They'd still be dogmeat going up against the Manties, and they know it, he reflected. Fortunately, they're only planning on going up against Havenite hardware. We had to come up with a hell of a lot of ships to get them to sign on for this operation, anyway, of course. And the Cataphracts—let's not forget them! But Luff's probably right about what a swath they'd be able to cut through Theisman's light units.
He suppressed a thin smile at that thought, since ultimately, they weren't going to have the chance to do anything of the sort.
Pity about the ships, he thought. Of course, they're only SLN crap, which means they're all obsolescent—at best—against our own current hardware or the Manties. But at least we're about to get a chance to field test the Cataphracts and see how they work out against a live opponent. Too bad the opponent in question's going to be too outclassed to give us a more meaningful yardstick on their penetration capabilities.
"However . . . distasteful some of us may find the discharge of that obligation to be," Luff told his officers, "Operation Ferret is nothing less than part of the price we must pay to liberate our homeland, and the overriding importance of that must outweigh any other consideration."
He paused yet again, gravely, letting his eyes circle the table, sweep the faces of his audience, then allowed those eyes to harden.
"Second," he resumed, his voice as hard as his eyes, "it would be as well to remember that these are not slaves being liberated from the hold of a slave ship somewhere. I'm sure Captain Maddock's and Commander Milliken's superiors are unlikely to be surprised by the fact that, despite our sincere gratitude for their support, we scarcely see eye to eye with them on the general issue of genetic slavery. In this instance, however, we aren't talking about liberating slaves or freeing the victims of someone else's mistreatment. We're talking about dealing with a terrorist organization. If any of your personnel are having trouble remembering that, I recommend you require your ships' companies to view the HD of the ghastly atrocities these people visited upon their prisoners following the 'liberation' of Verdant Vista. Remind them of that brutality and cruelty, and I think you'll find their reservations manageable."
He smiled very thinly, then turned his own attention to Maddock.
"And now, I understand, Captain Maddock has a few last-minute words for us. Captain?"
"Actually, Commodore," Maddock replied gravely, "I have very little to add to what you've already said. The only thing I'd really stress at this time is that it's important to remember Battle Fleet is only beginning to assess the Cataphract's capabilities. It still isn't operational with the SLN, and it won't be, for quite some time, given how . . . conservative we all know the Sollies are about adopting new hardware."
And especially given the fact that the SLN doesn't even have a clue it exists, I suppose, he added silently, and smiled at the exiled Havenites around the table.
"That's why we have no real body of doctrine for its employment. Our current estimates are that the . . . target will be covered by somewhere between a minimum of four and a maximum of ten of the new frigates the Manties have been supplying to the system. Our tech people's analyses suggest that they're probably pretty damned nasty for anything anyone else would call a 'frigate,' but they wouldn't pose any significant threat to your forces even without the Cataphract. It's also possible, however, that the Erewhonese Navy will have detailed a division of light cruisers or even heavy cruisers to back up those frigates. We don't really expect it, but it's clearly possible, given Erewhon's strong support for the . . . earlier incident in the system. If that should be the case, we're going to be confronting at least some Manty-grade hardware, which could make the entire operation substantially more expensive. With Cataphracts in the tubes, however, we anticipate that you should succeed with zero or at least negligible damage."
He paused, looking around the table, and reflected that everything he'd just told them had the highly unusual status of actually being the truth. Not the whole truth, perhaps, but still the truth.
"That's all I have, Sir," he said, nodding respectfully to Luff.
"I'm sure we'll all bear it in mind, Captain," Luff replied, then waved one hand at Citizen Commander Hartman.
"And now, Millicent, I believe you and the rest of the staff have a few points you wanted to make, as well?"
"Yes, Sir, we do." Hartman looked around the table. "First," she began, "there's the question of—"
Chapter Forty-Five
"Hali Sowle, you are cleared to leave orbit." E.D. Trimm checked the screen again, more out of habit that anything else, just as a final precaution against the very remote possibility that an unauthorized flight—or possibly even a bolide, as statistical unlikely as that was—might have blundered into the freighter's projected course.
"Hali Sowle, signing off."
Just routine. By now, two weeks later, Trimm had only a vague memory of having done an additional check on the Hali Sowle. That was in the records, of course. But she was no more likely to check old records for no reason—the volume of traffic in and out of Mesa was truly enormous—than she would be to start going to work with a hop, skip and a jump rather than taking the perfectly functional tube.
Besides, this shift she'd had the good luck to be partnered with Steve Lund, and they'd been in the middle of a friendly argument about the latest fads in women's apparel when the call from the Hali Sowle had come in. As soon as the freighter starting moving, E.D. went back to the debate.
There were times she regretted Steve's sexual orientation. In some ways, he'd have made a better husband for her than the one she had. But it wasn't a perfect universe, after all.
"Well, I'd say that went perfectly." Elfride Margarete Butre sagged back in her seat a little. She'd been more tense than she'd needed to be, a phenomenon she ascribed to her advancing years. In her youth, she'd have thought nothing of taking risks far greater than this one had been.
"À bientôt, Anton and Victor. Good luck."
"What does that mean, Ganny? A ban-ban—" Brice Miller struggled with the unknown word. He was perched on one of the other seats on the freighter's command deck. Like everything else on the Hali Sowle, the seat—like Ganny's own—exhibited those characteristics which were euphemistically referred to as having seen better days.
"Ah byan-toe. It's French. It means 'see you later.' Well, more or less. Like most words in other languages, it doesn't translate perfectly neatly. Some people might translate it 'seeyou soon.' "
"How soon will we see them? And where did you learn to speak French?"
"Answering the questions in order, I have no idea when we'll see them again. Maybe never. But if you're asking what you should have been asking, we'll probably be back here in the Mesa system within ten days. Two weeks, at the outside, but I'd bet on the ten days. The variable is whether or not the Imbesi arrangements work as planned, and those people strike me as well-organized. As for where I learned French . . ."
She pursed her lips, studying the astrogation screen. Looking at the screen, rather. Her mind was elsewhere.
"It's a long story, youngster."
"We got time. Tell me."
"You've got cruddy tastes in clothes. Of course, I guess that's to be expected, growing up in Nouveau Paris."
"You should talk. Do you ever wear anything other than Scrag chic? Which seems to run entirely to leather."
"I look good in leather. Hey, that's an idea. Maybe we should try it."
"Don't be vulgar."