Impossible. Impossible! There was no way sixty Manty superdreadnoughts could possibly be here in Beowulf space! Even if they’d dared to divert any of them, how could they have gotten them here? It was ridiculous, unless—
“I think you should have taken a closer look at the freighters moving back and forth between Beowulf and Manticore, Admiral Tsang,” Truman said in that same cold voice, smiling faintly. “Surely not even the SLN was stupid enough to think we couldn’t foresee the possibility of something like this once we figured out Filareta was coming! Or perhaps you really thought we couldn’t. Especially if you judged us by your own service’s demonstrated levels of competence.”
The contempt in Truman’s tone bit like a lash, and Tsang felt her jaw muscles bunching.
“I knew your system government was being run by lunatics,” she grated, glaring at Holmon-Sanders, but I hadn’t realized they were goddammed traitors!”
“An interesting characterization coming from someone who proposes to kill Solarian citizens for having the audacity to resist the unconstitutional, illegal policies of a bevy of unelected bureaucrats,” Holmon-Sanders replied.
“Don’t hand me that bullshit!” Tsang snapped. “You’ve actively connived with a hostile star nation in time of war to offer armed resistance to the League’s own military!”
“In time of war?” Holmon-Sanders cocked her head. “Not unless there’s been that formal declaration of war you don’t seem to be able to provide me with, Fleet Admiral Tsang.” Her tone could have frozen a volcano.
“Don’t you dare parse semantics with me! I represent the Solarian League!”
“You, Admiral Tsang,” Truman said dispassionately, “represent Innokentiy Kolokoltsov, Nathan MacArtney, and the rest of their bureaucratic clique. And, as the Star Empire has repeatedly warned the League, they — or their policies, at least — are being manipulated by a non-Solarian power.”
“Bullshit! Don’t any of you ever get tired of that same old tired song and dance routine?!”
“In this case, no,” Truman replied. “Since, unlike the nonsense you’ve just been spouting, it bears at least a nodding acquaintance with the truth.”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the ass!” Tsang snarled back. “And even if there were some tiny particle of truth to it, that doesn’t change the fact that the Beowulf system government has actively colluded with another star nation which has killed God only knows how many Solarian naval personnel!”
“In resisting God only knows how many illegal, unilateral acts of aggression, you mean?” Truman inquired.
“Stop twisting my words!” Tsang’s face was dark with anger. “And no matter how you try to twist things around to make it our fault, how do you think the League is going to react to this shit? You think the rest of the League’s members systems are going to side with Beowulf? After Beowulf’s actively connived to help you ambush a Solarian task force in Solarian space?!”
“Your ability to interpret a tactical situation would appear to be every bit as good as Josef Byng’s and Sandra Crandall’s, Admiral,” Truman observed with icy disdain. “If we’d wanted to ‘ambush’ you, you’d be as dead as they are by now. Your reconnaissance provisions were so pathetic that the first thing you would have known about our presence would’ve been the impeller signatures of incoming missiles! Fortunately for you, nobody’s particularly eager to murder spacers whose only crime is serving under criminally stupid superiors. If that was what we’d wanted to do, we would have let you make transit straight into the fire of our Junction forts and killed every one of your ships before you even scratched our paint. Instead, we’ve chosen to save your lives — or your crews’ lives, at least — from the towering incompetence and unbridled arrogance of the Solarian League Navy’s senior officer corps.”
For the first time in her life, pure, distilled fury reduced Imogene Tsang literally to speechlessness. She could only glare at the Manticoran officer as Truman continued in that same precise, scalpel-edged voice.
“Had you shown a modicum of reasonableness, even a trace of respect for your own Constitution and the constitutional rights of the Beowulf System and its citizens, you would have chosen to abide by the Beowulf system government’s decision to deny you transit through this terminus. And had you done that, my forces would simply have stood by in stealth as observers, without interfering in any way. Unlike the League, we have no desire to kill anyone we can avoid killing. But you couldn’t do that, so we found it necessary to present…an additional argument in favor of sanity, shall we say.”
“And, as for how the rest of the League’s systems are going to feel about this,” Holmon-Sanders put it in, “every word of our conversation has been and is being recorded, and it will be released to the news media, without cuts or censorship, as soon as possible. You’d made your intention to violate our sovereignty — and the Constitution — abundantly clear long before the first Manticoran naval unit arrived in Beowulf space, Fleet Admiral. Indeed, the only reason Admiral Truman’s ships remained stealthed as long as they did was to give us time to let you explain yourself for the newsies’ benefit. I don’t think there’s going to be very much question in the mind of anyone who bothers to think about it that if Admiral Truman hadn’t been here, you would indeed have opened fire on the units under my command in pursuit of what you know, whether you admit it or not, is an unlawful order. Of course, the odds have changed somewhat from the ones you thought obtained when you were so courageously prepared to slaughter your fellow Solarian citizens in pursuit of that order, haven’t they?”
The Beowulfer showed her teeth, and her brown eyes were just as hard, just as cold, as Truman’s blue ones.
“As Admiral Truman says, we don’t want to kill anyone who doesn’t have to die. But if you’re still prepared to fight your way through this terminus, Fleet Admiral Tsang, then you just bring it on.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What the hell was he thinking?!” Elizabeth Winton snarled.
The Empress of Manticore stood glaring at the monstrous casualty list, brown eyes smoking like twin furnaces as the names of dead and damaged Solarian starships crawled endlessly up the conference room’s display wall.
“You had him dead to rights. He knew he you did! How could even a Solly be so stupid?!”
“I don’t know,” Honor said drearily. She stood beside her monarch, and her own eyes were dark and haunted, not fiery. Anger hovered in their depths, as well, but it was a cold, bitter anger overlaid by equally bitter regret…and guilt.
Nimitz made a soft sound from his perch on a char beside the conference table, then straightened up and raised both true-hands as she looked at him.
<Not your fault,> he signed sharply. <You tried. You did everything you could. It was his fault, not yours.>
“Nimitz is right.” Elizabeth’s voice was softer, gentler, and Honor returned her gaze to the Empress. “You did do everything you could, Honor.”
“Everything except not back him into a corner,” Honor replied.
“Don’t you dare second-guess yourself over this!” Eloise Pritchart said sharply. “Yes, you and Earl White Haven pushed for an ops plan which would force them to surrender. I supported you in that, though, and so did Tom and Elizabeth and Protector Benjamin. And the reason we did, is that the two of you were right. And, as you yourself said, anyone crazy enough to open fire in the tactical situation you’d created was going to open fire no matter what happened!”