"I imagine you didn't get much notice when they sent you out here, Sir," Houseman said in the tone of one making polite conversation.
"No, I didn't." Young shrugged. "But when the Admiralty cuts you urgent priority orders, you don't complain. You just execute them."
"So I've noticed. But at least your arrival spared you what the rest of us had to endure yesterday, Sir."
"Yesterday?" Young cocked his head, and Houseman smiled humorlessly.
"We were part of Commodore Banton's screening element," he explained. Young still looked blank, and the commanders smile turned even more sour. "Crusader got wiped out along with her battlecruisers when our gallant flag captain pulled her little surprise, Sir."
Young sat very still, mental antennae quivering at Houseman's acid tone. He wondered if the commander realized how much he'd just given away, and another corner of his mind wondered why Houseman hated Harrington.
And then it clicked. Houseman.
"No," he leaned casually back, crossing his legs, "I missed the exercise. Of course, I've known Captain Harrington a long time. Since the Academy, in fact."
"You have, Sir?" The lack of surprise in Houseman's voice suggested his earlier revelation had been intentional, and his next words confirmed it. "I've only known her for a few months, myself. Of course, I've heard about her. One does hear things, you know, Sir."
"I do indeed." Young showed his teeth in an almost-smile. "I understand she's made quite a name for herself in the last few years." He shrugged. "She always was... determined, one might say. I always thought she was a bit hot-tempered, myself, but I don't suppose that's a drawback in combat. Not as long as you don't lose your head, of course."
"I agree, Sir. On the other hand, I'm not certain 'hot-tempered' is exactly the way I'd describe the flag captain. It's too... too mild, if you see what I mean."
"Perhaps it is." Young bared his teeth again. It wasn't quite the thing to encourage an officer to criticize one of his superiors, but Houseman wasn't just any officer. He was chief of staff to a commodore Harrington would have to deal with on a regular basis, and Van Slyke would have to be superhuman not to be influenced by his chief of staff's opinion of the flag captain.
"Actually, you may have a point, Commander," he said, settling in for a long—and profitable—conversation. "I remember back at Saganami Island she had a tendency to push people. Always within the letter of the regs, of course, but I always thought..."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A quiet signal chirped through the eye-soothing dimness of the Central War Room, known to its inhabitants as "the Pit." Admiral Caparelli raised his head to check the master display at the far end of the Pit for the new incident's location, then punched up the details on his terminal, and his eyes flicked over the data.
"Bad?" Admiral Givens asked quietly across the smaller quadrant plot holo, and he shrugged.
"More irritating than serious—I think. Another in-and-out at Talbot. Of course—" he smiled without mirth "—the report is eleven days old. Tidings may have gotten a bit more than 'irritating' since."
"Mm." Givens pursed her lips and brooded down at the holo between them. Her eyes were focused on something only she could see, and Caparelli waited patiently for her to hunt down whatever it was. Several seconds passed, then a full minute, while he listened to the Pit's quiet background sounds before she shook herself and looked back across the tiny stars at him.
"A thought, I take it?"
"More of a general observation, really."
"Well, don't sit on it till it hatches, Pat."
"Yes, Sir." She gave him a fleeting smile, then turned serious. "The thing that just occurred to me—something that's been occurring to me for several days now—is that the Peeps are being too cute for their own good."
"Ah?" Caparelli tilted his chair back and raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"I think they're trying for too fine a degree of coordination." Givens waved at the display. "They've been turning the pressure up for weeks now. At first it was just 'mystery' raiders we couldn't positively ID, and when we knew they were Peeps, there was no combat. Then they started actively harassing our patrols. Now they're pouncing on convoys and system pickets with hunt-and-kill tactics. But every time they do something to up the ante, it starts at one point, then ripples out north and south."
"Indicating what?"
"Indicating that each increase in pressure is the result of a specific authorization from some central command node. Look at the timing, Sir." She reached into the holo, running her fingers up and down the frontier. "If you assume each fresh escalation was authorized from someplace fifty or sixty light-years inside the Peep border—like Barnett, for example—the delay in the incidents to either side of the first incident in the new pattern is just about right for the difference in the flight times to those points from Barnett."
She withdrew her hand and frowned at the display, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.
"So they're coordinating from a central node," Caparelli agreed. "But we figured that all along, Pat. In fact, we're doing the same thing. So how does that constitute 'too cute for their own good'?"
"We're not doing the same thing, Sir. We're channeling information and authorizing general deployments, but we're trusting local COs to use their own judgments because of the com lag. It looks to me like the Peeps are authorizing each successive wave of activity from Barnett, which implies a two-way command and control link, not just information flow. They're waiting until they hear back, then sending out orders to begin the next stage, then waiting for fresh reports before authorizing the next step. They're playing brontosaurus—that's why this whole thing seems to be building up so ponderously."
"Mm," It was Caparelli's turn to stare into the holo. Givens' theory was certainly one explanation for the Peeps' increasing heavy-handedness. What had started out as a series of lightning pinpricks was becoming a chain of steadily heavier blows spaced out over longer periods of time. It felt undeniably clumsier, but then again, any strategist would try to build in cutouts: points at which he could abort the operation if he had to. It was quite possible Pat was right, that the coordination for this phase was emanating from Barnett, but it didn't follow that the same pattern would apply after they actually pulled the trigger. Once you were committed, there was no more point in cutouts; it was all or nothing, and if you had a clue as to what you were doing, you went for the most flexible possible command arrangements.
If you had a clue.
He turned his chair slowly from side to side, then raised his eyes once more to Givens.
"You're suggesting they may continue to operate this way once the shooting starts in earnest?"
"I don't know. Its possible, given their past operational patterns. Remember, Sir, we're the first multi-system opponent they've gone after. All their previous ops plans have involved closely controlled converging thrusts on relatively small targets, spatially speaking, and even the best staffs get into habits of thought. They may have overlooked some of the implications of the difference in scale.
"But my real point is that whatever they plan to do after the shooting starts, they're running under tight central control in the opening game. They have to have a detailed ops plan for when they finally move in strength, and after studying their previous campaigns, I'm willing to bet this one involves some careful—and cumbersome—timing constraints. Even if I'm wrong about that, at the moment they're going to react and respond to anything we do on the basis and within the limitations of that two-way traffic flow to Barnett."