“Which lets us hammer Beowulf as hard as we want — assuming we can find a way to do it, that is — without ever even touching the question of secession!” Abruzzi said enthusiastically.
“Exactly,” Kolokoltsov repeated. “And, Nathan, there’s no way anyone out in the Shell who might be thinking in terms of seceding is going to miss the subtext. There won’t be a single official word about secession in anything we have to say on the subject, but everyone will hear it anyway.”
“And once the immediate furor dies down, Reid and Neng’s committee reports back that Beowulf’s actions were treasonous before it seceded,” Wodoslawski said thoughtfully.
“After which Reid produces the precedents to establish that the right of secession’s lapsed with the passage of time,” Abruzzi said, nodding energetically.
There was silence for several seconds, then MacArtney shrugged irritably.
“I don’t like it,” he grumbled. “We’re still pussyfooting around the issue, and a lot of people are going to realize it.”
“I agree with you, Nathan,” Quartermain said, “but I think Innokentiy and Malachai have made some valid points, too.” She shrugged. “Given the practical limits on what we can actually do at the moment, I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with them. But”—she glared suddenly at the others—“whatever our justification for going after Beowulf, we need to do it just as hard and just as quickly as humanly possible. Because Nathan’s got a point, too, people. The situation in the Verge is going to go straight to hell on us, no matter what we do, but the last thing we need is to have the Shell going up in flames right along with it. We need to get a handle on this, and we need to do it fast!”
* * *
“You’re kidding me,” Irene Teague said, staring at Daud al-Fanudahi. The two of them sat on benches across a small outdoor table from one another, eating their lunch as the warm summer sun spilled down across them. Lake Michigan’s waters stretched limitlessly towards the horizon below the restaurant perched on a two hundredth-floor balcony of the Admiralty building, and gaily colored sails and powerboats dotted that dark blue expanse as far as the eye could see.
Not that either of them was in much of a mood to appreciate the view at the moment.
“I wish I were.” al-Fanudahi sounded entirely too calm for Teague’s mood, and she glared at him.
“Calmly, Irene,” he said, gazing serenely past her towards the lake water so far below. “I don’t think anyone’s listening to us out here, but I’d just as soon not give anyone a reason to think they should be listening to us, if you know what I mean.”
Teague looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded and reached for her own fork.
“Granted,” she said. “But I stand by my original reaction. Please tell me you were just making a really bad joke.”
“Wish I were,” he repeated with a sigh. “Unfortunately, the official request for intelligence updates will be coming through this afternoon sometime. As far as I can see, they’re very serious about it.”
“After what happened to Filareta?” She scooped up a forkful of delicious tuna salad and chewed without tasting it at all. “I knew Rajampet wasn’t what anyone would’ve called brilliant, but I thought Kingsford had a working brain!”
“As far as I can tell, he does,” al-Fanudahi replied. “I don’t know that this is his idea, either. But given the kinds of intelligence data they’re going to be requesting, there’s no question what they’re looking at.”
“A military operation against Beowulf?” She shook her head. “That’s got to be the worst idea I’ve heard since Operation Raging Justice itself!”
“I don’t know.” Al-Fanudahi shrugged. “It depends on the mission parameters and the available resources, I guess.”
“Mission parameters?” She rolled her eyes at him. “Just what sort of ‘mission parameters’ are going to make our superdreadnoughts survivable against their superdreadnoughts, Daud?”
“None that I can think of right off hand,” al-Fanudahi conceded. “But the evidence from the merchies who’ve been passing through Beowulf since Raging Justice does seem to suggest that the Manty forces in Beowulf space are concentrated around the terminus, not the planet.”
“So what?” Teague demanded. “Superdreadnoughts are mobile, you know!”
“Yes, and the Beowulf System Defense Force is a nasty handful all on its own, which doesn’t even consider the system’s fixed defenses,” al-Fanudahi agreed. “What I suspect our lords and masters are thinking about is that the Manties appear to be trying to avoid stepping on any Solarian sensibilities, especially until the final tally is in on Beowulf’s plebiscite. It may be politics on their part, for all I know.”
“Politics?”
“If they want to encourage other star systems to follow Beowulf’s example — to encourage the fragmentation of the League — they’d want to avoid any suggestion that they’re using force majeure to turn Beowulf into some sort of Manty puppet régime, don’t you think? One way to do that would to be to let Beowulf defend Beowulfan space while they defend the terminus, instead of putting a batch of their wallers into Beowulf orbit. It avoids the appearance of iron fist pressure on Beowulf’s voters at a particularly delicate moment…and just happens to put their superdreadnoughts a couple of light-hours away from Beowulf itself.”
“You mean Kingsford and Bernard are thinking in terms of pouncing on Beowulf — coming straight in across the hyper limit and going flat out for the planet — before any Manty forces at the terminus can intervene?”
“I think that’s about the only thing they could be thinking of,” al-Fanudahi said. “I don’t know if it would work, but assuming Beowulf hasn’t been completely surrounded by new and nasty missile pods, a big enough force of superdreadnoughts, especially with enough of the new Technodyne missile pods, probably could fight its way in through the BSDF and the fixed defenses. And once they controlled the planetary orbitals, they’d be justified under interstellar law in demanding the system’s surrender.”
“And exactly where in this fascinating analysis of yours do the Manty superdreadnoughts come in?” Teague inquired politely. “You know, the ones over at the terminus? The ones who are going to come right back over to Beowulf and kick our sorry asses out of the star system?”