"With all due respect for NavInt, Admiral, I don't think I'd put too much reliance on that last point. It's certainly legitimate to think in terms of the physical limitations on how quickly they can respond, but Grayson and the Manties have been through a lot together. I don't see Mayhew cutting his allies adrift. Especially if we're the aggressor."
Giscard gazed at Foraker's chief of staff thoughtfully for several seconds, then shrugged.
"I wasn't going to bring this up," he said. "And what I'm about to say doesn't leave this compartment."
He paused until all of them had nodded.
"All right. Captain Anders may very well be entirely correct in his estimate of the relationship between Grayson and the Star Kingdom. To be perfectly honest, Secretary Theisman tells me that the analysts at NavInt and ForInt are pretty badly divided over exactly how bad relations between the Protector and the High Ridge Government have actually become. However, there are at least some strong indications that the Manticoran Alliance is no longer as...solid as it was. Specifically," he continued as eyes narrowed speculatively around the conference table, "we've been in contact with the Republic of Erewhon. Obviously, no one has discussed Case Red Alpha with the Erewhonese, but last week the Erewhon Ambassador initialed an agreement in principle for a defensive military alliance with us."
"Erewhon is coming over to our side?" Lester Tourville asked in a very careful tone of voice, clearly unable to believe he'd heard correctly.
"So I've been assured," Giscard replied. "There's no way to extrapolate from that to what Grayson might do, and no one's suggested to me that we've had any sort of direct diplomatic contact with Grayson, either. But if Erewhon is willing to make its own arrangements with us, I'd certainly call that an indication that High Ridge has managed to do a lot more damage to his alliance network than he probably realizes."
"That's one way to put it, Sir," Anders snorted. "Especially if you're given to understatement!" He paused, thinking hard, then shrugged. "All right, Sir. I'm still itchy about what Grayson might do, but I'll admit it looks like there's even more grit jamming the works of the Manty Alliance than I thought there was."
"Which is probably about the best we can hope for, realistically," Giscard replied with a shrug. "We're dealing with uncertainties no matter what we do. Anyone who thinks it could be any other way is dreaming. But my own feeling is that if we find ourselves forced to go back to war at all, this ops plan offers our best chance of winning."
Several hours later, Shannon Foraker watched through the viewport of her pinnace as Sovereign of Space broke orbit, accelerating away from the planet of Haven towards the rest of First Fleet.
It was hard to watch her go. Harder even than she'd expected it to be.
"Hate to see her go, don't you, Ma'am?" a quiet voice asked, and she turned her head to look at Captain Anders.
"Yes," she admitted. "Yes I do."
"Admiral Giscard will take good care of her," Anders reassured her, and she nodded.
"I know he will. And I know Pat will, too. But after so long, it just seems hard to see her as anyone else's flagship."
"I don't doubt it. But that's not all of it, Ma'am," Anders said almost gently, and she frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Ma'am, you're not like me. I'm an engineer first, and a tac officer second; you're exactly the other way around. That's why you want to be out there, making Red Alpha work and executing the tactical doctrines you designed. That's the real reason you hate to see her go as much as you do."
"You know," Foraker said slowly, "for a wirehead, you're a remarkably perceptive person, Five." She shook her head. "I hadn't considered it from that perspective, but you're right. Maybe I didn't think about it that way because I didn't want to admit how very right you are."
"You couldn't be who you are and feel any other way about it, Ma'am," he told her. "But the bottom line is that as good as you are as a tac officer, the Navy and the Republic need you worse at Bolthole than they need you with First or Second Fleet. It's not where you want to be, Ma'am; it's only where you need to be."
"Maybe you're right," she said softly, turning to look back out the port at the steadily accelerating superdreadnought. "Maybe you're right."
But as she watched Sovereign of Space dwindle in the distance, she knew she didn't want him to be.
Chapter Forty One
The com attention signal chimed softly in the darkened cabin. It was a quiet sound, but decades of naval service had made Erica Ferrero a light sleeper. Her right hand shot out and hit the voice-only acceptance key before it could chime a second time, and her left hand raked sleep-tousled hair out of her eyes as she sat up in bed.
"Captain speaking." Her voice struck her as sounding much more awake than she actually felt.
"Captain, this is Lieutenant McKee. The Exec asked me to inform you that 'Sittich' is breaking orbit."
"Understood." Ferrero came suddenly and fully awake at the announcement. She glanced at her bedside date/time display and grimaced. It was the middle of Jessica Epps' shipboard night. McKee had the bridge watch, and by rights, Llewellyn should have been in bed and as sound asleep as Ferrero herself. But her exec had always had a tendency to prowl around the ship at odd times, and it had become even more pronounced since their arrival in the Zoraster System.
"What's her accel, Mecia?" Ferrero asked the com officer.
"Just under two-point-five KPS squared," McKee replied.
"And her heading?"
"Just about what you'd predicted, Skipper. She's on a least-time heading from the planet to the hyper limit."
"Good. In that case, I don't see any reason to wake everybody else up this soon. I'll be up in about fifteen minutes. You and the Exec hold the fort until I get there."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
The red icon representing the ship masquerading as the Andermani merchant ship Sittich crawled across Jessica Epps' tactical display. She'd been accelerating steadily for over two hours now, and her velocity was up to just over 18,500 KPS. She'd traveled a hundred and thirty-nine million kilometers, taking her almost forty percent of the way to the G4 primary's hyper limit. And while she was doing that, Jessica Epps had crept stealthily closer to her, bending their vectors steadily together.
The tension on the heavy cruiser's bridge had climbed steadily. It wasn't the same sort of tension her officers might have felt if they'd been tracking another warship. No, this was the tension of a hunter as a long, careful stalk crept towards its successful conclusion, mingled with the vengeful anticipation of closing in on the sort of vermin any self-respecting naval officer recognized as his natural enemy.
Erica Ferrero glanced at her repeater plot. The range to the target was down to barely three million kilometers, and it was painfully evident that the false Sittich didn't have a clue Jessica Epps was even in the same star system with her. Ferrero supposed she shouldn't feel too much contempt for the slaver's crew. After all, they were deep in one of the better patrolled Silesian star systems, and as far as they knew, any armed vessels in that system were under the orders of the man whose illicit cargo they were carrying. Besides, Shawn Harris' carefully deployed Ghost Rider recon drones had gotten an excellent read on "Sittich's" emissions, and the tramp's active sensors were exactly the sort of crap Ferrero would have anticipated from such a disreputable craft. They'd have been lucky to spot a medium-sized moon if they hadn't already known exactly where to look for it.