"Probably not," MacArtney said. "On the other hand, that's one of the things about this entire situation that most bothers me, Malachai."
"What is?" Abruzzi frowned.
"The fact that they haven't already handed this to the newsies," MacArtney explained. "It's obvious from their note that they're pissed off as hell, and, frankly, if the data's accurate, I would be, too, in their place. So why not go straight to the media and try to turn up the pressure on us?"
"Actually," Kolokoltsov said, "I think the fact that they didn't do that may be the one slightly hopeful sign in this entire damned mess. However angry their note may sound, they're obviously bending over backward to avoid inflaming the situation any farther."
"You're probably right," Abruzzi said. "Of course, the question is why they might be trying to avoid that."
"Hah!" Quartermain snorted harshly. "I think that's probably simple enough, Malachai. They're accusing an SLN admiral of destroying three of their ships, and they're demanding explanations, 'accountability,' and—by implication, at least—reparations. They're not going to want to go public with something like that."
"For someone who doesn't 'want to go public' they seem to be perfectly willing to push things," MacArtney pointed out. "Or did you miss the bit about this admiral of theirs they're sending off to New Tuscany?"
"No, I didn't miss it, Nathan." Quartermain and MacArtney had never really cared for each other at the best of times, and the smile she gave him was thin enough to sever his windpipe. "But I also observed that they're sending only six of their own battlecruisers, whereas Byng has thirteen. Do you honestly believe they're stupid enough to think a Solarian flag officer is going to tamely surrender to a force he outnumbers two-to-one?"
She snorted again, more harshly than before, and MacArtney shook his head.
"I don't know if they are or not, Omosupe. But I do know that the mere fact that they're sending one of their own admirals off to issue what are clearly demands, not requests, to a Solarian task force is going to raise the stakes all around. If Byng's already fired on their warships, and if they send still more warships into the area to press demands against him, then they're clearly willing to escalate. Or to risk escalation, at least. And as they've pointed out in their note, what Byng's already done can certainly be construed as an act of war. If they're already making that point to us, and if they're ready to risk escalation, then I'd have to say that I don't see any reason to assume they're not prepared to see all this hit the 'faxes eventually."
His expression was unwontedly serious, Kolokoltsov realized. Then again, he might well be feeling a little excessively gun-shy at the moment. In fact, Kolokoltsov took just a bit of vindictive satisfaction from the thought that MacArtney might be feeling a certain degree of . . . anxiety. As far as Kolokoltsov was concerned, the Office of Frontier Security clearly ought to have come under the authority of the Foreign Ministry, since it spent so much time dealing with star systems which weren't officially part of the League just yet. Unfortunately, the Foreign Ministry had lost that particular fight long, long ago, and OFS was officially part of the Interior Ministry. He could see the logic, even if he didn't much care for it, since like the Gendarmerie—which was also part of the Interior Ministry—Frontier Security was effectively an internal security agency of the League.
And at this particular moment, that wasn't necessarily such a bad thing in Innokentiy Kolokoltsov's considered opinion, either, given the hullabaloo over that business in Monica. Which, now that he thought about it, probably also helped to explain why Quartermain was even more pissed than usual where Manticore was concerned. The revelations about Technodyne and its collusion with Mesa had quite a few of her colleagues over at Commerce all hot and bothered. Attorney General Brangwen Ronayne had actually had to indict several people, and that was always messy. After all, one never knew when one of those under indictment was going to turn out to have embarrassing connections to one's self or other members of one's ministry. The folks over at Justice would do what they could, of course, but Ronayne wasn't really the sharpest stylus in the box. There was always the distinct possibility that something might slip past her, or even evade Abruzzi and make its way into the public datanets, with potentially . . . unpleasant consequences even for a permanent senior undersecretary.
Still, those occasional teapot tempests were a fact of life in the League. They were going to happen from time to time, and MacArtney and Quartermain were just going to have to suck it up and get on with business.
"As I say," he said just a bit loudly, retaking control of the conversation, "the fact that they haven't said anything to the newsies yet probably indicates one of two things. Either, as Omosupe says, they're trying to avoid pumping any hydrogen into the fire because of its potential for blowing up in their faces, or else they're trying to avoid pumping any hydrogen into the fire because what they really want is to get this whole thing resolved before the public ever finds out about it. In fact, those two possibilities aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, now are they?"
"Not so far, at any rate," MacArtney replied. "But if there's another exchange of fire, or if Byng tells this Admiral Gold Peak to kiss his arse, that could change."
"Oh, come on, Nathan!" Abruzzi snorted. "You know Omosupe and I don't always see eye-to-eye, but let's be realistic here. It's obvious Byng is an idiot, all right? Let's be honest among ourselves. Anyone who fires on warships just sitting there in a parking orbit without even having their wedges on line is clearly a nut job, although I'm sure that if our good friend Admiral Kingsford were here he'd find some way to explain this whole thing away as a completely reasonable action. Obviously it couldn't possibly have been the fault of one of his Battle Fleet friends or relations, could it?"
He rolled his eyes expressively. Malachai Abruzzi was not among the Navy's greatest admirers.
"But unlike Kingsford or Rajampet, we're not handicapped by having to defend Byng's actions, so why don't we go ahead and acknowledge, just among ourselves, that he overreacted and killed a bunch of Manties he didn't have to kill?"
He looked around at the others' faces for a moment, then shrugged.
"All right, so the Manties are pissed off. Well, that's probably not all that unreasonable of them, either. But however pissed off they may be, they aren't really going to open fire on a Solarian task force which, as Omosupe's just pointed out, outnumbers them two-to-one. So what they're actually doing is basically running a bluff. Or, more likely, posturing. They may be prepared to 'demand' that Byng stand down and submit to some sort of Manty investigation, but they know damned well they aren't going to get anything remotely like that. So what they're really hoping for is that Byng will settle for effectively flipping them off, then pull out of New Tuscany and let them claim that they 'ran him out of town' for his high-handed actions."
"And the reason they'll do that is exactly what, Malachai?" MacArtney inquired.
"Because they need to do it for domestic consumption." Abruzzi shrugged again. "Trust me, I know how this sort of thing works. They've got three dead destroyers, they've been fighting a war for twenty-odd T-years, and they've just finished getting their asses kicked when the Havenites hit their home star system. They know as well as we do that even if they hadn't taken any losses at all from the 'Battle of Manticore,' they couldn't possibly take on the Solarian League Navy. But they also know their domestic morale has just been shot right in the head . . . and that the loss of three more destroyers—especially if it looks like the opening step in getting the League added to their enemies—is only going to hit it again. So they issue these incredibly unrealistic demands to us here in Chicago, and to Byng at New Tuscany, in order to show their own domestic newsies what big brass balls they've got. And then, when Byng basically ignores them and sails back to Meyers in his own good time, they trumpet that the big, bad Sollies have backed down. They tell their own public that the League's cut and run and that, purely in a spirit of magnanimity, Queen Elizabeth has decided to exercise moderation and settle for a diplomatic conclusion to the entire affair."