The Shadow of Saganami

Solarian League Navy to hide behind if we irritate the Royal Manticoran Navy.'

'We're aware of that, Mr. President,' Anisimovna said, leaning forward to lay one hand lightly on his knee... and show him an impressive bit of decolletage. 'And I assure you,' she continued, 'that we would never have asked to meet with you if we'd intended to put you at risk. Well,' she allowed herself another small smile as she sat back in her chair once more, 'perhaps that's not quite entirely accurate. There will be an element of risk. There always is when one plays for truly high stakes. But in this instance, the risk is both manageable and much smaller than it might appear at first sight.'

'Really?' He put an edge of coolness into his voice. 'It sounds to me as if you intend to invite me to unilaterally proclaim Monican sovereignty over the Lynx Terminus. I fail to see how that could constitute a 'manageable' risk, when my entire fleet consists of less than one light task force, compared to the RMN. And while my own intelligence sources aren't the equal of the SLN's-or even your own, I dare say-they're quite sufficient to tell me Manticore's hardware is now much more dangerous than anything Monica has. Then, too, there's the minor matter that the entire Manticoran Home Fleet is just sitting at the other end of the terminus.'

'Mr. President,' Anisimovna said a bit reproachfully, 'you're getting ahead of our... proposal. Yes,' she raised one hand gracefully, 'it's perfectly understandable that you should see the physical threat represented by the Manty navy. In fact, it's your responsibility as Monica's head of state and military commander in chief to see exactly that. However, please consider that there would be absolutely no advantage to us in sacrificing your navy or your star nation. We're prepared to make a substantial economic investment in your success in any operation or gambit we might suggest you undertake. As businesspeople, we would scarcely do such a thing unless we fully and confidently expected the venture to succeed.'

Tyler considered her narrowly. The argument was logical enough, but he couldn't quite ignore the fact that she was talking about the possible loss of a financial investment , one he was certain no corporation like Manpower would ever assume in the first place if it couldn't afford to write it off in the event of disaster. He, on the other hand, would risk something just a bit more permanent than that.

Still...

'Very well,' he said. 'Explain just what it is you have in mind.'

'It's actually not all that complicated, Mr. President,' Anisimovna told him. 'We-meaning my own business colleagues, not the League or Mr. Hongbo's Frontier Security-are prepared to provide your navy with a rather powerful reinforcement. At the moment, if my figures are correct, your fleet consists of five heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, nineteen destroyers, and -several dozen LACs. Which comes to just over four million tons. Is that substantially correct?'

'Yes, it is. I'm sure Admiral Bourmont could give you more complete figures, but four million tons will do, ' he said, still watching her intently, and refraining from pointing out that almost a half million tons of that consisted solely of sadly obsolete light attack craft. Or that the cruisers fell far short of cutting-edge technology themselves.

'Very well,' she said. 'We're prepared to supply you with fourteen Solarian Indefatigable -class battlecruisers, each of approximately eight hundred and fifty thousand tons. That comes to twelve million tons, or a three hundred percent increase in your navy's tonnage.'

Roberto Tyler felt as if someone had just kicked him in the belly. His ears couldn't have heard what he thought they just had. But if she meant it...

'While the Indefatigables are being replaced in Solarian service by the Nevada -class ships, Mr. President,' Levakonic said, speaking up for the first time, 'they served primarily with the frontier fleet elements. As I'm sure you're aware, that means they were kept much more rigorously updated with refits than is traditionally the case for Solarian ships of the wall or battlecruisers attached to the Central Reserve. These vessels represent very nearly the latest word in SLN weaponry and EW capabilities. Ms. Anisimovna has pointed out that they would effectively quadruple your existing tonnage. In terms of actual effective combat strength, your navy's capabilities would increase by a factor of well over a hundred.'

'Yes. Yes, they would,' Tyler admitted after a moment, and he could hear the raw greed in his voice himself. 'I fail to understand, however, just how private businesspeople like you and Ms. Anisimovna might happen to have access to such ships.' He resolutely refrained from looking at Hongbo.

'As I just pointed out,' Levakonic said calmly, 'the Indefatigables are being replaced by the Nevadas . The process is going to take years. It's also going to be expensive, and Technodyne is one of the primary builders for the new class. To help defray construction costs, the Navy is disposing of some of the Indefatigables slated to be replaced by transferring them to us for scrapping and reclamation. Obviously, they have on-site inspectors to ensure that the hulls are stripped and broken up. As it happens, however,' his expression, Tyler noticed, remained completely innocent and bland, 'some of those inspectors have developed a case of what used to be called myopia. A few of the older ships have somehow fallen through cracks and dropped off of the SLN tracking system. Under the right set of circumstances, fourteen of them could be here within, oh, about sixty T-days.'

'I see.' Tyler was getting his imagination back under control, and he smiled crookedly at the Technodyne representative. 'I imagine, though, that it might be a bit difficult for your employers if those 'scrapped' ships turned up intact in someone else's navy.'

''A bit difficult' would be a fairly generous understatement, Mr. President,' Levakonic agreed. The small, wiry man smiled with what Tyler suspected was the first genuine amusement any of his visitors had displayed. 'That's why we'd have to insist that all of them be comprehensively refitted in your own yard here in Monica. We'd need more than just a simple change of transponder codes. We could reshape their emissions signatures significantly by changing out sidewall generators and the main active sensor arrays, but there are several other, smaller changes we'd want to make, as well. In combination, they should be more than enough to adequately disguise the ships' origins. It wouldn't stand up in the face of a physical boarding and examination, but that shouldn't really be a factor.'

'I suppose not,' Tyler said. But then he shook himself.

'This is all extremely fascinating... and very tempting,' he said frankly. 'But even with a reinforcement like that, the Monican Navy would disappear like water in a vacuum if the Manty Home Fleet came calling.' He shook his head. 'However much I might like the notion of controlling the Lynx Terminus, and of keeping the Manticorans as far away from Monica as possible, I'm not prepared to commit suicide by challenging them to open combat.'

'It wouldn't work out that way,' Anisimovna predicted with what Tyler privately thought was a ludicrous degree of assurance.

'Without wishing to seem discourteous, Ms. Anisimovna, I don't believe I feel quite as confident of that as you appear to.'

'Honesty is always welcome, Mr. President, even at the risk of discourtesy. And I'm not surprised you don't share my confidence. The entire idea's come at you cold, without the opportunity to consider all the ramifications. But I assure you that we have considered them quite carefully. And although I recognize we're suggesting you assume a more immediate and larger degree of personal risk than we are, I might also point out that if this gambit fails, and your new battlecruisers are traced back to Mr. Levakonic or to myself, then the consequences for us and for our corporations will also be... extreme.'

His eyes flared, and she smiled gently.

'I'm not trying to equate our degrees of risk, Mr. President. I'm simply trying to make the point that we wouldn't be recommending any such course of action to you if we didn't honestly and completely expect it to succeed.'

And I can believe as much of that as I want to, he thought sardonically. But, then again, my relationship with Manpower and Mesa is worth too much to jeopardize by being blunt. And it can't do any harm to at least listen to whatever insanity she wants to propose.

'Very well,' he said. 'Explain just why you believe I could get away with anything like this, please.'

'Let's consider this situation from the Manties' side,' Anisimovna suggested reasonably. 'Their intelligence on the Cluster can't have been very complete before they first located the Lynx Terminus. After all, Lynx is over six hundred light-years from Manticore; Monica is another two hundred and seventy light-years from Lynx; and the Star Kingdom had absolutely no strategic interests in the area.

'Things have changed, however, and I'm sure their intelligence services have been working overtime to