A Rising Thunder-ARC (44 page)

She’d deliberately held the task force ten million kilometers clear of the terminus. It was inconvenient as hell, and it was going to take the better part of an hour to reach the terminus with a zero-zero velocity and make transit, but it had the benefit of keeping her far enough out to avoid offending Beowulfan sensibilities any worse than she had to. She’d considered deploying recon platforms and communications relays closer to the terminus, where she could cut down on any confusion on the part of the incoming courier boat. That would have been pretty blatant, though. It would undoubtedly have undone her efforts to placate Beowulf’s ire, and it wasn’t as if the Beowulfers were going to sneak up on her and attack!

Even from here, though, her gravitic sensor sections had monitored the impeller signatures of at least sixty or seventy Beowulfan freighters shuttling back and forth through the terminus. Obviously, while that terminus might be closed to
other
Solarian shipping, the Beowulfers were doing quite a bit of trade with the Star Empire. She’d gone so far as to ask the system government for an explanation, and been informed that what she was seeing were “humanitarian relief” efforts, not anything so crass as “trade.”

Sure, and I can believe just as much of that as I want to
, she thought sardonically.
Oh, I don’t doubt those cargoes are being used as part of the Manties’ rebuilding effort, but I’ll bet Beowulf’s making a pretty centicred off their “humanitarian” concern!

Beowulfan profiteering hadn’t been very high on her list of concerns, however; steering clear of any avoidable incident
had
been, and so she’d contented herself with observing their activities from afar. And she’d also concentrated on staying far enough out from the terminus that none of those freighters were likely to see very much of her actual strength. There was no telling which of the merchant skippers sailing back and forth through the terminus might be tempted to tell friends in Manticore about the enormous SLN task force hovering on the far side. Fortunately, commercial-grade sensors weren’t going to pick up diddley at just over half a light-minute.

She’d gone ahead and posted a single destroyer, SLNS
Ranger
, closer in, however, with her transponder online. The courier boat ought to have spotted that without too much difficulty, even allowing for the limitations of dispatch boat’s sensor suites, but there was no point pissing or moaning over a couple of minutes either way.

“Have you already waked Franz?” she asked, massaging her temples with both hands.

“I told Sherwood to get him up while I got
you
up, Ma’am,” Takeuchi said wryly, and Tsang snorted. Admiral Franz Quill, her operations officer, tended to wake up grumpy, and he didn’t like Captain Sherwood Marceau, her com officer, very much anyway.

“As soon as you and I are done here,” Takeuchi continued, “I’m getting Captain Robillard up, too. I already put out the general order to bring up the task force’s impellers, and I figure she’ll forgive me for waking you up first.”

“Probably.”

Actually, Tsang wasn’t all that sure about Sanelma Robillard’s forgiveness. Robillard was good, or Tsang wouldn’t have picked her as her flag captain, but she was also a prima donna, even by the often prickly standards of the Solarian Navy. She was likely to make herself a pain in the ass if she decided Takeuchi had trespassed against her prerogatives by passing an order which would have
her
engineering department up and stirring before she was informed, even if he
was
the task force’s operations officer.

“All right,” the fleet admiral said. “It sounds like you’ve done everything right so far, Pierre. I’ll meet you and the rest of the staff on Flag Bridge in twenty minutes. Clear.”

* * *

It was actually twenty-five minutes later, not twenty, when Tsang, headache banished by a quick squirt from her preferred morning-after inhaler, stepped onto SLNS
Adrienne Warshawski
’s flag deck. Not that the extra five minutes really mattered. A quick glance at the readiness display showed that
Warshawski
’s impeller nodes were still fifteen minutes from full readiness.

“Where are we, Pierre?” she asked brusquely.

“We should be able to get moving in another fifteen or twenty minutes, Ma’am,” he replied, twitching his head in the direction of the display Tsang had already consulted. “Franz transmitted the preparatory order for Arbela twenty minutes ago, and all tactical crews have acknowledged. And Sherwood’s copied Lieutenant Trudeau’s transmission to your console if you want to view it personally.”

“I’ll take a look at it in a minute,” she said. “Unless there’s something in it you think would affect Arbela?”

“No, Ma’am.” Takeuchi grimaced. “All he knows is that the system was reported under attack. Well, that and he did confirm that assuming the Manty traffic control people were giving accurate time chops, they really do have FTL com capability.”

“Marvelous,” Tsang said sourly. It wasn’t that much of a surprise by now, but the confirmation emphasized the Manties’ tech capabilities unpleasantly. Especially now, when Operation Arbela had moved from a future probability to a present certainty.

“All right,” she went on a moment later. “I’ll take a look at Truman’s message. Meanwhile I think you and Franz should probably get on the net and touch base with our squadron commanders. Be sure we’re not looking at any unanticipated delays.”

* * *

“Captain Robillard would like to speak to you, Fleet Admiral,” Sherwood Marceau said, and Tsang looked up from her CIC repeater.

“Put the Captain through,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The image of
Adrienne Warshawski
’s commanding officer appeared on Tsang’s com a moment later.

“Sanelma,” Tsang said. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to report we’re ready to proceed, Ma’am,” Robillard replied, and Tsang suppressed an ignoble temptation to smile. Her flag captain’s tone could not have been more respectful, yet there was a certain tartness to it. She was obviously still irritated by Takeuchi’s decision to wake Tsang—and to order the entire task force (including
her
ship) to bring up its impellers—before he woke Robillard. She must have been sitting there, watching the engineering displays with her thumb on the call key to make
sure
she got Tsang notified before Takeuchi could. For that matter, she might even have instructed her engineer not
to simultaneously report readiness to her and the task force operations officer, as SOP required.

“Thank you, Sanelma,” the fleet admiral said as gravely as she could.

“You’re welcome, Ma’am,” Robillard responded with barely a trace of satisfaction, and Tsang chuckled as the display blanked.

“So I guess I
did
piss her off,” Admiral Takeuchi observed with a wry smile.

“She’ll recover,” Tsang said dryly, and glanced at Admiral Quill.

“Let’s get the task force moving, Franz,” she said.

“At once, Fleet Admiral!”

Of all of Tsang’s staffers, Quill came closest to being genuinely enthusiastic about Operation Arbela. In fact, he was the one who’d come up with the operation’s name. Personally, Tsang was less confident than he was that it was going to work out as well for TF 11.6 as the original battle had for Alexander of Macedon, but she’d been willing to go along with his chosen name. And at least it wasn’t as if Quill were one of those hidebound, blinkered, Solarian bigots who refused to acknowledge the possibility that the Manties might actually be able to give the SLN a genuine fight. A skeptic where the more extravagant claims about Manticoran technology were concerned, yes, but not a
blind
skeptic…unlike certain other officers Tsang could have named.

She stood watching the master plot for two or three minutes as her task force began accelerating towards the terminus. Then she turned back to Marceau.

“Sherwood.”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“I suppose you’d better go ahead and notify Terminus Traffic Control that we’re going to be making transit shortly.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, I bet
that’s
going to make the Beowulfers happy,” Takeuchi murmured, his voice low enough for only Tsang to hear.

“They’re just going to have to live with it,” Tsang replied flatly. “And it’s not as if they haven’t had enough time to adjust—”

“Excuse me, Fleet Admiral.”

Tsang broke off in midsentence and turned back towards Marceau, eyebrows rising as the com officer’s peculiar tone registered.

“Yes, Sherwood?”

“You’ve got an incoming priority com request, Ma’am.”

“From Traffic Control?” Tsang was surprised. She didn’t doubt the traffic control authorities were going to be unhappy with her announcement that she was coming through their terminus anyway, whatever the Beowulfan system government might have decreed. But the terminus was thirty-three light-seconds from
Warshawski
; there was no way Marceau’s transmission could have reached it yet, and any response would be at least a half-minute behind that.

“No, Ma’am,” Marceau said, still with that peculiar edge to his voice. “It’s originating from near the terminus, but it’s from Vice Admiral Holmon-Sanders, not Traffic Control.”

Tsang glanced quickly at Takeuchi. Marianne Holmon-Sanders was the Beowulf System Defense Force’s senior in-space officer, ranking just behind Admiral Corey McAvoy, the chief of naval operations. She was also the commanding officer of the BSDF’s First Fleet—its
only
fleet, really—which made the fact that the incoming message was from her even more interesting.

“I see,” the fleet admiral said after a moment, and walked across the flag bridge to her command chair. She took her time, settling herself comfortably, then nodded to Marceau.

“Put her through, Sherwood.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The woman who appeared on Tsang’s display a moment later had brown hair, brown eyes, a wide, firm-lipped mouth, and a determined chin which went just a little oddly with her pert, undeniably snub nose. But what Tsang noticed most strongly, what caused her eyes to widen, was the fact that Holmon-Sanders wore not the maroon tunic and charcoal gray trousers of the Beowulf System Defense Force’s usual uniform, but a skinsuit.

And so did every other officer and rating visible behind her. The officers and ratings manning their consoles and displays on what was obviously a capital ship’s flight deck at general quarters.

“Vice Admiral?” Tsang said after a moment, slightly but firmly emphasizing Holmon-Sanders’ lower rank. “What can I do for you today?”

She sat back, to wait the minute necessary for her transmission to reach the terminus and Holmon-Sanders’ reply to reach her, but then, barely one second later—

“You can stand down your impellers and assure me you have no intention of making transit through this terminus against the expressed will of my star system, Fleet Admiral,” Holmon-Sanders said flatly.

Tsang’s head whipped around towards Sherwood Marceau’s station. She heard Takeuchi mutter something short, pungent, and surprised sounding, then cursed herself almost instantly for revealing her own astonishment so clearly. But—

Marceau was staring at his own console and looked, if possible, even more surprised than she felt. He looked down for another moment, then raised his eyes to hers.

“Another transmitter just came online, Ma’am,” he said. “It must be some kind of relay. It’s less than ten thousand klicks out from
Warshawski
!”

“No doubt your com section has detected my communications relay, Admiral Tsang,” Holmon-Sanders’ voice continued, and Tsang looked back at her display. “It’s a receiver, as well as a transmitter, you know. I thought it would probably be a good idea not to have any…avoidable delays in our conversation. Particularly not given the strength and clarity with which my government has set forth the Beowulf System’s position on your proposed operation. Again, I formally request clarification of your intentions.”

Tsang had her expression back under control, and her mind raced. Holmon-Sanders hadn’t just idly decided to speak to her in real-time. She’d done it to make a point; that much Tsang was certain of. But
what
point? So far as Tsang knew, the only people who were even rumored to possess FTL communications ability were the Manties and—possibly—the Havenites. Which meant the only place Holmon-Sanders could have gotten her FTL relay was from Manticore. But
why
had she gotten it? And why was she telling Tsang she had it? Surely not even the
Beowulfers
had been crazy enough to—!

“Use their damned relay, Sherwood,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am. Give me just a second.” He entered the commands to redirect his communications laser to the far closer relay, then nodded to Tsang.

“My intentions, Vice Admiral Holmon-Sanders,” the fleet admiral said then, her voice hard, “are to carry out my orders, as previously explained to your system government.”

“In other words,” Holmon-Sanders said, still with that impossible quickness, “you
do
intend to transit this terminus?”

“I do,” Tsang said flatly.

“Then I hereby inform you that you will not be permitted to do so,” Holmon-Sanders said, just as flatly. “The federal government has no authority to overrule the Beowulf System government in this regard in the absence of a formal declaration of war. Do you happen to be in possession of such a formal declaration, Fleet Admiral?”

“I’ve already had this discussion with Director Caddell-Markham,” Tsang replied. “I told him then, as I tell you now, that my understanding of the Constitution is that the federal authority supersedes that of any single star system in this situation. And, as I also informed him at the time, I intend to carry out my orders regardless of your own system government’s interpretation of their legality.”

“I don’t think you want to do this, Fleet Admiral,” Holmon-Sanders said, and smiled thinly. “I
really
don’t think you want to do this.”

That smile sent a bolt of anger through Imogene Tsang’s surprise and confusion. There was no amusement in the expression, only challenge. And, even more infuriating, more than a hint of disdain. Possibly even contempt. Somehow, that smile made Tsang abruptly aware that she’d felt more anger over the Manties’ defiance of the might, majesty, and the power of the Solarian League than she’d previously realized.