in too deeply too quickly.” He shrugged. “In my worst nightmares, I never envisioned anything as disastrous as what happened to Fleet Admiral Filareta, however. It would be grossly unfair to Rajani — and, for that matter, to Filareta — to pretend I had any better idea of what was going to happen than they did.”

“Then why raise the point at all?” Kolokoltsov inquired.

“Because the reason I had my reservations about Operation Raging Justice is that I believed there was rather more truth — or could be, at any rate — than Rajani did to the stories about Manticoran missile ranges. I hadn’t realized how thoroughly they appear to have transitioned to pod-launched missiles, or that they’d incorporated an FTL component into their fire control, but I did think evidence suggested they truly had significantly increased their missiles’ effective range. Under the circumstances, I would have preferred to test the waters a little before we committed a wall of battle to action. Better to have lost a few battlecruisers here or there than to have three or four hundred SDs blown out of space.”

“I see.” Kolokoltsov wondered how much of that was true and how much spin. On the other hand, Kingsford had been around long enough to know how the game was played. He wouldn’t have said what he’d just said if there hadn’t been a paper trail of memos somewhere which could at least be interpreted to support the analysis he’d just delivered.

“Should I assume, then, Fleet Admiral, that you’d be opposed to any additional fleet actions at this time?”

“Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” Kingsford said flatly, “any ‘additional fleet actions’ could only be one-sided massacres. Even assuming what Harrington said to Filareta in the recordings they’ve sent us represents a full statement of their capabilities, without holding any nasty tactical surprises in reserve, we simply can’t match them at this time. There probably hasn’t been this great an imbalance in combat power since the introduction of the machine-gun put an end to massed infantry assaults.”

Kolokoltsov’s eyes widened, despite himself, at the frankness of that response. It was refreshingly — and utterly — different from anything Rajampet had ever said.

“It’s really that bad?” he asked, curious to see how far are Kingsford would go.

“It’s probably worse than that, frankly, especially with Haven added to the equation,” the acting CNO said unflinchingly. “For all intents and purposes, the Reserve has just become several billion tons of scrap material. The superdreadnoughts we have mothballed are the wrong ships for this war, and I don’t see any way the existing hulls could be refitted to turn them into effective combatants.”

Well, that’s a kick in the head, Kolokoltsov thought dourly. On the other hand, if Omosupe and Agata are right, we won’t have the cash to reactivate the Reserve, anyway. Of course, that leaves the little problem of where we’re going to find the cash to build new wallers if we can’t even demothball the ones we’ve already got!

“Are you saying we should just go ahead and surrender?” he asked, deliberately putting an edge into his voice, and Kingsford shook his head.

“For better or worse, Sir, I don’t think we can. Whether we want to fight or not, we don’t have a choice after the defeats we’ve suffered. And that’s what they were, Mr. Senior Permanent Undersecretary — make no mistake about that, because nobody in the Verge will. It’s not just the Manties and Havenites we have to worry about. We’re going to have other people, other star systems, pushing to see how they can exploit the situation. We can contain a lot of that, since none of those other systems will have the kind of missiles the Manties and Haven do, but if we don’t ultimately defeat the people who’ve hurt us this badly, their example’s going to remain and we’ll be fighting smaller scale wars for decades.”

“I see. But if we can’t send our wall of battle out to fight their wall of battle, what do we do?”

“Actually, Sir, if I may, I’d like to bring in one of our analysts to present a little additional background before I respond to that question.”

“What sort of analyst, Fleet Admiral?”

“Captain Gweon, Sir — Captain Caswell Gweon. He’s the CO of the Office of Economic Analysis over at ONI.”

“Really? Only a captain?” Kolokoltsov said with a small smile, and Kingsford smiled back.

“He’s already been selected for rear admiral, Sir. His name’s on the next list to be submitted to the Assembly for approval.”

“I see,” Kolokoltsov repeated. “Very well, Fleet Admiral. How soon can Captain Gweon get here?”

“If you have the time for it now, Sir, he’s waiting with your assistant.”

“Ah.” Kolokoltsov touched a key on his chair arm. “Astrid?”

“Yes, sir?” a female voice said out of thin air.

“If you have a Captain Gweon squirreled away in your office, would you be kind enough to send him in now?”

“Of course, Sir.”

The office door opened to admit a somewhat taller than average, immaculately uniformed SLN captain with brown hair and brown eyes. He struck Kolokoltsov as looking even younger than his rank would have suggested, and the permanent senior undersecretary frowned slightly as Astrid Wang uploaded a brief bio on to the holo display which could be seen only from behind Kolokoltsov’s desk.

It was a very brief bio in this case, consisting of about the barest bone vital statistics he’d ever seen. Normally, he would have expected much more, but Gweon wasn’t one of the political figures Astrid would already have had prepackaged bios for.

Not as young as he’d thought, Kolokoltsov observed. Prolong could fool anyone, but it must’ve worked uncommonly well in Gweon’s case. He scarcely looked sixty-five T-years old, at any rate! Without a more detailed bio, Kolokoltsov couldn’t be certain, but it looked as if Gweon was well connected within the Navy’s hierarchy, which raised the interesting question of why he’d gone into intelligence. That wasn’t — or hadn’t been, anyway — the fast track to senior rank. For that matter, Gweon had only inherited his present position less than five T- months earlier, when Vice Admiral Yountz managed to slip and break his neck on the wet surround of his swimming pool.

“Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary, Fleet Admiral Kingsford,” Gweon murmured, bowing respectfully to both men.

“I understand you’re one of the Navy’s economic experts, Captain,” Kolokoltsov replied. “And Fleet Admiral Kingsford wanted you in here to talk to me about something. What would that happen to be?”

If the bluntness of the question flustered Gweon in any way, it wasn’t apparent. He only nodded, as if he’d expected it.

“I believe that would be in regards to my analysis of the economic consequences of a war with the Star Empire of Manticore, Sir.”

“I think we’ve already come to the conclusion that the consequences are going to be unhappy, Captain,” Kolokoltsov said dryly. “Should I assume you have some additional illumination to cast upon them?”

“I can’t really promise to cast any new illumination without having had access to the reports you’ve already seen, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” Gweon replied calmly. “I do have the Navy’s perspective on them, however.”

“Then share that with me, if you would.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Kolokoltsov hadn’t invited the captain to be seated, but that didn’t seem to faze Gweon, either. The intelligence officer simply clasped his hands behind him, standing with the easy poise of someone accustomed to presenting briefings, and began.

“I’m going to assume, Sir, that you don’t want the detailed statistical basis for my analysis at this time. I have that material with me, on chip, and I can provide it if you’d prefer. I’ve also already left a copy of it with Ms. Wang for you to review at a later time, if you wish. For now, I’ll simply concentrate on the conclusions of our