"Sir," Karlotte Thimár said in a very careful tone, "Captain Mizawa would like to speak with you."
"Oh, I bet he does," Byng growled. "I don't suppose he's screening to apologize for reading mail that wasn't addressed to him?" he added, twitching his head towards his now-blank com.
"I'm sorry, Sir," MaCuill said, "but the Manties' last message wasn't addressed specifically to you. It carried a general heading . . . to all ships, Sir."
Byng's face took on a dangerously mottled coloration, and he glared at the communications officer.
"And why the hell didn't you mention that little fact to me before?" he snarled.
"I'm sorry, Sir," MaCuill repeated, "but the address block was displayed in the message header. I . . . assumed you'd seen it."
Byng bit back an even more furious response, then closed his eyes, clenched his folded hands tightly behind him, and tried to suppress the anger boiling inside him. After several moments, he opened his eyes once again and smiled tightly at Thimár.
"Well, I suppose that if the good captain wants to speak to me, the least I can do is take his call," he told the chief of staff, and slid back into his command chair once more. He paused for one more second, then tapped the acceptance key.
"Yes, Captain?" He kept his voice as neutral as possible, although he knew it was still giving away more of his inner fury than he wanted it to.
"Admiral." It was obvious Mizawa was working hard at keeping his own voice nonconfrontational, which only made Byng perversely more angry as the flag captain continued. "I realize you and I haven't exactly seen eye-to-eye on several matters of late, but I strongly urge you to consider the possibility that this Admiral Gold Peak really has the capability she's talking about."
"Captain, that's ridiculous," Byng replied. "I know about the rumors of impossible range on Manty missiles. Good God, I did read the ONI appreciations before I headed out here, you know! And I know the missiles Technodyne deployed in Monica had enhanced drive systems to increase their range. For that matter I know that R and D back home has been looking into adopting the same concept for some time now. But I also know how big the Technodyne missiles were, and so should you, if you've read the same reports. That's the main reason we haven't pursued the same concept ourselves, you know. We simply don't have the magazine capacity, or shipboard launchers big enough, to accommodate anything with drives the size of the ones Technodyne used in Monica . . . and neither does anyone else! We saw the launch tubes on these damned big-assed 'battlecruisers' of theirs at Monica, if you'll recall. There's no way in the galaxy they could fire a missile that size out of those launchers! I'll grant you that their wallers might—conceivably—have the tubes for them, but no way in hell does one of these ships have them! And we've got Javelins in the magazines, not those crap Pilums Technodyne supplied to Monica. Not to mention the fact that none of the Monicans had Halo, either."
"Sir, I realize all of that's true," Mizawa said. "But the Javelin is still a single-drive missile. A damned good one, yes, but only single-drive. If the reports about the Manties' cruisers at Monica having multi-drive weapons are accurate, then these people certainly have them, too."
Byng forced himself not to roll his eyes in exasperation. As he'd just pointed out, the system defense missiles Technodyne had supplied to Monica had been too big for any shipboard launcher, and they'd been single-drive missiles. Now he wanted to put something big enough to mount multiple drives through a launch tube? Good God! The man wasn't just paranoid, he was a frigging idiot! Even a Frontier Fleet officer should have been bright enough to figure out that something the size of a cruiser-range missile tube couldn't possibly fire something even bigger than those Technodyne birds!
He'd obviously given away at least some of his reaction, despite his best efforts not to, because Mizawa's expression tightened even further.
"I'm aware of the size argument against the idea, Sir. But, with all due respect, look at that last message of theirs. It was sent before we'd actually brought our wedges up, but they knew exactly what we were doing. That means they do have FTL recon capability, and they're using it. In my judgment, especially coupled with their observed acceleration rates, that demonstrates that at least a sizable chunk of the reports about Manty capabilities which ONI has been discounting are actually accurate."
His eyes burned into Byng's. He'd very carefully refrained from mentioning Askew's memos, but they were there, between them, and his voice turned harder, harsher.
"Given that evidence—the proof that ONI's been wrong in at least some of its assessments—I think we have to take the possibility of the sort of missile ranges they're talking about seriously."
"Well that makes one of us, Captain," Byng said sarcastically, before he could restrain himself. Mizawa flushed, and Byng shook his head. "I apologize for that last remark," he made himself say. "There's enough going on to make anyone tense, but that's no reason for me to take it out on you."
From Mizawa's expression, it was obvious he knew Byng's apology was strictly pro forma, but he gave a jerky nod, and Byng forced himself to smile.
"I've noted your concerns, Captain. On the other hand, we have twenty-two ships, seventeen of them battlecruisers, to only nineteen, total, Manties. Admittedly, their 'battlecruisers' are bigger than ours—probably tougher, too, for that matter—but each of ours has as many missile launchers as one of theirs, and they only have six, and their heavy cruisers only have twenty-tube broadsides! That gives us a significant advantage in tubes and an even bigger one in throw weight. And, with all due respect, I'm not prepared to discount intelligence appreciations formulated by analysts with access to all the information coming to us on the basis of appreciations generated independently, with partial information, by officers who—justifiably, I might add—have every reason to adopt pessimistic assumptions in order to avoid underestimating a potential enemy's capabilities. Granted, their acceleration rates are higher than Intelligence predicted, but that single point aside, there is absolutely no evidence, aside from apocryphal accounts, that the Manties have the capabilities you're ascribing to them, and I cannot in good conscience permit a third-rate neobarb navy with delusions of grandeur to even attempt to dictate terms to the Solarian League Navy. The precedent would be disastrous from any foreign policy perspective, and the insult to the honor of the Fleet would be intolerable."
"Sir, I'm not suggesting you cave in to their demands. I'm simply suggesting that it may be time to try negotiating a stand down on both sides. They say they've sent a diplomatic note to Meyers. All right, what if we were to refuse to surrender our ships to them but agreed to return to orbit and maintain the status quo here in New Tuscany while we sent a dispatch boat back to Meyers to seek Commissioner Verrochio's instructions? If they accept, then the decision of how we respond to their demands legitimately becomes a political decision to be made by the highest local political authority. And if this Gold Peak accepts, it would also give Commissioner Verrochio an opportunity to dispatch reinforcements in the event that—as would almost certainly be the case—he decides that we are correct to reject her demands. At the very least, it would allow us to play for time while—"