A Rising Thunder

analysis, if that’s acceptable?”

Kolokoltsov nodded a bit brusquely.

“In that case, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary, the critical point is simply that any extended war with the Manties is going to be an economic as well as an overtly military conflict. At the moment, their technological advantages are overwhelming, but our economic and industrial power is many times as great as theirs, even allowing for their new alliance with the Havenites. The essential question is whether or not our size and economic capacity are great enough to withstand a concerted attack by this new ‘Grand Alliance’ long enough for us to produce what we need to match its war fighting capability. And the answer, I’m afraid, is that they may well not be.”

“I beg your pardon?” Kolokoltsov’s brows lowered in surprise at hearing someone finally say that in so many words.

“A great deal depends upon the political cohesiveness of the two sides,” Gweon said. “Given the lengthy period of hostilities between Manticore and the Republic of Haven, one would anticipate internal strains within their alliance which would work against its stability. I wouldn’t invest much hope in that prospect, however, for several reasons, including the fact that I think both Manticore and Haven genuinely believe this nonsense they’re spouting about sinister Mesan manipulation of the League’s policies. Another factor would be their shared resentment for what they regard as Solarian arrogance. And yet another, frankly, would be the fact that both of them obviously smell the opportunity to make extensive territorial gains at the League’s expense.

“In the case of the Republic of Haven, we’re talking about a star nation with a long tradition of conquest. Even if we assume the Pritchart Administration might not wish to be as expansionist as the Legislaturalists and Committee of Public Safety, it’s still confronted with a military accustomed to thinking in terms of expansion by force of arms, and a civilian population habituated to accept that sort of foreign policy.

“In the case of the Star Kingdom — excuse me, the Star Empire—of Manticore, there’s no previous tradition of imperialism. Not in the territorial sense, at any rate. Manticoran power has traditionally been extended on an economic basis, by continually increasing the Star Empire’s inroads into the League’s shipping industries and penetrating market areas in the Verge and the Shell for its own goods. And, of course, there’s the enormous advantage the Manticoran Wormhole Junction bestows on its financial sector. Yet while all of that’s true, its recent expansion into the Silesian Confederacy and then into the Talbott Sector suggest there’s been a fundamental change in the Manticorans’ internal calculus. Our best guess over at Economic Analysis is that they believe it’s time to expand their political control in order to bolster their economic dominance and give them greater strategic depth. This may actually be a result of their conflict with the Havenites, a response to the awareness that a single-system star nation, however wealthy, is at a serious disadvantage when fighting a much larger multi-star system star nation because a single defeat can cost it everything. Which is rather ironic, I suppose, since the star nation it was worried about fighting is currently its ally against us.

“Regardless of the motivations in Haven and Manticore, however, we probably have to accept that the ambition for expansion will reinforce all the other reasons they believe they have for standing together against us. In which case, their alliance is going to have a lot more stability and staying power than anyone in the League would prefer.”

He paused politely to allow Kolokoltsov to digest what he’d already said, and the permanent senior undersecretary nodded slowly. He was impressed. Gweon might be young, but he was also articulate, and it sounded as if he had a much clearer and more detailed appreciation of the situation out in the Verge than any of the Navy briefers Rajampet had ever brought along with him.

“If I’m correct,” Gweon continued after he’d given Kolokoltsov a few moments, “and we can’t realistically expect the ‘Grand Alliance’ to self-destruct, we have to look at the balance of economic power as it exists and to consider just how stable we are ourselves.

“Economically, we have many times as many industrialized, heavily populated systems. Almost all of our Core Worlds have tech bases at least as good, overall, as the Manties and probably superior to anything Haven can produce at this time. Some of them don’t, and we need to be aware of that, as well. On balance, though, it would certainly appear the scales are heavily weighted in our favor.

“Appearances, I’m afraid, can be deceiving, however.” Gweon’s expression turned somber. “With the withdrawal of Manticoran freighters and the holes their closure of so many wormholes have blown in our shipping routes, our economy’s been very severely damaged. It’s not evident to most of our citizens yet, but I’m afraid they’ll be figuring it out shortly. With the curtailment of available shipping, our star systems are going to be thrown back on their internal resources. Most of them will ultimately be able to absorb the blow, especially if we can expand our own merchant marine to compensate for at least some of what we’ve lost. It’s going to take a lot of time, though, and there’s going to be a lot of pain involved. Civilian morale is going to suffer, and even worse from the federal government’s perspective, it’s going to mean a major loss in revenues at the very time military expenses are going to be skyrocketing.”

He must have been reading Wodoslawski’s and Quartermain’s reports, Kolokoltsov thought sourly.

“In the meantime,” Gweon continued, “Manticore’s dealt its own economy a very significant blow, especially coupled with the damage their home system apparently took from the recent ‘mystery’ attack upon it. However, they’re actually in a position to begin recovering from it much more rapidly than we are, for several reasons. One is that they have access to the Silesian Confederacy and now to the entire Republic of Haven. The latter, in particular, represents an entirely new market for them — one which has been completely closed for the last twenty or thirty T-years. In addition, they have control of the wormholes they’ve denied to us, which means they can continue to reach markets and trading partners in the Verge and even in the Shell we literally cannot reach. In those areas, they’ll be in a position to pick up the direct trade, not just the carrying trade, which was previously dominated by Solarian manufacturers and transstellars. When those opportunities are coupled with the fact that — unlike the citizens of the League — both Manticorans and Havenites are experienced in and thus far better inured to the strains and tensions of interstellar warfare, their alliance is probably in a position to recoup everything it’s lost as a result of the Manties closure of our trade lanes within a very few T-years. Certainly in a shorter time than we can recover. In fact, our projections over at Economic Analysis indicate that we’ll reach a tipping point at which the combined economies of Manticore and Haven will effectively match the economic power of the League within no more than ten to fifteen T-years.”

“You’re joking.” Surprise startled the comment out of Kolokoltsov. That was a considerably grimmer projection than Agata Wodoslawski or Omosupe Quartermain had yet presented to him.

“No, Mr. Permanent Senior Undersecretary,” Gweon said respectfully. “I’m afraid I’m not. Those projections, including the data upon which they rest and the models and methodology we employed, are included in the data chips I’ve left with Ms. Wang. I’d be happy to sit down with your own analysts and explain our thinking to them. For that matter, I’d welcome an outside critique of our results. At the moment, however, I believe those projections are solid. And I’m very much afraid that even they rest on some fairly optimistic assumptions.”

“Optimistic?” Kolokoltsov’s eyes widened.

“Yes, Sir,” Gweon said grimly. “The two most problematic of those assumptions are that, first, we’ll be able to muster the resources on the federal level to support an ongoing, lengthy conflict. And, second, that the League will maintain its political cohesiveness long enough for us to overcome the other side’s technological advantages.

“As far as the first assumption is concerned, to be honest, we simply don’t know what revenues will be available. We can make a good guess at the percentage of revenues we’ll lose because of lost shipping duties, and it isn’t pretty. What we can’t begin to estimate at this point is how badly our revenue stream from the Protectorates is going to be affected. Frankly, if I were the Manties, I’d be doing everything I could to further disrupt the Protectorates. For that matter, I’d be stirring up all the unrest I could among the Office of Frontier Security’s…client states.”

The captain’s tone shifted very slightly on the last two words, and Kolokoltsov grimaced mentally. Apparently Gweon wasn’t one of the greater admirers of OFS’ policies in the Verge.

“Whether Manticore does that deliberately or not, there’s going to be a lot of unrest, anyway,” Gweon continued. “Worse, anywhere we lose control, the Manties will be able to move in and begin taking our place. So they’ll very probably gain most of the revenue we lose, which will have a highly adverse affect on the bottom line. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons we believe we’ll reach that tipping point I