"And those variations are?" Marquette prompted when Lewis paused.
"I'm sorry, Arnaud," Vice Admiral Trenis said, "but I thought Admiral Theisman was going join us today."
"And you're wondering why I'm not waiting for him." Marquette smiled thinly. "I'm afraid that's one point about which not even you and Victor have a 'need to know,' Linda. Let's just say something else has come up which requires the attention of the Secretary and certain other members of the Cabinet. And when they get done with that meeting," he added a bit more pointedly, "they're going to want analysis and, if possible, recommendations from us. So, let's get to it, shall we?"
"Of course, Sir," Trenis said, and nodded to Lewis. "Victor?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
Lewis tapped his memo pad to life, glanced at it-more out of habit than need, Marquette suspected-and then looked back up at his two superiors.
"I think probably our initial evaluation of why they hit the targets they hit was on the money," he said. "All five systems have enough population to give them several representatives in the lower house, plus, of course, their senators. If the object is to create political pressure to disperse our forces, that would obviously have been a factor in their thinking, and my people are confident it was.
"Economically, as I'm sure we're all already aware, the elimination of their industrial bases will have only a minor direct impact on our ability to sustain our war effort. The indirect economic implications are something else, of course, and I expect Secretary Hanriot and Secretary Nesbitt are going to be less than happy dealing with the civilian fallout."
"How complete was the destruction, Victor?" Marquette asked. "Was it is bad as the initial reports indicated?"
"Worse, Sir," Lewis said glumly. Marquette arched an eyebrow, and the rear admiral gave an unhappy shrug.
"Our own raids have been primarily probes for information, Sir-reconnaissances in force, for all intents and purposes. We've used light units, primarily LACs, and we've settled for picking off individual industrial lobes that we could get to without taking on really heavy forces. And, of course, the Manties don't have anywhere near as many systems to protect as we do. That means the ones they do have to cover are generally picketed much more heavily than anything except our truly critical ones.
"Harrington's target selection was different. She wasn't after information; she was here to deliver a message. She picked star systems which weren't heavily defended, and she attacked them with much heavier forces. She not only brought along the firepower she needed to destroy all of our defensive units, she also brought along enough she was able to spread out, take her time, and destroy effectively every single orbital platform in each of the systems she hit. Asteroid extraction centers, foundries, power satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, construction platforms, freight platforms, warehouses-all of it, Sir. Gone."
"And that was part of her 'message,' as you put it?"
"Yes, Sir. It was a statement of the level of 'scorched earth" policy the Manties are prepared to embrace. It was also a statement that they intend to operate as aggressively as possible within the limitations of their force availability. Please note, for example, that they committed both Invictus-class superdreadnoughts and what appears to be their complete current inventory of Agamemnon-class pod battlecruisers. And they weren't particularly shy about showing us just what the Katanas and those frigging awful missiles of theirs could do, either."
"In other words, they're prepared to pull out all the stops."
"Yes, Sir. And they're also prepared to let some of their technical cats out of the bag. They're not trying to maintain operational security, which is an indication of how important they believe their raids to be. This is the first team they're sending in, Admiral. The fact that Harrington is in command of it would be a strong enough indication of that, but the force mix they're employing confirms it, in my opinion."
"And mine," Marquette agreed. Trenis nodded as well, but then she tapped a forefinger on the conference table.
"There's another message in what they've done, this far, at least, Arnaud," she said.
"I'm certain there are quite a few," the chief of staff said dryly. "Which one did you intend to point out?"
"The casualty figures," she said flatly. "I know we took virtually one hundred percent casualties in our LAC groups in Gaston, Tambourin, Squalus, and Hallman. And our shipboard casualties were almost as bad-not surprisingly, I suppose, when they destroyed every single ship they managed to bring into range. But in Hera, Harrington herself gave Milligan the option of saving his people's lives. And they didn't kill or even injure a single civilian when they took out the infrastructure in that system, or anywhere else."
"That was partly because they had the time, Ma'am," Lewis pointed out. "They had complete control of the star systems, and they could afford to give our civilians time to evacuate."
"Agreed. But Harrington didn't have to let Milligan stand down his forces. And they would have been justified, under accepted interstellar law, in simply giving us 'a reasonable time' to evacuate, which would have been a lot shorter than the time they actually gave us." She shook her head. "No, I think part of it was the Manties' way-or, at least, Harrington's way-of telling us that if we show restraint-whenever we can, at least-they'll do the same."
"You may have a point," Marquette said. "Certainly Harrington's record, despite that ridiculous 'murder conviction' the Legislaturalists cooked up after Basilisk, would lead us to expect that out of her. But I think she may also be being a bit subtler than some of our analysts would have expected out of her."
"Subtler?"
"Yes. Think about the other side of her 'message' to Milligan. 'Our technical superiority is so great we could kill you anytime we want to, but because we're nice guys, we're not going to today. All you have to do is blow up your own ships and get out of our way.'"
Marquette's irony was withering, and Trenis frowned.
"You're seeing it as an attack on our people's confidence and morale."
"At least in part. Mind you, from what we know of Harrington, I'm sure she was delighted to not to kill anyone she didn't have to. But she apparently also believes in killing as many birds with each stone as she can."
Trenis nodded silently for a moment, then looked almost diffidently at the chief of staff.
"May I ask if a Board's going to be convened on Milligan's actions?"
"I think you can confidently assume one is," Marquette said a bit grimly. "And I'm not at all sure how it's going to come out, but if I had to place a bet, it wouldn't be on a happy outcome. The fact is that Milligan showed good sense in not getting his people killed for nothing. Unfortunately, that psychological warfare element I just mentioned has to be considered as well. I suspect any Board's going to find he acted appropriately... and that he's going to be beached anyway, as a sort of object lesson. It's not fair, but we have to consider the morale of the Service as a whole."
"I agree that we do, Sir," Trenis said after a moment. "On the other hand, we've gone to some lengths to convince our people they won't get shot as an example to others if they get caught in the gears through no fault of their own. And, frankly, that's exactly what happened to Tom Milligan. He couldn't run, he couldn't bring the enemy into his weapons' range, and the force mix we'd assigned him was hopelessly inadequate even to stand off modern Manty LACs, much less SD(P)s. If we hammer him for his actions, then we tell people we expect them to do the same thing Admiral Beach did, and that we'll hammer them if they don't."