There was no way they could possibly escape, and so they pressed on, accelerating directly towards the Graysons in an effort to at least get close enough to see the enemy clearly before they died.
Giscard knew exactly what they were doing, and a knife seemed to turn in his heart as he watched them do it. Nothing he could do at this point would affect what was about to happen to them. But he was the man who'd deliberately sent them out to die, and even though he knew he'd been rightthat he would do the same thing again under the same circumstances, even knowing the outcomethat didn't make it hurt any less.
He watched his people accelerate, rushing to meet their deaths rather than fight for every instant of life they could cling to. He watched the red icons of their killers sweep towards them even as their sensors reached out and confirmed one capital impeller signature after another. He saw the missile storm that blotted them from the heavens. And then, finally, he turned away and made himself meet Captain Gozzi's eyes.
"What does CIC say now?" he asked quietly.
"We've confirmed thirty-seven positive superdreadnought impeller signatures, with another three probables and one possible," Gozzi said, equally quietly. "There are also at least eight other ships out there. They're a shade too small for SDs but too big for anything else on the Manty ship lists."
"Judging by what we just saw," Giscard said dryly, "I suspect that they must be CLACs."
"Yes, Sir. But our recon crews were quite definite. They're bigger than Manty carriers."
"Graysons, then," Giscard murmured.
"That would certainly be my guess, Sir," Gozzi agreed, and Giscard snorted softly.
The confirmation of the presence of the GSN in strength put an entirely different complexion on the tactical situation. The sheer numbers coming up behind him would have been bad enough under any circumstances. The fact that they were Graysons made it even worse. Not just because of the profound respect with which the Republican Navy had learned to regard the GSN, but because of what their presence implied.
"Do you think they knew we were coming, Sir?" Gozzi asked, speaking softly enough to avoid other ears, and Giscard snorted again as his chief of staff followed his own thoughts.
"I think they must have figured out that something was coming, at any rate," he replied. "I doubt they managed to penetrate Thunderbolt, if that's what you're asking. But they wouldn't have needed to do that to set up an ambush here. All they would really have needed was one analyst with enough IQ to seal his own shoes and they could have guessed what would happen if the negotiations collapsed. And if they did that, even Janacek could figure out this would be the best spot to use for a counterstroke. After all, when you combine the concentration of most of their modern ships with the political significance of San Martin, this is undoubtedly the most valuable target we could have hit. That's precisely why this is our strongest task force. Which means that if they wanted a place to arrange for us to suffer a mischief, this would certainly have been a logical choice for it.
"If that's what they had in mind, though, it looks like they've come up a little short on the execution end. We know they're out there now, and they haven't gotten us quite deeply enough in-system to pin us between their two forces."
He fell silent once more, studying the displays and pondering options and alternatives. He could try turning on either one of the enemy task forces with his entire force. He'd have an excellent chance of defeating either one of them in isolation, if he could intercept it before its allies could come to its assistance. But if they chose to avoid action with one force while pursuing with the other, they might manage to prevent the interception he wanted. Or, even worse, let him have it but with too tight a time window to defeat the force he'd "caught" before the other one caught him from behind, in turn.
If the Committee of Public Safety had still been in power, the decision ultimately wouldn't have been his. It would have belonged to his people's commissioner, and if he'd dared to argue about it he would have found himself shot for his temerity. But the Republic had no commissioners, and he drew a deep breath and committed himself to the decision no admiral of the People's Navy would ever have dared to make.
"Go to evasion Tango-Baker-Three-One," he told Gozzi.
"Are you sure about this, Sir?" Gozzi asked in a painstakingly neutral tone.
"I am, Marius," Giscard replied with a small smile. "Trevor's Star was a primary objective, I know. And I know why Admiral Theisman wanted Third Fleet destroyed. But if they've managed to assemble this much firepower here, then they have to be buck naked on all of Thunderbolt's other objectives. That means we've kicked their ass everywhere else. I realize that we've got a chance here to carry through and cripple or destroy three-quarters of the combined MantyGrayson SD(P) force. But we've got too many pre-pod ships of our own, and we'd be risking over half of our own SD(P)s. Not to mention the fact that there's too good chance of their catching us between them instead of us catching them separated." He shook his head. "No. There's always tomorrow, and if we've gotten out as lightly as I think we have elsewhere, the comparative loss figures are going to hit Manticoran public morale right in the belly. I don't want to give them a victory here to offset that effect. Nor do I want them to think that they hurt us badly enough we can't continue to take the war to them."
"Yes, Sir," Gozzi acknowledged and headed for the com section yet again.
Giscard watched him go, and then returned his attention to the master plot. He knew that Gozzi's question had reflected the chief of staff's concern over the possible repercussions the decision might have on Giscard's career. His own concern, hidden behind a confidently serene expression, had nothing to do with his career prospects. He knew Tom Theisman would expect him to exercise both judgment and discretion in the case like this, nor was he afraid that Theisman would see his decision to withdraw as an act of cowardice. For that matter, he snorted in genuine amusement, he could probably count on the President to intervene if things got too grim.
No, his concern was that he might be wrong. He didn't think he was. But he could be. And if he was, if he was throwing away a genuine opportunity to gut the Manticoran Alliance's wall of battle, the implications of that would dwarf anything that might ever have happened to anyone's career.
Michael Janvier, Baron High Ridge, was also thinking about careers as he paused, some hours later, in the hallway outside the polished wooden door. An armed sentrya captain in the uniform of the Queen's Ownstood stiffly at attention before that door, and the immaculately uniformed woman didn't even glance at the Prime Minister.
High Ridge knew that the traditions and training of the Queen's Own required that ramrod stiffness, that apparent obliviousness to anything even as the sentry saw and noted everything that happened about her. But there was more to it than mere tradition or training. Something no one could ever have put a finger upon or isolated, but nonetheless there.
An edge of contempt, High Ridge thought as he made certain the mask of his own expression was firmly in place. The hostility that all of Elizabeth III's partisans reflected, each in his or her own way.
The Prime Minister drew an unobtrusive breath, squared mental shoulders, and moved the two meters closer which brought him within the sentry's designated official field of view.
The captain reacted then. Her head snapped to the side, her eyes focused on High Ridge, and her right hand flicked to the butt of the holstered pulser at her side with mechanical precision. It was all meticulously choreographed. Only an idiot would have thought the captain was anything less than a deadly serious professional, yet her response was also a display of formal military theater. One which required an equally formal response from him.