"There was," White Haven agreed. He looked up from his wine and gazed at both his guests. "Actually, there were two, but the more pressing is my feeling that there have to be more reasons for the two of you to come out here than the official communique listed. I also have an unhappy suspicion about what one of those reasons might be. Under the circumstances, I thought Id clear the decks, as it were, so we could discuss my suspicion from a purely Manticoran viewpoint."
"Ah?" William sipped wine once more, regarded his brother with a half-quizzical, half-wary expression, then crooked an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.
"Ive been trying to assemble Eighth Fleet for the better part of a T-year now," White Haven said flatly. "The process was supposed to be complete over nine standard months ago, and I still havent received the strength my original orders specified. More to the point, perhaps, I have received the units I was promised by Grayson, Erewhon, and the other Allied navies. What I havent seen have been the Manticoran units I was promised. Im still better than two complete battle squadronsseventeen ships of the wallshort on the RMN side, and nothing Ive seen in my dispatches from the Star Kingdom suggests that those ships are going to turn up tomorrow. Should I assume that one reason Allen Summervale sent the second ranking member of his Government and the Admiraltys senior serving officer out here was to explain to myselfand possibly the Protectorjust why that is?"
He paused, and Caparelli and William looked at one another, then turned back to him.
"You should," Caparelli said quietly after a moment, "and they arent. Going to turn up tomorrow I mean, My Lord. We wont have them to send you for at least another two T-months."
"Thats too long, My Lord," White Haven said in an equally quiet voice. "Weve already waited too long. Have you seen last months estimates on the Peep strength at Barnett?"
"I have," Caparelli admitted.
"Then you know Theismans numbers are going up faster than mine are. Were giving them time time to get their feet under them and catch their breathand we cant afford that. Not with someone like Esther McQueen calling the shots on their side for a change."
"We dont know how free McQueen is to make her own calls," Caparelli pointed out. "Pat Givens is still working on that. Her analysts dont have a lot to go on, but they make it no more than a twenty-five percent chance that the Committee would give any naval officer the authority to build her own strategy. Theyre still too afraid of a military coup."
"With all due respect, Sir Thomas, Pat is wrong on this one," White Haven replied flatly. "Ive fought McQueen, and in my personal opinion, shes the best CO they have left. I think they know that, too, but everything ONI has ever picked up on her has also emphasized her personal ambition. If we know about that, then Saint-Just and State Security know about it, as well. Given that, I cant see the Peeps picking her to head their war office unless they intended all along to give her at the very least a major role in determining their strategy."
"I dont quite see your logic, Ham," William said after a moment.
"Think it through, Willie. If you know someone is a threat to your regime, and you go ahead and put himor, in this case, herin a position of power anyway, then you have to have some overriding motivesomething which you consider more important than the potential danger she represents. If the Committee of Public Safety called McQueen home and made her Secretary of War, it was because they figured their military situation was so screwed up they needed a professional... even if the professional in question might be tempted to try a coup. "
White Haven shrugged.
"If they followed that logic, then theyd be not simply fools but stupid fools not to make every possible effort to avail themselves of her expertise. And that" he turned back to Caparelli "is why giving them this much time is a major, major mistake, Sir."
"I cant fault your reasoning," Caparelli admitted, rubbing a big, weary hand across his face and leaning back in his chair. "Pats analysts have followed the same trail, and it may be that theyre double-thinking themselves into mistakes. They share your opinion as to the reason the Committee recalled her to Haven; they just question whether or not a PRH run by the Committee of Public Safety and the Office of State Security is institutionally capable of making use of her expertise. It would require not simply a change but a major upheaval in the entire relationship between their peoples commissioners and the officer corps."
"Maybe officially, but its obvious some of their fleet commanders and commissioners have already made some informal changes," White Haven argued. "Theisman, for example. His tactics at Seabringand, for that matter, his decision to release their version of the missile pod for use at Adlerall indicate that he, at least, figures he can count on his commissioner to back him up. Thats dangerous, Sir. A divided Peep command structure works in our favor; one in which the political and military commanders work together and trust one another is another matter entirely. But the point where McQueen is concerned, is that the Committee may choose to allow an exceptionanother special relationshipbetween her and her commissioner. Especially since she put down the Levelers for them." He made a face. "Im not saying that wouldnt come around and bite them on the ass in time, but that doesnt mean they wont try itespecially if the military situation looks bad enough."
"You may be right, Ham," William said, "but theres only so much blood in the turnip. Whatever wed like, we simply dont have the ships to send you right now. Were trying, but were tapped out."
"But" White Haven began, only to stop as Caparelli raised a hand.
"I know what youre going to say, My Lord, but Lord Alexander is right. We simply dont have them. Or, rather, we have too many other commitments and we ran our maintenance cycles too far into the red in the push to get as deep into Peep territory as we are now."
"I see." White Haven sat back, drumming his fingers on the desk in narrow-eyed thought. As a fleet commander, he lacked access to the comprehensive, Navy-wide kind of data Caparelli saw regularly, but the availability numbers must be even worse than hed thought.
"How bad is it?" he asked after a moment.
"Not good," Caparelli admitted. "As the officer who took Trevors Star, you must have been aware of how we were deferring regular overhauls on the ships under your command to let you maintain the numbers to capture the system."
He paused, and White Haven nodded. Almost twenty percent of the ships hed taken into the final engagement had been long overdue for regular maintenance refits... and it had shown in their readiness states.
"It hasnt gotten any better," the First Space Lord told him. "In fact, for your private information, weve had no choice but to pull in just over a quarter of our total ships of the wall."
"A quarter?" Despite himself, White Havens surprise showed, and Caparelli nodded grimly. That was seventy-five percent higher than the fifteen percent of Fleet strength which was supposed to be down for refit at any given time.
"A quarter," Caparelli confirmed. "And if we could, Id have made it thirty percent. We worked the Fleet too hard to get to where we are now, My Lord. Weve got to take the battle fleet in handand not just for routine repairs, either. Weve been refitting the new systems and weapons and compensators on an ad hoc basis since the war started, but over half our wall of battle units are at least two years behind the technology curve. Thats seriously hurting our ability to make full use of the new hardware, especially the compensators, since our squadrons are no longer homogenous. It doesnt do us a lot of good to have three ships in a squadron capable of accelerating at five hundred and eighty gravities if the other five can only pull five-ten! Weve got to get all the current upgrades into a higher percentage of the total wall."