"No apology necessary," Denton said in a more normal tone. "And I don't blame you. I never expected to see something like this out in the Verge, either. And just between you and me, I'm not very happy to be seeing it now."
"Amazing how we're thinking the same thing, isn't it?" O'Shaughnessy replied, and Denton snorted harshly, then turned back to the updated tactical plot.
Reprise had stopped accelerating and started coasting ballistically twenty-six minutes earlier. During that interval, her recon platforms had reached their destinations, spreading out to englobe the planet Meyers at a range of barely fifteen light-seconds. At that distance, there could be no mistake. There really were seventy-one Solarian superdreadnoughts, accompanied by sixteen battlecruisers, twelve heavy cruisers, twenty-three light cruisers, and eighteen destroyers orbiting the planet.
Not to mention three repair ships, what have to be a couple of dozen stores ships, and what looks like a pair of straight ammunition carriers. It would appear New Tuscany isn't the only star system out this way benefitting from Battle Fleet's attention of late, he thought ironically.
"May I ask a question, Mr. O'Shaughnessy?" he said.
"Captain, you can ask anything you like." The analyst turned to face him, his expression serious. "Believe me, you're cleared for anything you think you need to know in a situation like this one."
"Thank you, Sir. I appreciate that. What I was wondering was whether or not any one's come up with a better theory for how a Battle Fleet admiral ended up in command of a Frontier Fleet task group?"
"Given what we know about Byng, it didn't just happen by the luck of the draw," O'Shaughnessy said grimly. "Byng hates Frontier Fleet. Not as much as he hates us, maybe, but badly enough. He's got the connections to avoid an assignment like this one without even raising a sweat, too. And that completely ignores the fact that Frontier Fleet must've screamed bloody murder when it found out it was expected to hand a command like that over to anyone from Battle Fleet, far less Byng. Somebody with a lot of influence had to get him nominated for the command, and he had to want to accept it."
"That's pretty much the way I figured it already," Denton said. "The reason I asked is that I have to find myself doubting that these people"—he pointed at the display with his chin—"just happen to be here by the luck of the draw, either. I think there's a connection between them and Byng. In fact, the evidence seems to be screaming pretty loudly that we're looking at a setup."
"I'm very much afraid I agree with you," O'Shaughnessy said heavily. "I wish to God I didn't, and I suppose there might be some other explanation for it,. But if there is, I haven't been able to think of what it might be yet, either."
"I don't think Byng fired on Commodore Chatterjee by accident or in a panic." Denton's voice was hard, harsh-edged. "Not anymore. I don't know who's behind it, although I'd be willing to hazard a few guesses based on what's already happened here in the Quadrant, but someone wants us in a war with the League. And these people"—another quick, angry jut of his chin at the master plot—"are the hammer that's supposed to make sure it's a short, nasty war."
"We probably don't want to wed ourselves too immovably to that conclusion, Captain. I say that purely as a professional analyst who's gone a bit too far out on a limb upon occasion only to see it sawed off behind him. Having cast my professional sheet anchor to windward, however, I think you're absolutely right. But unlike you, I don't have any idea of just how bad the military odds really are, given these people's presence, and I'd like to get one."
"Against what we've got in the Quadrant right now?" Denton raised an eyebrow at him, and he nodded. "Not good," the commander said. "In fact, that's understating the situation fairly significantly. In technical terms, I believe the phrase would be 'We're screwed.' "
"I was afraid that was what you were going to say."
"Don't get me wrong, Mr. O'Shaughnessy. We could hurt them, probably even pretty badly, but no way in the galaxy could we stop them if they're prepared to keep coming. The battlecruisers and the small fry—phfffft!" Denton snapped his fingers. "But those big bastards are something else entirely. We could probably rip hell out of them as long as the Mark 23 pods hold out, but it would take a lot of hits—even with the Mark 23—to kill one of them, and we don't have an unlimited supply of the pods. Worse than that, we don't have any podnoughts. That means we can only carry and deploy pods externally, which makes them a lot more vulnerable and tactically less flexible. They'd be at their most effective in a purely defensive deployment, with lots of shipboard control links to manage them, but to make that work, we'd have to figure out where we needed them far enough in advance to get them—and enough ships to control them in worthwhile salvos—there before the Sollies came calling, and that wouldn't exactly be a trivial challenge.
"It's more likely we'd find ourselves having to face up to them without a powerful pod reserve—especially if we decide we have to insure the security of Spindle and dump most of the pods there. If that happens, we'll have to use mobile units to cover the Quadrant's other systems, and that means nothing heavier than a Nike or a Saganami-C. And that means using primarily whatever we can fire from our internal tubes . . . which sure as hell doesn't mean Mark 23s.
"From what I've heard about the new Mark 16 warhead mods, we could probably get in some good licks even against wallers, once the pods are gone, but I don't think we could do enough to knock them out. Certainly not in large enough numbers to do us any good. And that's assuming they didn't just decide to split up into smaller task units and go after each of the Quadrant's star systems individually—which, by the way, would require us to parcel out everything we've got, not just the Mark 23 pods—on a penny-packet basis if we wanted to try to give some cover to the Quadrant as a whole. But our only real chance of inflicting significant damage on wallers would be to stay concentrated and hammer them with everything we've got from outside their effective powered envelope. Splitting up into smaller units to defend multiple targets would hurt us more than it would hurt them."
"What about the Lynx Terminus?"
"That's probably another story, Sir. For one thing, most of the forts are on-line now, and each of them is a hell of a lot tougher than any piece-of-crap Solly superdreadnought ever built. And for another thing, Home Fleet is right on the other side of the terminus. Trust me. If these people want to dance with Duchess Harrington after what she did to the Peeps at Manticore, they're toast."
"What do you think they'll do?"
"I'm only a destroyer skipper, Mr. O'Shaughnessy. One with a nasty suspicious streak, maybe, but only a destroyer skipper. That kind of strategic assessment is way above my pay grade."
"I realize that. And I'm not going to hold you to anything. But I'd really like to hear your thoughts."
"Well, if it was me, and if we really are looking at some kind of orchestrated plan, a setup designed to get us out of the Quadrant once and for all, I'd start by taking out the administrative center of the Quadrant."
"You'd go for Spindle?"
"In a skinny minute, Sir," Denton said flatly. "I'd head straight there on the assumption that if the Manties tried to fight me, they'd have to come to me, well away from the terminus, on my terms. I'd figure I was going to take some nasty lumps, but that the Admiralty would never allow any really heavy force to get too far away from the Lynx Terminus, given the situation back home. So all I'd really have to take on would be whatever Admiral Gold Peak had under her command. And if she didn't try to fight me, the Star Empire would effectively concede possession of the entire Talbott Cluster, which would let me gather up all the other systems at my leisure. I might not get to kill as many Manty starships, but I'd have taken what would probably be my primary objectives for minimal losses. Not to mention the morale damage I would have inflicted on all those people who'd just voted to join the Star Empire if the Navy cuts and runs instead of trying to defend them."