“The Star Empire of Manticore therefore formally demands that you immediately dispatch to the Manticore Binary System via the Beowulf Terminus of the Junction an officer with sufficient authority to order Fleet Admiral Filareta to stand down. Assuming press reports of this operation’s timing are as accurate as I have reason to believe they are, there’s still time — if only barely — for those orders to reach Manticore before Fleet Admiral Filareta. We cannot order him to disregard orders he was given by lawful superiors; you can. If you decline to do so, the responsibility for whatever happens will lie squarely on your shoulders, and the Star Empire will be prepared to produce copies of my correspondence with you, in its entirety, in any future dispute over who bears responsibility for any consequences of your most recent unilateral aggression against a sovereign star nation. Moreover, under the circumstances, Her Majesty’s Government will not consider itself bound to maintain the confidentiality of our correspondence where the press is concerned.”
He paused, obviously giving that last sentence time to sink in, then continued in the same flat, uncompromising tone.
“It’s not yet too late to prevent a disaster of staggering dimensions. We will do all we can to minimize the catastrophic consequences of this confrontation. We invite you — we implore you, in the name of your own military personnel — to stop this now. If you decline this opportunity, if you refuse to act, be certain history will know exactly where to assign the blood guilt for the massacre which will most certainly ensue.”
I suppose that’s about as blunt as it comes, Kolokoltsov thought, and shook his head. Even now, he couldn’t quite believe anyone would address the Solarian League like that. Despite everything — despite Crandall’s devastating defeat, despite the Manties’ provocative closure of wormhole bridges and junctions — he still couldn’t quite believe it deep down inside.
Which is stupid of me. If I haven’t figured out anything else by now, I should at least have realized that whatever else Manties may be, they sure as hell aren’t impressed by the League’s reputation! Not anymore. It may be ultimately suicidal, given the difference in our resources and populations, but that doesn’t change the way they feel.
Of course, even if they were actually terrified, they’d be sending him exactly this sort of correspondence. Diplomatic threats cost nothing, and the temptation to run a bluff, to convince Kolokoltsov they could do to Filareta what they’d done to Crandall — especially if they really couldn’t—had to be overwhelming. If they could frighten him into calling Filareta off, they ran the table without having to fire a single missile. Which would also just happen to save them if they didn’t have any missiles left to fire.
Which is all well and good, but doesn’t change the fact that they may actually be able to do exactly what Carmichael’s threatening. And if they are, and if they really are prepared to hand all their notes to someone like O’Hanrahan…
His expression turned bleak as he contemplated just how damaging the publication of Carmichael’s correspondence could prove if things went to hell on Filareta. Yet it would be almost as damaging to take the ambassador’s “advice.” Sending the stand down orders Manticore was demanding could only be seen as a sign of weakness. It would damage the League’s prestige still further, and that could only worsen the consequences they all feared in the Verge and the Shell, which didn’t even consider the personal consequences to him and his colleagues. Or, for that matter, the potential constitutional train wreck when everyone began assigning blame and, in the process, revealed just how threadbare the pretense of representative government in the Solarian League truly was.
But if we don’t order him to stand down and it turns out remotely as badly as Carmichael’s warning us it will, we’ll have all of those consequences plus the deaths of thousands of our own spacers!
He considered calling yet another meeting to consider Carmichael’s latest message, but what could it accomplish? The others would argue, they’d worry, try to weasel around into a position which heaped the blame on everyone else, and in the end decide to do what he and, perhaps, MacArtney suggested. And the truth was, God help him, that he couldn’t see any choice but to continue backing Rajampet’s strategy.
It was simply too late to make any other decision.
Besides, everything I’ve been able to dig up on Filareta suggests he’s at least four or five times as smart as Crandall was. And he knows what happened at Spindle. If the Manties really are in a position to chew him up and spit him out, he’s smart enough to stand down on his own rather than get his fleet killed for nothing. That’d be bad enough, but a hell of a lot less bad than actually getting himself blown out of space!
And relying on Filareta to be smart enough also just happened to avoid the consequences of caving in to Carmichael’s demands without even trying to find out if they were a bluff.
* * *
“I’m afraid there’s been some misunderstanding, Admiral,” the dark-skinned man on Fleet Admiral Imogene Tsang’s display said. “The Beowulf government has clearly stated its opposition to your proposed movement. In fact, we’ve informed both Fleet Admiral Rajampet and Prime Minister Gyulay that the Planetary Board of Directors declines to authorize or permit the transit of Solarian naval vessels through this terminus at this time. If that information wasn’t transmitted to you prior to your departure for Beowulf, I’m officially informing you of it now.”
“I’m not privy to your system government’s communications with the Prime Minister or the Admiralty, Director Caddell-Markham,” Tsang replied in a reasonably courteous but firm tone, “I do, however, have orders to transit this terminus with my task force to support Eleventh Fleet’s operations. Those orders aren’t discretionary, nor are they preconditioned on anyone’s permission or lack of permission. For myself, I’ll simply observe that my understanding of the Constitution is that federal authority is paramount in circumstances such as these. I’ll also concede that I may be mistaken in that understanding, and if I am, I sincerely apologize for anything which may seem to overstep my authority. Nonetheless, I remain bound by the orders I’ve received from my lawful superiors.”
“I suggest you consider that very carefully, Admiral.” Gabriel Caddell-Markham’s voice was considerably colder than Tsang’s had been. “The confrontation between the League and the Star Empire has the potential to become the most disastrous collision in human history. It’s the belief of the Beowulf government that the situation is being manipulated by forces inimical to both the League and the Star Empire and that we would be derelict in our duty — and our responsibility to the human race in general, not simply to the citizens of the Beowulf System — if we contributed to that disaster. We have no intention of doing so, and with all due deference to your understanding of the Constitution, it’s our opinion that the federal government grossly overstepped its power by issuing your orders. There’s been no declaration of war, and Article Five of the Constitution specifically denies the federal government authority to dictate to system governments in time of peace. As a consequence, the Beowulf System’s government is under no requirement to assist you in this movement, and our personnel and citizens will not assist you.