"Gather around, people," Sten said.
The formation broke and formed a ragged semicircle around their CO.
"Foss... Kilgour. What'd you find?"
"It looks," the electronics tech said cautiously, "like Wild and his smugglers did get hit by surprise."
"An' by th' Tahn," Alex added. "W found' it three unblown't project'les."
"Bodies?"
"Na, there'd be th' weirdness. Noo a one. An th' warehouses be't emptied flat."
"Couldn't the Tahn have landed and looted the place?"
"Wi'oot takin't Wild's weaponry wi' 'em?" Kilgour pointed to where a seemingly untouched SA missile battery sat abandoned. Sten nodded. Foss's electronics analysis and Kilgour's Mantis-trained estimate agreed with his own.
"Fine. Troops, this is going to be our home away from home. Mr. Sutton, I want that transport unloaded ASAP. All hands. Second, full power back to Cavite. You'll have the Richards for escort. I want you to scrounge all the bubbleshelters you can find. Foss, let Mr. Sutton know what you'll need to set up a detection station from Cavite, and how much of Wild's electronics you can salvage.
"Here's the plan, friends. This is still going to be our forward base. We'll move bubbles inside the hangars and warehouses. We'll move some of those smaller buildings around, wreck 'em up a bit, and use them for overhead cover. Even if the Tahn decide to recheck Romney, they're still going to find a dead world."
Assuming, Sten continued mentally as he dismissed his unit, they go by visuals and self-confidence only. If they put sniffers or heat sensors inside the dome—that'll be all she scrolled.
But it was still better odds than they had on Cavite.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The biggest question the beings of the 23rd Fleet kept asking themselves was why the Tahn hadn't hit Cavite again.
The damage done by Sten's tacships—the destruction of two cruisers and assorted in-atmosphere ships, plus the damage to the Forez and an assault ship—was hardly enough to discourage the Tahn. Probably only complete obliteration of Lady Atago's entire fleet would have done that.
Certainly the 23rd was no longer a threat. With the exception of Sten's tacdivision, van Doorman's shattered force was mainly impotent.
The same question was being asked by Atago's crew members as well.
The outsystem landings had been very successful. Atago and Admiral Deska had been restructuring their invasion plans for Cavite when orders arrived. Lady Atago was to report to the Tahn Council at once for further instructions. Her fleet was ordered to consolidate existing gains but to make no major attacks on Imperial forces.
Admiral Deska spent the time waiting for Atago's return driving the repair crews working on the Forez even harder and staring at a wallscreen that showed the extent of the Tahn victories—at least, those either the Empire or the Tahn had chosen to report.
On the screen Deska had assigned orange to the Tahn galaxies, blue to the Empire, and red for the Tahn conquests. On a time-sweep, it was most impressive, as the Tahn spread red tentacles out and out, sweeping deeply into Imperial space. Only a handful of systems still showed cerulean, and those at the base of Deska's screen—worlds yet to be attacked.
The blue glimmer that represented the Caltor System was shameful to Deska. He had failed. And the Tahn did not welcome failure of any sort.
A cursory examination of their language was adequate proof, as well as being an illustration of the problems that any nonmilitaristic culture faced in trying to deal with the Tahn. Since the Tahn "race" or "culture" was an assemblage of various warrior societies, their language was equally an assemblage of soldierly jargon and buzzwords. Still worse—the first Tahn Council had decided that their race needed a properly martial manner of communication. So skilled linguists had created what was known as a semivance tongue, in which the same word had multiple definitions. In this manner, an emotional connation was automatically given.
Three examples:
The verb akomita meant both "to surrender" and "to cease to exist"; the verb meltah was both "to destroy" and "to succeed"; the verb verlach was defined as "to conquer" and "to shame."
There was an excellent chance, Admiral Deska knew, that Lady Atago, in spite of Lord Fehrle's protection, might be ordered to expiate the disgrace of her fleet with ritual suicide. He doubted, given her rank, that any worse penalty could be assessed. In that event, Deska knew, he would share her fate.
He forced himself into a fourth-level dhyana state, no-mind, no-fear, no-doubt, as he waited for the battle cruiser that bore either Lady Atago or his new fleet commander to couple locks with the Kiso.
The lock irised, and Lady Atago boarded the Kiso.
Deska allowed himself a moment of hope. He enlarged the monitor pickup until Atago's face filled his screen. Of course there was no expression on her classic mask features. Deska snapped the monitor off. In her own time, Atago would tell him.
And in her own time, Atago did.
Indeed, the Tahn Council was not pleased with the failure. Other admirals who had failed to fully complete their instructions had already been cashiered, demoted, or removed. Atago, Deska surmised, had also been scheduled for relief. But the continued existence of the Imperial presence on the Caltor worlds suggested an alternative plan. Deska was surprised that the plan came not from Lord Fehrle, Atago's protector, but from Lord Pastour.
"This is not as we expected," the industrialist had said, though Lady Atago did not report the conversation to Admiral Deska, "but there may be harvest buds in this weed."
"Continue."
"I would think," Pastour went on, staring at the wall-screen that was a larger and more up-to-date version of what Deska had projected for himself, "that this Caltor System shines as much for the Emperor as for us."
"Probably," Lord Fehrle agreed.
"We agree that one of the biggest factors for our eventual success is that the Emperor makes his assessments as much through emotion as logic?"
"You are rechewing old meat. Of course."
"Bear with me. Not being a senior member of the council, not as skilled as yet in decision making of this scope, sometimes I must reason aloud.
"So we have agreed on one fact. Now, fact B is that the Emperor might be seeking some kind of success to convince those beings who have not yet cast in with us to remain faithful."
"We shall accept that as a fact," Lord Wichman said.
"Given these two facts, I would suggest that we allow at least three—no, correction, four—reliable intelligence sources to leak to the Empire that the reason for the failure in the Caltor System was due to inept command and the use of second-line forces."
"Ah." Wichman nodded.
"Yes. Perhaps we might convince the Emperor to commit more forces than this shabbiness of a fleet that we have already demolished. Once these reinforcements are landed—we close the net."
"There is soundness to your idea," Lord Fehrle said. "Another fact. We know that the—" he touched a mem-code button "—23rd Fleet is poorly led and has filed specious intelligence in the past. So of course we must make no changes in our own forces that might cause this van Doorman to sound an alarm. The plan is excellent. I admire Lord Pastour for his battle cunning."
His eyes swept the other twenty-seven members. There was no need for a vote.
"I will make one addition," Lord Wichman added. "Might we not be advised to reinforce Lady Atago with one of our reserve landing fleets? Thus the Imperial forces shall not simply be defeated, but completely annihilated." He glanced across the chamber for Lord Fehrle's approval.