And as it happened, that decision was turning out to have been just as good as Michelle had thought it was. In powered-down passive mode, the way Kaplan had left them, their endurance had been good for far longer than the twenty-three T-days since the destruction of Commodore Chatterjee's destroyers. Now, in response to the properly authenticated command codes, they were fully awake once more, faithfully reporting everything they'd seen over those three T-weeks via grav-pulse, which amounted to real-time reporting at this range.
So I know where you are, Admiral Byng, she thought coldly. That's nice. If I have to kill people anyway, I'd like to make sure the idiot asshole responsible for it is on my little list when I do.
"What do you make of it, Ma'am?" Gladys Molyneux asked very quietly, and Abigail Hearns glanced at her. The junior-grade lieutenant's battle station was missile-defense, which put her at Abigail's elbow. Despite the quiet, waiting hush of Tristram's bridge, Abigail doubted anyone could possibly have overheard the nervous question.
"It's a little too early to be making anything of it, Gladys," she replied, equally quietly but with a slight smile. She saw confidence seeping back into Molyneux as the smile registered, then shook her head.
"The one thing I can tell you," she continued, "is that if those people over there"—a flick of her head indicated the icons of the orbiting Solarian battlecruisers—"have even a clue about what this task force can do, then they're a lot more nervous than we are right this moment."
She smiled again, and this time it was a cold, cruel smile.
Mother Church says vengeance is the Tester's, she reminded herself, and I believe that. But I also believe He can use anyone He wants as the instrumentof His vengeance. And right this minute, I'm not feeling very forgiving, Gladys.
"Sir, Captain Mizawa would like to speak to you."
Josef Byng paused in the act of slipping into the tunic someone had fetched for him and looked at the bridge communications rating who'd spoken. He managed not to scowl, although it wasn't easy.
"Did the Captain say why?" he asked, sliding the tunic the rest of the way on and sealing it.
"No, Sir," the rating replied. His careful tone only emphasized the fact that everyone aboardJean Bart knew all about the hostility between Byng and his flag captain.
"Very well." Byng tried to keep his own voice coolly professional as he acknowledged the rating's message, then took the two steps to his command chair. Rather than seat himself, he swiveled the com display around to face him and punched the acceptance key.
"Captain Mizawa," he said as the Frontier Fleet officer's face appeared.
"Admiral," Mizawa replied.
"I'm just a trifle busy at the moment, Captain," Byng said as pleasantly as he could. "What can I do for you?"
"Sir, I don't know if CIC has reported it to you, but Commander Zeiss is picking up a sudden cascade of gravitic pulses."
"Gravitic pulses?" Byng repeated just a bit blankly.
"Sir, according to the latest intelligence reports, the Manties have an effective FTL communications ability over relatively short ranges. One that's based on grav pulses."
"I'm aware of that fact, Captain." A hint of frost crept into Byng's tone in response to the patience edging Mizawa's voice, as if the Frontier Fleet officer were trying to explain Newtonian physics to a village idiot. Especially since those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned memos had touched upon the same point.
Now the bastard's going to pretend that he personally warned me all about it, isn't he? the admiral thought bitterly.
"Yes, Sir. I'm sure you are," the flag captain agreed. "But what concerns me are the reports that they've built the same capability into their reconnaissance drones. I think that's what Commander Zeiss is picking up."
"Reconnaissance drones," Byng repeated carefully.
"Yes, Sir. I think the Manty destroyers probably deployed them on their way in. Now these new Manties have tapped into them, and they're receiving real-time reconnaissance reports on us."
"I see."
Byng couldn't quite keep his incredulity out of his expression, although he managed to keep it out of his voice. But really! He was willing to concede that the Manties had at least some sort of ship-to-ship FTL communications ability—ONI had tentatively confirmed that much—but to build the same capability into something the size of a recon drone? Not even that stupid lieutenant of Mizawa's had suggested that! Or, at least, Byng didn't think he had, and he suddenly found himself wondering if perhaps he ought to have read those memos for himself rather than simply accepting Thimár's summary of their content.
He brushed that thought firmly aside. There'd be time enough to worry about it later; right now he needed to concentrate on the matter at hand, and he tried—really tried—to consider Mizawa's preposterous notion dispassionately. But no matter how hard he tried, it remained just that: preposterous.
R&D was beginning to experiment with the same FTL technology back home, and unlike many of his fellows, Byng had made it a point to follow at least the unclassified aspects of their efforts. According to them, just the power storage any grav-pulse installation would have required would have been impossible to fit into any drone-sized platform. And that completely ignored the fact that actually generating the pulse in the first place took the equivalent of an all-up impeller node, many times the size of any recon drone ever built!
"I appreciate the warning, Captain," he said after a few moments, choosing his words with some care as he spoke for the benefit of the flag bridge recorders, "but I strongly suspect that the reports about faster-than-light recon drone transmissions have . . . grown in the telling, let's say. As you may know, our own research people"—by which, of course, he meant Battle Fleet's researchers—"have been looking into this alleged capability of the Manties. Our own R and D indicates that it probably is possible, at least on the level of gross communication, but the sort of bandwidth which would be required for any useful reports from something like a recon drone is highly unlikely. And even if it were possible, the energy budget and the sheer mass of the hardware would almost certainly limit it to something the size of a starship."
"Sir, I haven't had access to the reports you have on the research side," Mizawa said, "but I have had access to other reports, including . . . Commodore Thurgood's. According to them, the Manties do have that capability."
White-hot anger flashed through Byng at Mizawa's obvious reference to his lieutenant's memos. He started to snap back quickly, but then he made himself pause. This had to be handled cautiously, and his chose his words with care.
"I'm familiar with the reports to which you refer, Captain." He allowed his voice to get a bit crisper, a bit more brisk. "I'm convinced that they're exaggerated, at the very least."
He and his flag captain locked eyes on the com, and he saw Mizawa's jaw muscles tighten briefly. Then the captain's nostrils flared, and he shook his head.
"I'm aware that many people feel those reports are exaggerated, Sir," he said then. "As a matter of fact, that was my own opinion before we were ordered to New Tuscany. But that was my opinion where the acceleration rates ascribed to Manty warships were concerned, as well." He looked at Byng levelly, challenging the admiral, but Byng said nothing, and the captain continued. "Whether the reports about their FTL capability are exaggerated or not, Sir, something is producing the pulses Commander Zeiss is picking up, and whatever it is, it's stealthy enough that we can't find it, even with the pulses giving us an exact bearing to it. To me, that spells a very capable reconnaissance platform."