David Weber - At All Costs

"Good," Oversteegen said. "In that case, let's-"

"Missile launch!" Gohr said suddenly. "Multiple launches! Sir, I have LAC separation from in-system platforms!"

Oversteegen's eyes flew to the main plot, and his jaw tightened as threat sources exploded across it. A fresh wave of MDMs had abruptly appeared, launched from the same spot as the first salvo. But this one was considerably more massive. The next best thing to six thousand missile icons spangled the display, streaking towards his ships-and also Dillinger's LACs and Michelle Henke's division-and Gohr was right about the LAC launches, as well. The two hundred Task Force 81 had already known about went suddenly to full acceleration, charging towards the Manticorans, but twice that many more were erupting into space, turning towards Dillinger's Katanas and the battlecruisers behind them.

Oversteegen glared at the innocent icons of the near-planet missile pods Gohr's sensor crews had managed to locate. They hadn't launched yet, but they would, he knew. They were waiting, until their missiles could join the missile storm coming in from further out. Their lower base velocities when they arrived would make them easier targets, but it would also give them better shots at his sidewalls, and there were probably at least another two or three thousand missiles aboard them. The tactician in him cried out to hit them with proximity-fused warheads, to kill them before they fired. But they were too close to Vespasien. There was too big a chance a faulty firing solution would hit the planet itself or kill one of the unarmed civilian platforms and everyone aboard it.

No. They were simply going to have to take it, and his expression was bleak as he watched the attack come in. It was unlikely that even this would destroy his ship. The one mistake whoever had planned it had made was in his targeting selection. He ought to have directed all of that fire at no more than one or two targets, not spread it among so many. But it was hard to fault him for that, when he probably hadn't realized just how tough the battlecruisers he faced truly were. And if he wasn't going to kill them, that didn't mean he wasn't going to hurt them badly. Which didn't even consider what was going to happen to Dillinger's Katanas after they'd been mousetrapped into expending so many of their missiles against the first wave of MDMs.

For just a moment, behind the armor of his eyes, Michael Oversteegen felt a fleeting glow of admiration for his opponent. Whoever he was, he'd made maximum use of his limited resources, and Task Force 81's lead elements were about to get hammered.

But the moment passed, and Oversteegen straightened in his command chair.

"Defense plan Alpha-Three," he said calmly.

"Reverend Sullivan." Robert Telmachi, Archbishop of Manticore, walked across his spacious, sunlit office to shake hands as the bald, fierce-nosed visitor was ushered into it.

"This is an honor," Telmachi continued. "And, if I may say so, a meeting I've hoped for for quite some time."

"Thank you, Archbishop." The head of the Church of Humanity Unchained shook the offered hand firmly. "I, too, have looked forward to meeting you. Monsignor Davidson has been most satisfactory as your representative on Grayson, but given the intimacy of our two star nations' political relationship...."

He smiled, and Telmachi nodded with a smile of his own.

"Precisely," he said, escorting his guest towards an inviting conversational nook arranged in the office's huge, floor-to-ceiling bay window. "Of course," he continued, his smile broadening as they sat, "I don't have quite as much authority in the Star Kingdom's spiritual matters as you do in the Protectorate's."

"You might be surprised," Sullivan said wryly. "Our doctrine of the Test makes for a certain spiritual obstreperousness."

"But obstreperousness can be a good thing, as long as you learn to pay attention to its causes," Telmachi replied. "We found that out the hard way in my own Church. In fact, I believe we'd begun discovering it well before your own ancestors departed for Grayson."

"As did we, with those lunatics on Masada," Sullivan said more grimly.

"Every Faith has its moments of lunacy, Reverend." Telmachi shook his head sadly. "The Inquisition, the Islamic terrorist movement, the New Athens Jihad, your own Faithful.... Extremism is no one's monopoly when faith turns to fanaticism."

"But no one faith has a monopoly on resisting fanaticism, either," Sullivan replied. "A point certain of my own predecessors have had difficulty remembering on Grayson, given Father Church's monopoly-" he reused the word deliberately "-on spiritual authority there."

"Perhaps," Telmachi said. "Yet I think no one could accuse you or Reverend Hanks of that. I've deeply admired the way both of you have grappled with the huge changes your society has faced in the wake of your alliance with the Star Kingdom."

"You mean, in the wake of our having been exposed to an entire galaxy of dangerous, if not downright heretical, notions about radical things like women's rights," Sullivan corrected with an easy chuckle.

"Well, of course I did. But I'm far too diplomatic to ever say so."

Both men laughed, but then Telmachi sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and looked at his visitor thoughtfully.

"Your Grace, I'm truly delighted to meet you, and I see you're just as engaging in person as Monsignor Davidson's reports indicated. But I'm also aware this is the first time in the history of Grayson any Reverend has ever left the planet for any reason. I've issued all the expected press statements and news releases, and I've arranged to attend the meetings with representatives of all of our major religions and denominations which you requested. But I must confess I wasn't very surprised when your staff contacted mine to suggest a private preliminary meeting between the two of us."

"You weren't?" Sullivan asked, leaning back in his own chair.

"No. Monsignor Davidson is, as I'm sure you've discovered, as intelligent as he is charming. From certain questions which you'd asked him, he concluded you were particularly interested in establishing direct contact with me. He did not, however, suggest a reason for your interest, although I may have drawn a few conclusions of my own."

Sullivan looked out the window, at the sky-piercing towers of the City of Landing. It was a fascinatingly alien sight for any Grayson. Landing had been built by a counter-gravity civilization, on a planet whose environment had welcomed mankind, rather than attempting to repel the audacious invader. Its buildings towered far higher than any Grayson structure, and there wasn't a single environmental dome in sight. All that unobstructed sky was enough to make any Grayson nervous, especially when he watched the branches of the city greenbelts' trees dance in the brisk morning breeze. The Reverend felt almost undressed, and his hand twitched as he suppressed the reflex to reach for the breath mask normally cased on the right side of his belt. The fact that airborne dust on Manticore didn't represent a dangerous toxic threat was something his intellect had accepted more readily than his emotions. And yet, as he looked at the moving air cars, the pedestrians, the sidewalk cafes he could see from where he sat, he saw much the same people, however bizarrely some of them were dressed, as he might have seen at home.

He turned to gaze at the Archbishop once more, and there, too, he found the alien mingled with the utterly familiar. He recognized Telmachi's personal faith, and his genuine welcome, and Sullivan had deliberately immersed himself in studies of comparative theology since Grayson had been wrenched into the galactic mainstream. He saw in Telmachi the current heir to an apostolic succession stretching clear back to the dawn-the source-of their shared faith in God. And yet, Telmachi's spiritual authority was far less than his own. His Church had seen its uncontested primacy broken long before Man ever left Old Earth, and it had come to terms with that. It had evolved, survived, reached out to the stars along with a multiplicity of other religious beliefs and ways of thought which would have been totally bewildering to any Grayson. In many ways, he knew, Telmachi was far more... cosmopolitan then he himself was, but was that strength, or was it weakness? And in Telmachi, did Sullivan see the Reverends of Grayson's future?