He let his eyes circle the table. The officers present represented only a small percentage of the Maya Sector Frontier Fleet Detachment's ship commanders, but they were the most important ones. All of them understood what Barregos and Rozsak had been working towards for so long, and all of them would be critical to its accomplishment. And then, of course, there were Habib and Watanapongse.
Kamstra, as Marksman's CO and the senior officer of Light Cruiser Squadron 7036, wore two official "hats." Three, really, since he normally acted as Rozsak's space-going deputy. In effect, he was the in-space commander of the Maya Sector Detachment, given Rozsak's heavy planet-side administrative duties. Tactically, he would function as Rozsak's flag captain if—as had become increasingly likely—the Detachment found itself committed to action. As such, he'd carried a huge share of the burden when it came to training and integrating the new-build units coming out of Erewhon over the past several months.
Commander David Carte, the CO of Marksman's sister ship Sharpshooter, was also the commanding officer of Light Cruiser Division 7036.1, while Commander Laura Raycraft of the Artillerist commanded LCD 7036.2. Commander Iain Haldane commanded both the cruiser Ranger and also LCD 7036.1, to which Marksman was assigned, which got that job, at least, off of Kamstra's shoulders. Lieutenant Commander Jim Stahlin commanded the destroyer Gustavus Adolphus, while Lieutenant Commander Anne Guglik commanded Gustavus Adolphus' sister, Hernando Cortés. Like the Marksmans, the Warrior-class destroyers were something entirely new in (theoretically) Solarian service—twenty thousand tons larger and far more lethal than the SLN's standard Rampart-class. Unlike the Marksmans, they were also official units of the SLN, although no one outside the Maya Sector or the Republic of Erewhon realized just how big and powerful they actually were. Commander J.T. Cullingford, Commander Melanie Stensrud, and Commander Carmen Priola completed the ship commanders present, although none of them commanded what were technically warships (as far as anyone outside the Maya Sector or Erewhon knew, at any rate). What they did command was something considerably more dangerous—the first three of the Masquerade-class "freighters" delivered by CIG.
"All right," Rozsak said after they'd all settled back into their chairs, "it looks very much like what we thought was going to happen is going to happen. So in the next couple of days, all of us are going to be heading off to Torch 'for maneuvers.' "
No one said a word, and he was pleased to observe that their expressions were mostly alert and thoughtful, with nothing approaching consternation. Of course, it wasn't as if what he'd just said came as any great surprise to them, but it was also true that the step they were about to take would be about as close to irrevocable as actions came.
Not that all of them hadn't been heading for it for a very, very long time now.
"Edie"—he twitched his head briefly to his right, at Habib—"will be giving all of us the detailed appreciation and basic ops plan in a minute, but before she does, let me go ahead and—at the risk of being a bit redundant, under the circumstances—run over the high points." He smiled slightly. "Redundancy is one of the privileges which comes with my lordly flag rank, you all understand."
Most of them smiled, and Stahlin chuckled.
"Basically," Rozsak continued a bit more seriously, "life is getting more interesting out of our way. Given what happened to the Manties and the Havenites at the Battle of Manticore, neither of them is going to have any attention to spare for events in our neck of the woods, and Admiral McAvoy has confirmed to me that he's under orders to keep the Erewhonese Navy close to home."
He shrugged.
"We've shared our intelligence about what seems to be headed Torch's way with both the Torches and the Erewhonese. Jiri's impression—and mine—is that both of them consider the intel reliable, even though we protected one of our better sources from them. Given the fact that Thandi Palane only has a handful of frigates and McAvoy's under orders to stay home, though, there isn't a whole lot either of them can do with it. Under the circumstances—including the fact that we're the ones with the treaty with Torch—Governor Barregos has directed us to deal with it. That's where you people come in.
"I wish we didn't have to take the wraps off this early." He made the admission unflinchingly. "And, conversely, since we do have to take the wraps off, I wish we had more of the new hardware already trained up and ready to go. Unfortunately, however, in light of the Battle of Monica, we've been forced to substantially revise our estimate of the forces Manpower could make available to its proxies rather drastically upward. That means we can't count on holding what they could be throwing at Torch with nothing but theWar Harvests and three Morrigans."
Most of his subordinates nodded soberly at that. The War Harvest-class represented the largest destroyer design in current SLN inventory. The fact that the Maya Sector had been assigned a full flotilla of them (although Destroyer Flotilla 3029, the flotilla in question, was one ship short of the eighteen it should theoretically have had) was an emblem of the Sector's economic importance. The three elderly Morrigan-class light cruisers which had been assigned to lead the flotilla's three squadrons, on the other hand, were an emblem of Frontier Security's . . . ambiguous feelings where Oravil Barregos was concerned. Although they'd been refitted with first-line electronics, they were very little larger than the destroyers they'd been assigned to work with—less than half the size of the Marksmans, in fact.
"If these people come in even with just the forces we already know have been recruited by Manpower," Rozsak continued, "they'd be in a damned good position to beat up on our 'official' ship list. If they come in with any substantial additional combat power, our people would be toast. And unlike that asshole Navarre, Manpower's 'proxies' won't have any official connection to Mesa. Our estimate is that that will make them a lot less likely to back down to keep the SLN from getting pissed off at Mesa—since Mesa can always say 'Who? Us? No, no, no. We didn't have a thing to do with all that mayhem and destruction!' " He shook his head. "They're headed for Torch to turn Torch into a smoking cinder, people . . . and it's going to be up to you to see to it that that doesn't happen."
He paused for a moment, letting them digest what he'd just said, then tipped his chair back slightly.
"Does anyone have any comments at this stage?" he invited.
There was silence for a moment while people glanced at one another, then Kamstra faced Rozsak up the length of the table.
"I don't think any of us have any questions about 'why,' Sir," he said. "I imagine there are a few little concerns about exactly 'how,' though. And about hardware availability. So far, J.T. is the only one of our arsenal ship skippers who's actually had the opportunity to roll pods in an all-up live-fire exercise. We've spent a lot of hours in the simulators, of course, but that's not quite the same thing. And then there's the question of how many pods we'll have when the credit actually drops."
"Those are all valid concerns," Rozsak acknowledged, "and I think you'll find Edie and her people have dealt with them in their ops plan. Nobody's pretending we're delighted with the compromises we're going to be forced to adopt, but to paraphrase a pre-space politician by the name of Churchill, perfect operational conditions obtain only in Heaven . . . and admirals who insist on them before they'll take action seldom get there."