“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.
“In that case, Admiral, you think wrong.” Her tone was an icicle. “I have every intention of carrying out my orders.”
All my orders, she thought, remembering the secret clause covering her response to this very situation. My God, I wondered what whoever wrote that part must’ve been smoking. Now it turns out they nailed it!
“And I, Fleet Admiral Tsang, have every intention of preventing you from endangering the lives of Beowulfan citizens of the Solarian League,” Holmon-Sanders replied equally coldly.
“Ma’am,” Franz Quill said quietly, “I’m picking up sensor platforms.”
Tsang glanced at the display, and her mouth tightened. Cascades of icons appeared as least two or three hundred reconnaissance platforms went active, lashing her starships with radar and lidar. Some of them were even closer than the FTL relay, and threat receivers warbled in warning. She had no idea how they’d gotten that close without being detected in the first place, but there was no mistaking Holmon-Sanders’ message. She was telling Tsang that, unlike Tsang, she had detailed tactical information on the SLN task force.
“Status change!” Quill announced an instant later, and Tsang’s right hand clenched on her chair arm as thirty-six impeller signatures appeared on her plot, roughly nine million kilometers from Adrianne Warshawski…and directly between her and the Beowulf Terminus.
“Thirty-six superdreadnoughts at eight-point-eight-seven million kilometers,” Quill confirmed. “Impellers active. I can’t tell yet if their side walls are up.”
“Are you actually proposing to fire on units of the Solarian Navy?!” Tsang demanded, eyes blazing at Holmon-Sanders.
“I’m proposing to exercise the sovereign right of my star system to defend its citizens against the orders of an un-elected clique of corrupt bureaucrats with no trace of constitutional authority to give the orders you propose to execute,” Holmon-Sanders replied. “And you, Fleet Admiral, know as well as I do that they have no authority. That if you proceed with this operation you will be doing so in direct violation of the Constitution you swore an oath to protect and defend. That may not mean much to you, but it means quite a lot to us here in Beowulf.”
Anger darkened Tsang’s face. How dared this jumped up pretense of a flag officer in her comic opera little system-defense force talk to her that way? Of course she’d sworn to protect and defend the Constitution! Every Solarian officer did that. But the Constitution was what accepted practice made it, not some dead-letter document which hadn’t functioned properly in over six hundred T-years! Holmon-Sanders knew as well as she did that the League would have fallen apart centuries ago if the people truly responsible for governing hadn’t made accommodations with the more absurd provisions of Holmon-Sanders’ precious Constitution!
“I disagree with your…unique interpretation of current constitutional law,” she said flatly. “And I repeat that I intend to pass my command through that terminus.”
“Not without the assistance and cooperation of Terminus Traffic Control, you aren’t,” Holmon-Sanders replied. “I’m sure your staff astrogator will be aware, even if you aren’t, of just how disastrous any effort to make a simultaneous transit through this terminus without Traffic Control’s guidance is going to prove. Do you intend to place armed parties on the control platforms and compel our personnel to coordinate your transit at pulser point?”
“I intend to do whatever it requires, Vice Admiral! And if that means my Marines are forced to take control of your control platforms and ‘compel’ your personnel to do their duty as Solarian citizens, then that’s precisely what I’ll do!”
“And the instant you attempt to do so, the Beowulf System Defense Force will open fire upon you in defense of our citizens.”
Tsang inhaled sharply as the words were finally spoken.
“In that case, Admiral Holmon-Sanders, you will commit an act of treason.”
“In that case, Admiral Tsang, one of us will have committed an act of treason,” Holmon-Sanders replied, and her contemptuous challenge smile was no longer thin.
“And you and the vast majority of the personnel aboard your superdreadnoughts will also be dead,” Tsang said flatly. “You’ll be in my powered missile envelope in approximately nineteen minutes. If at that time you have not stood down and withdrawn your units, I will engage you, and the deaths of your spacers will be on your own head and that of your system government.”
“I take it that’s your final word on the matter?” Holmon-Sanders inquired almost calmly.
“Damned right it is.” Tsang glared at her. “Get out of my way now, Admiral, or I will by God blow every one of your fucking ships out of space!”
“I think not,” another voice said suddenly, and the image on Tsang’s display split as another woman appeared on it, speaking from another command deck.
The blue-eyed newcomer had golden hair…and her skin suit was definitely not Beowulf-issue.
“Vice Admiral Alice Truman, Royal Manticoran Navy,” she identified herself coldly. “You might want to reconsider your belligerence, Fleet Admiral Tsang.”
“Status change!” Admiral Quill’s sharp voice wrenched Tsang’s eyes from Truman’s image back to the master plot as at least fifty new icons appeared on it. “Confirm sixty — repeat, sixty—additional superdreadnoughts!” Quill continued, and the bottom seemed to fall out of Tsang’s stomach as her numerical superiority over Holmon-Sanders abruptly disappeared.