"We, however, have somewhat greater aspirations than to achieve another glorious defeat," Bukato continued. "We are reinforcing Theisman in hopes that he will actually hold Barnettif possible, for use as a springboard to retake Trevors Star. That isnt something well be able to do next week, or even next month, but the time to stop giving ground every time the Manties hit us has come now."
A soft sound circled the table, and something inside Giscard shivered. It had been a long time since hed heard that hungry growl of agreement from anyone but his own staff, and a part of him wondered how McQueen had put so much iron into her senior subordinates spines so quickly. No wonder shes been so effective in combat, if she can do this, he thought. Then: And no wonder just thinking about her political ambitions scares the shit out of the peoples commissioners!
"Our data on the enemys currently available fleet strength are not as definite as wed like," Bukato went on. "Our espionage operations in the Star Kingdom have taken a heavy hit since the war started. Indeed, we now suspect" he glanced sidelong at Fontein and Pritchart "that NavInts major prewar networks there had been compromised even before the start of hostilities. It looks like the Manties actually used our own spies to feed us fabricated information to draw us into false initial deployments."
Again, Giscard kept his face expressionless, but it was hard. Most of the PNs new crop of senior officers must have speculated about that. Giscard certainly had, though, like all the others, hed dared not say so aloud. But it made sense. Certainly something had caused Amos Parnell to radically realign his force structure on the very eve of the war, and no one really believed it had been part of some obscure plot the Legislaturalist officer corps had hatched to betray the People for enigmatic reasons of their own. But the official line had been that the disastrous opening phases of the war had been entirely the fault of that officer corps, and that "crime" had been the pretext for which the new political management had ordered most of its senior members to be shot. So if Bukato was openly saying that it might not have been Parnells faultthat the disgraced CNO had been snookered by Manty counterintelligence...
My God, things really are changing! he thought wonderingly, and looked over at Fontein. The Citizen Commissioner hadnt even blinked. He simply sat there impassively, without as much as a frown, and that impassivity told Giscard even more than Bukatos statement had.
"Despite our lack of hard data from covert sources, however," the Citizen Admiral continued, "weve been able to make some estimates based on known enemy deployments. One thing worth noting is that when Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville hit the Adler System, the Manties apparently had not deployed their usual FTL sensor network. From observation of their picket deployments and patrols around Trevors Star, we think theyre still short of a complete network even there, which suggests a production problem somewhere. Any such assumption has to be taken with a grain of salt, but it would appear to be consistent with the building rates weve observed. Their construction tempo has gone up steadily since the beginning of hostilities, but our best estimate is that their yard capacity is now saturated. What we seem to be seeingnot only with the FTL recon satellites around Adler and Trevors Star, but also in their reliance on Q-ships because of their apparent inability to free up battlecruiser and cruiser elements to police Silesiais the end consequence of an all-out drive to maximize the production of new hulls. In other words, it looks as if theyve overstrained their prewar industrial capacity. If so, then theyll have to build additional yards before they can resume the upward curve in their fleet strength. And it would also help to explain their apparent passivity since taking Trevors Star."
He paused to take a sip of ice water and give his audience time to digest what hed said so far. Then he cleared his throat.
"There are other indicators of a lowered tempo of offensive operations on their part," he resumed. "Among others, Admiral White Haven is still at Yeltsins Star attempting to assemble a new fleet out of Allied units, not simply RMN ships. Also, were beginning to pick up indications that some of the forward deployed Manty ships of the wall are in increasing need of overhaul. Their systems reliability would appear to be declining."
Well that was good news, Giscard thought wryly. The Peoples Navy was perennially short of trained maintenance and repair techs, with the result that serviceability rates tended to remain uncomfortably low. The Manties, on the other hand, routinely turned in serviceability rates of well over ninety percent. But doing that relied on more than simply having excellent techs in your shipboard crews. It also required a comprehensive, highly capable, and well-organized base support system... and the time to hand ships over to that system when they required overhaul. If Manty systems reliability was dropping, it probably meant they were finding themselves unable to pull their capital ships off the front for scheduled rear area maintenance. And given that staying on top of overhaul needs was as basic an instinct for any Manty commander as topping off his hydrogen bunkers at every opportunity, it was also an even stronger indicator of increasing strain on their resources than anything else Bukato had said.
"Finally," the citizen admiral said, "we need to look at what may be happening a year or so down the road. On our side of the line, our training and manpower mobilization programs mean that we should have all of our presently unused yard capacity up and running, but were unlikely to have added much additional capacity or significantly improved on our present construction rates. Indications from the Manties side of the line are that they should have several new yard complexes coming on-linelike their new Blackbird shipyard facility at Yeltsins Starand, perhaps more ominously, will have the manpower to crew their new hulls, courtesy of the forts theyre standing down now that they control all termini of the Manticore Wormhole Junction. So what we seem to have here is a window of opportunity in which their available resources are entirely committed and their basic strategic posture might be accurately described as overextended."
He paused once more, and Citizen Secretary McQueen tipped her chair forward. She leaned her forearms on the table and looked sideways at Giscard with a smile that was simultaneously a challenge, a warning, and somehow... impish. As if she were inviting him to share a joke... or risk his life beside her on a quixotic quest to save their star nation. And as he saw that smile, he realized there wasnt that much difference between those invitations after all... and that some dangerous dynamism within her made him want to accept them.
"And that, Citizen Admiral Giscard," she said to him, "is where you come in. We do, indeed, intend to reinforce Barnett, and I have every confidence that Citizen Admiral Theisman will make the most effective possible use of the forces we send him. But I have no intention of simply holding what we already have until the Manties catch their breath and decide where theyre going to hit us next. We still have the numerical advantage in hulls and tonnagenot by anywhere near as much as we did at the start of the war, of course, but we still have it, and I intend to make use of it.
"One reason the Manties have been able to beat up on us so far has been a fundamental flaw in our own strategy. For whatever reason" even now she did not look at Fontein, Giscard noticed "our approach has been to try to hold everything, to be strong everywhere, with the result that weve been unable to stop the Manties cold anywhere. We have to take some risks, uncover some less vital areas, to free up the strength we need to take the offensive to them for a change, and thats precisely what I propose to do."