On the other hand, that hadn’t been the point of the exercise.

  “You may be right, at least about how clearly we’ve put forward our version of things, Innokentiy,” Agatá Wodoslawski said, “and I’ll admit it’s getting good play with the newsies and boards here in Sol. Whether or not we’ve convinced anybody else—anybody outside the Kuiper, I mean—is another question, though. And, frankly, I think the other side’s claims about Hypatia are likely to undermine our efforts to portray Buccaneer as a measured response to the Manties’ initial aggression. Especially given what I suppose you’d have to call the ‘end game’ there.”

  “Exactly,” Abruzzi said. “Exactly! What in God’s name was Gogunov thinking, Admiral?”

  An excellent question, Kingsford thought, however—

  “I believe he thought he was obeying his orders, Mr. Abruzzi,” he said out loud. “The original time limit, as Mr. Kolokoltsov just pointed out, had been set by Vice Admiral Hajdu…after consultation with Ms. Yang-O’Grady.”

  He hid a smile behind a carefully grave expression as several of the civilian faces on the other side of the table tightened. Nathan MacArtney seemed particularly irked.

  That was nice.

  “Vice Admiral Hajdu’s orders, in accordance with the directives the Navy had been given, emphasized both the need to make the strongest possible statement in Hypatia’s case and the necessity of avoiding additional heavy losses, if at all possible. After all, we didn’t want to add to the false impression of Manticoran invincibility.”

  He couldn’t quite keep an edge of acid out of his last sentence. He was so tired of losing men and women in enormous numbers because they were so out-ranged by their adversaries. He was a naval officer. He understood people got killed in wars. He even understood that it was his job to spend however much blood it took to achieve the Solarian League’s military and political objectives. But what truly pissed him off was that he’d been instructed to avoid heavy casualties not to keep people alive but because—as Abruzzi had put it at the time—“if your people can’t keep from getting killed, it’s really going to screw up our ability to sustain civilian morale.”

  “Well, he certainly didn’t manage to accomplish that bit of his orders,” Abruzzi said now, his tone bitter.

  “No, he didn’t, Mr. Abruzzi.” Kingsford’s liquid-helium voice was warmer than his eyes as he met the permanent senior undersecretary for information’s glare. “Because there were already Manties in-system when he arrived, and he couldn’t find them through their stealth.”

  And because he didn’t look for them, I suspect, the admiral admitted to himself, but I am damned if I’ll give you one bit of ammunition, you prick.

  “When the Manties ambushed him, he had no option but to fight, and I believe his losses speak for how hard his people fought. And—again, as Mr. Kolokoltsov observed—he and Ms. Yang-O’Grady were both dead when the shooting stopped. So Admiral Gogunov—originally ninth in the task force’s chain of command, I might point out—suddenly found himself faced with deciding what to do next. We’re not sure if he’s still alive. We do know there was at least one survivor from his flag bridge, so he may also have survived and be a POW at this time. Without the chance to debrief him, I can’t tell you exactly what he was thinking, but I’d wager that a part of it was the clause in the Buccaneer ops order that emphasized its psychological objectives. His task force had just taken enormous losses. Under the circumstances, he may have felt that allowing himself to be deterred from maintaining the original time limit Vice Admiral Hajdu—and Ms. Yang-O’Grady—had set would have presented the appearance of weakness, and given the Manties a moral and psychological victory.”

  “Which they damned well ended up with anyway,” Abruzzi pointed out, not giving a centimeter.

  Kingsford’s jaw tightened, but he couldn’t dispute that part of Abruzzi’s analysis. The Manties had scored an enormous psychological victory, and not simply for their own Navy.

  “Maybe we can defuse some of that,” MacArtney said thoughtfully. “What if we spin Gogunov’s refusal to extend the deadline as a reaction to the Hypatians’ treachery and the massive casualties his task force had already taken?”

  “What do you mean?” Abruzzi demanded.

  “Well, I know this is more your bailiwick than mine,” MacArtney said in a so-why-didn’t-you-think-of-this tone, “but as Admiral Kingsford’s just pointed out, Vice Admiral Hajdu didn’t know the Manties were there, and clearly in much greater numbers than they’re prepared to admit. It’s obvious neither they nor the Hypatians have any reason to tell us what the actual numbers were, and I’m sure they think understating their own strength adds to their aura of battlefield supremacy.”

  He grimaced, and Abruzzi cocked his head, listening intently.

  “And the reason Hajdu didn’t know they were there was that the Hypatian government hadn’t told him. Or that they’d invited the Manties in—obviously before the referendum vote had been counted. So we have their outright act of treason in attempting to secede in the first place, their treachery in inviting the Manties in, all coupled with their decision to conceal the Manties’ presence from Vice Admiral Hajdu and Madhura—I mean, Ms. Yang-O’Grady.” He shrugged. “It’s obvious the Manties were able to inflict such one-sided casualties only because they had the advantage of total surprise, and Gogunov would have known that as well as we do, just as he knew they had that advantage only because of the Hypatians’ duplicity. Under the circumstances, and having just seen so many thousands of his fellow spacers shot in the back by the cowardly ambushers, as it were, he initially overreacted. But whatever he may have threatened, he never actually fired on the Hypatian habitats, did he? We might want to consider ‘discovering’ some com traffic between him and his successor in command—Yountz, was it?—in which he says he intends to relent in the end anyway. If we make it clear he’s so furious he wants the Hypatians terrified—that he’s looking for some emotional revenge in lieu of the wholesale massacre he couldn’t possibly justify militarily—it’ll actually make him seem more human, more believable. And, of course, in the end, our people not only withdrew from the system but did it without destroying the Hypatian infrastructure—which the Manties couldn’t have prevented them from doing at that point, whatever might—or might not—have happened to our warships afterward, purely as a humanitarian gesture to a star system which damned well didn’t deserve it after such unbridled treachery!”

  He raised his right hand in front of him, palm uppermost, and arched his eyebrows at his fellows.

  “You know, I may just be able to work with that,” Abruzzi said, his expression much brighter than it had been.

  Kingsford, on the other hand, kept his mouth shut only with difficulty.

  He found it hard to believe there’d been only ten Manty ships in Hypatia, although to Thomas Yountz’s credit, he’d steadfastly refused to inflate the enemy’s numbers to make himself look better in his own report. In fact, based on his tac officers’ data, he’d even suggested that some of the nine ships in the initial attack force had been decoys, not real ships. It was hard to believe anyone had drones capable of maintaining a false emission signature that powerful for such an extended time, but the Manties seemed to make a habit out of doing the unlikely, didn’t they?

  Even assuming they’d had twice the number of hulls Yountz had actually counted, though, that still came to no more than twenty. And unlike the civilians sitting in this room, Winston Kingsford knew what it had taken for a score of ships to walk deep into their enemies’ range basket to attack eight or nine times their own number, and “cowardly ambushers” had no place in any description of them, however great their technological superiority might have been. He knew he couldn’t admit his admiration for those men and women, for their courage and their willingness to lay down their lives for the people of someone else’s star system. Not in this room. But whatever he or the Mandarins might be willing to admit, the rest of the galaxy—and especially the galaxy outside the League—would understand the Manties hadn’t had to fight. That they’d chosen to sail straight into their own deaths to defend someone else. The consequences for the effort to demolish the Grand Alliance’s reputation among the galaxy’s neutrals would be very difficult to overestimate.

  And that’s one of the reasons you had such doubts about Parthian from the beginning, isn’t it, Winston? he reminded himself scathingly. You should never have even listened to Bernard and Salazar about that. Take out the infrastructure, sure, but don’t kill everybody in sight! If you’d only shut them the hell up fast enough…

  What had actually happened in Hypatia was bad enough, in terms of its probable impact on galactic public opinion, but if Yountz had carried through on Gogunov’s threat, if he had killed six or seven million civilians…

  And it’s frigging MacArtney who grabbed Parthian from the civilian side and ran with it, he reminded himself. With your support, Mr. Abruzzi.

  Despite the most intense search he could conduct without going public, Kingsford had no idea who in the Office of Strategy and Planning had leaked Captain Mardyola Salazar’s proposal to MacArtney after he himself had categorically rejected it. The last thing the Navy—his Navy—needed was to be accused of violating the Eridani Edict! Buccaneer would come uncomfortably close to that even without Parthian Shot, which made it particularly important that they not pile avoidable civilian casualties on top of it.

  If he ever did find out who’d leaked that proposal to MacArtney, he’d turn the guilty party into dogfood. He’d really wanted to think it must have been Salazar herself, but his investigation had fully cleared her. Yet someone had leaked it, and the man who ran Frontier Security had been more than desperate—and vengeful—enough to embrace it. Indeed, he’d clearly hoped there would be mega casualties somewhere along the line. And he’d managed to talk his fellow Mandarins into supporting it, as well, despite Kingsford’s opposition, on the grounds that without Parthian the SLN would look weak anytime it backed away from a star system protected by an Allied squadron or two.

  He’d salved his conscience at the time by hoping his commanders in the field would recoil from killing innocent bystanders in job lots. Thinking about that now, he felt only scathing, richly deserved contempt for his own naivety. No, for his own deliberate self-delusion. It had been an act of moral cowardice to rely on his subordinates’ willingness to disobey the orders they should never have been given in the first place. Even if it hadn’t been an abdication of his own responsibilities, he should have known how having Parthian in his back pocket would affect the thinking of someone like Martin Gogunov. He’d expected better out of Hajdu Győző when he chose him to command TF 1030, but looking back with bleak honesty, he knew he’d been deluding himself there, too.

  But what could I do when civilian command authority made it a direct order, damn it? Maybe I should have resigned instead of smiling and accepting the directive, but who would the five of you have put into the CNO slot if I had? Another Crandall? Another Filareta? Another Byng? God, I hope there aren’t two of him in the Service! But whatever my thinking, I didn’t resign, did I? And now you want to turn the fact that somebody disobeyed your orders only because someone else had her pulser in his ear into our get out of jail free card?

  The thought was bitter as gall, but voicing it would do no good.

  “It is true Admiral Yountz could have executed Buccaneer, despite the tactical situation,” he said instead, once he was certain he had control of his voice. “It’s probable he would have gotten several thousand more Solarian spacers killed, but he could have.”

  “I think Nathan’s onto something here.” Kolokoltsov frowned, his eyes narrowed in thought, apparently oblivious to Kingsford’s qualifier. “Especially since all the other strikes went so well.”

  “Aside from Admiral Isotalo’s raid on Ajay, you mean?” Kingsford managed to kill the anger in the question, but it was a very near thing.

  He still didn’t know what had happened to Jane Isotalo and Task Force 1027. Aside from the fact that not a single one of her battlecruisers had come home again, that was. From the handful of Vice Admiral Santini’s surviving screening units, it was obvious the Manties had arranged a devastating ambush on the Ajay side of the terminus. Just how they’d pulled that off, especially when Isotalo had been careful to scout the wormhole before taking her battlecruisers through it, was something he’d dearly love to know…and they weren’t saying. It seemed likely the same LACs—or whatever the hell they were—they’d used when they caught Santini with his hyper generators down had played a role in the disaster, but there was no way to be sure, and the last thing they needed was to jump to any conclusions—any more conclusions—over what Manty tech could and couldn’t do.

  “Of course, Admiral.” Kolokoltsov had the grace to look a little abashed. “No one’s forgetting the price the Navy’s paid. If it sounded like I was trivializing what happened in Ajay—or Hypatia—I certainly didn’t intend to.”

  “Understood, Sir,” Kingsford replied.

  “I agree with everything Innokentiy just said.” Abruzzi sounded about as sincere as the honesty quotient in a typical Information news release, and Kingsford’s answering nod was just a bit brusque.

  “What’s your overall assessment of Buccaneer at this point, Admiral?” Kolokoltsov asked before Abruzzi could say anything else.

  “My overall assessment is that, from a military perspective, it’s been reasonably—but not completely—successful, Mister Secretary,” Kolokoltsov said in a more formal tone. “Losses were extremely heavy in the cases of Hypatia and Ajay, but we were completely successful, with light to no casualties at all, in the other six Phase One attacks. We hit targets across an arc of well over four hundred light-years and served notice to the Manties and their allies that if they want to prevent additional attacks, they’ll have to disperse their naval forces much more broadly. Obviously, that will reduce the threat of what they might be able to do with their ‘Grand Fleet.’ I’m not in a position to assess the degree to which Buccaneer’s having the desired political effect. The only thing I can say on that front is that our analysis over at ONI suggests we’re probably hardening hostility against the league in the Verge and—especially—the Fringe. But by the same token, we knew that was likely to happen going in.”

  “What was it that old pre-space philosopher said?” MacArtney said with a harsh chuckle. “Something about it’s better to be feared than to be loved?”

  “I believe the actual quotation is ‘It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both,’ Sir.” Kingsford stressed the conjunction. Slightly. “The philosopher in question was a gentleman named Niccolo Machiavelli,” he added as MacArtney’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  And the only reason I signed off on Buccaneer in the first place is that you and Frontier Security have damned well made sure we can’t “be both” in the Verge, the admiral added with silent, bitter venom. I only hope to hell we aren’t busy making sure the Manties can.

  “At the moment, I’m afraid, we’ll have to settle for being feared,” Kolokoltsov said, as if he’d read the admiral’s mind. “And, that being the case, where are we on Phase Two?”

  “We’re into the prep stage, Sir,” Kingsford replied. “To be honest, the decision to divert additional battlecruisers and cruisers to…peacekeeping duties in the Protectorates is cutting into our readiness.”

  “You have how many battlecruisers?” MacArtney asked, bristling instantly. “Something over four thousand, I believe?”

  “Five T-months ago, Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet between them had four thousand four hundred and twelve in active commission and four hundred and sixty undergoing routine overhaul,” Kingsford replied in a precise tone. “At that time—as Admiral Rajampet had mentioned upon occasion, I think—we were at least twenty percent understrength for our peacetime missions in the Verge and Fringe. Specifically, Mr. MacArtney, in the Protectorates. Since that time, we’ve lost in excess of four hundred of those ships—and their crews—and given the obsolescence of our superdreadnoughts, virtually the entire burden of fighting this war is falling on that class of ships. We have an additional hundred and eighty or so in the Reserve and we’re mobilizing them as rapidly as possible, but they won’t even compensate for the ships we’ve lost since the shooting started.” He held MacArtney’s eyes coolly. “Under the circumstances, diverting those additional ships to the Protectorates has cut significantly into our readiness posture.”

  “Excuse me, Admiral, but the entire reason we have a Navy, is to—” MacArtney began hotly.

  “That’s enough, Nathan!” Kolokoltsov’s sharp tone drew an indignant look from the permanent senior undersecretary of the interior.

  “Nobody’s arguing that we can afford to let the Protectorates go,” Kolokoltsov said impatiently. “That’s the reason we’re fighting this thing in the first place instead of just taking our ball and going home. But the Admiral needs to be able to tell us the truth, whether we want to hear it or not, and it’s not his responsibility to justify how we got into this mess in the first place. It’s ours.”

  MacArtney locked eyes with him for a moment, then inhaled sharply and looked back at Kingsford.