He read the size figures three times before murmuring, "Holy shit." He leaned back, said, "Communications, keep running that till I say stop."
"Yes sir."
He watched the report three times through before he was satisfied.
So those were harvestships... They were self-contained worlds. If Navy could lay hands on a few of those, and arm them with Empire Class weaponry... "Communications, page Major Damon. Tell him to come to my office."
The commander of the Marine Military Police battalion reported only minutes later.
"Major, there'll be an adjustment in our plans. Watch this." Beckhart ran the report from Assyrian. Damon was suitably impressed.
"Major, sit. We're going to do some brain-storming."
The session lasted the day and the night and into the next day. It ended when Communications interrupted. "Admiral, signals from Assyrian. Sir, they've intercepted signals between the Seiner ships. They thought you'd be interested."
"Of course I am. Give it to me."
The relay was not long. And it was both baffling and exciting. The Starfishers were going to put his own boys in charge of their auction security effort.
He had it run twice. Satisfied, he said, "Major, go get yourself eight hours. Then get back here and we'll pick up where we left off. This changes things again. We work it right, now, and we're in the chips."
After the Major departed, he had Assyrian open an instel link with Luna Command. He spent an hour in conference. He broke off smiling a weak smile. This auction might be more than serendipitous.
He dragged himself to his cot, hoping to catch a few hours, but could not fall asleep.
His conscience kept nagging him. Once again he would have to use men cruelly for the sake of the Services and Confederation.
He was so weary of that...
Thirteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Payne's Fleet dropped hyper a Sol System radius from The Broken Wings. Danion formed the point of the arrowhead of ships flashing toward the planet. Accompanying the harvestships were a hundred service ships borrowed from other fleets.
The Seiners wanted to make an impression. They believed this show of strength would rivet all eyes on The Broken Wings.
While the credit from the auction was important to them, distracting attention from Stars' End meant even more.
Almost all Seinerdom had taken hyper for the fortress world. The harvestfleets had gathered. A hundred harvestships, a thousand service ships, and untold millions of people would be involved in the effort to recover the citadel world's weapons. That gargantuan armada, bearing the hope of a nation, was avoiding traffic lanes, flying easy, awaiting word of the success of the auction diversion.
A confrontation with Confederation had to be avoided. The Seiner leadership understood the swift doom inherent in a two-front war.
A one-front war was a terrible enough hazard.
"We've got trouble," Jarl Kindervoort told his staff. "We've just received a scout report from Stars' End. The Sangaree have moved in there."
Mouse made a sound suspiciously like a purr. "Won't hurt my feelings if they get crunched again."
"Somebody's going to get crunched. The report says there're hundreds of raidships there."
Storm and benRabi became more attentive. Mouse asked, "Hundreds? That would take... Hell, the Families would all have to be working together. They don't do that."
Kindervoort replied, "They seem to have their hearts set on grabbing Stars' End."
"They aren't the only ones," benRabi muttered. He snorted in disgust, shook his head. "Who's fault is that, Jarl?"
"What do you mean, Moyshe?"
"Consider our last run-in. Consider one Maria Elana Gonzales, technician, alias Marya Strehltsweiter, Sangaree agent. Remember her? The lady who tried to kill Danion? I shot her and stopped her. And you nice people politely patched her up and sent her home with the other returning landsmen. Bet you she ran straight to her bosses and set this up. Nice doesn't pay, Jarl."
Mouse shifted his chair so he could stare at benRabi. He said nothing.
Once upon a time, on a faraway world called The Broken Wings, a partner of Mouse's, wearing the work-name Dr. Gundaker Niven, had stopped him from killing a Sangaree agent named Marya Strehltsweiter.
Moyshe reddened.
"Let's not cry about what we should have done," Kindervoort said. "We're here now. Let me have those situation reports, Amy."
Amy pushed a sheaf of flimsies across the tabletop. "Navy is damned interested in this end of the universe, too. Three heavy squadrons off The Broken Wings. Squadrons Hapsburg, Prussian, and Assyrian."
"Empire Class?" Mouse asked. "All of them? They mean business, don't they?"
"There're battle squadrons at Carson's and Sierra, too. Our friends the Freehaulers couldn't get close enough to identify them."
"And no telling what's in the bushes," benRabi mused.
"Moyshe?"
"They're playing poker, Jarl. They've shown us a couple of aces face up. What you have to worry about is their hole cards. What have they got cruising around a couple of light years away ready to jump in?"
"You think they'll try a power play?"
"No. Not like that. But it might behoove us to spend a little brain power figuring what they're up to. Navy doesn't put that much power together unless they're scared they'll have to use it. You hardly ever see a patrol of more than two ships."
"You know Service thinking better than me. Why're they so excited?"
"The dispositions look defensive," Moyshe said. "And that leads us to our lack of landside intelligence. What's the Planetary Defense Forces alert level in the Transverse? Have they activated any reserves? If so, which units? We could extrapolate their fears from that kind of information."
"We have the liaison team report." Kindervoort shuffled flimsies.
Mouse and benRabi had insisted on sending a few men ahead, weeks ago.
"I've seen it," Moyshe said. "They've given The Broken Whigs the usual temporary free planet status. They've pledged an open auction. The city authorities are so nervous they've called up their police reserves and asked Marine MPs to help. They expect trouble. Nobody is saying why."
The coded reports said there were three hundred privately owned ships orbiting The Broken Wings. Each had brought a negotiating team hoping to carry off a supply of ambergris. Most of the vessels appeared to be armed.
All known space was, apparently, in the grip of an undirected war fervor. No one was behaving normally. The auction had a potential for becoming a wild brawl.
"Mouse, Moyshe," Kindervoort said, "I don't mind telling you, this thing has me scared. It's too big, and it looks like it could get bigger. Be very, very careful."
"It could get too big for anybody," Mouse said. His voice was soft and thoughtful. "It could roll us all under." For two days Danion and her sisters drifted slowly toward The Broken Wings, watching and listening. They kept their presence secret longer than Moyshe expected. He and his compatriots obtained two days' worth of observations.
They provided no comfort. Angel City was hell incarnate. Armies of undercover people had materialized there. They were warring with one another with a fine disregard for reason and local tranquility.
The war scare had set off a chain reaction of insanity.
As a landing team leader benRabi now rated his own office and a part-time assistant. His wife filled the assistant's role.
Till this is over, at least, I'm important, he thought. He put little stock in Mouse's theory that they were being groomed to master a Starfisher secret service. He had been able to make no independent corroboration of the claim.