David Weber - At All Costs

"Eloise, this is a new weapon, just deployed. Obviously, it's possible they've refitted with it across the board. I don't think they have, though."

"Why not?"

"Eighth Fleet's been their first team ever since they activated it. It's got their most modern ships, and what I believe is their best fleet commander. It's also been their primary offensive weapon. But Eighth Fleet obviously didn't have this capability at Solon, five and a half months ago. If they'd had it, they sure as hell would've used it when Javier blindsided them.

"For that matter, if they'd had it in general deployment two and a half months ago, when Elizabeth accepted your invitation to a summit, she probably wouldn't have accepted in the first place. You know how she feels about us, and why. Do you really think she would have agreed to sit down to negotiate if she'd had this broadly deployed and ready to go?" He snorted in harsh, bitter derision. "No, if this had been available to Elizabeth Winton on that sort of scale, she would have told us to pound sand. And then she would have gone onto the offensive, taken back every single thing we took away from them in Thunderbolt, and carried straight on through to punch out Haven and occupy Noveau Paris the way they should have at the end of the last war."

"Maybe she only accepted in the first place to buy time while they got it deployed," Pritchart countered.

"Possibly," Theisman conceded. "In fact, that's probably effectively what happened, at least on a small scale. But look at what they did with their new weapon. They swooped down on Lovat, which, admittedly, was a far more important target than anything they'd hit before. They came in, they mousetrapped and massacred the real defensive force when it came out of hyper," a part of his mind cursed himself for his choice of verb as fresh pain flashed through her eyes, but he continued steadily, "then headed in-system, wiped out the LACs and a batch of obsolete wallers, and wrecked the star system's industrial base. Right?"

"Yes," she said, her voice once again curt.

"Then why do it to Lovat?" he asked simply. "If they had enough ships capable of deploying and using this weapon, why not go directly for Haven? Hit us with their own version of Beatrice? Trust me, Eloise-Caparelli, White Haven, and Harrington are at least as good as strategists as anyone on our side. And if we had a weapon like this available in decisive quantities, or if we had any prospect of having it available in those quantities in the immediate future, we would never tell the other side we had it by taking out a secondary target, however attractive it might be. We'd save it, keep it completely under wraps, until we could use it in a single offensive which would end the war. Think about it. That's exactly what they did last time around, in Operation Buttercup-sat on their new ships and weapons until they were ready, then hammered us into scrap."

"So you're saying what they did at Lovat indicates they don't have it broadly deployed?"

"I think that's exactly what it indicates. I think they showed it to us early because they know as well as we do what the tonnage numbers look like right now. They're still trying to force us to redeploy, to fritter away our strength. To waste time while they carry out their refits, or iron out the production bottlenecks, or whatever it is they need to do to get this thing deployed throughout their wall of battle. And when they do get it deployed, we will be screwed, make no mistake about that."

"So what are you suggesting, Tom?"

"I'm saying we have three options. First, get them to agree to talk to us again and settle this thing without anyone else getting hurt on either side. Second, surrender before they get their new weapon fully into service and slaughter thousands of our personnel the way they did in Buttercup. The way they did to Javier at Lovat. Third, go ahead and hit them with the Bravo variant of Beatrice before they can get it into full deployment."

"My God, Tom. You can't be serious!"

"Eloise, we're out of other options, and we're out of time." He shook his head. "You know how I've felt about this war from the beginning. I want the first option. I want to talk to them, to tell them about Arnold, to settle this thing across a conference table, not with broadsides and gutted star systems. But they've rejected that option. I know why we think they did it. I know somebody's manipulating what's going on. But if they won't even talk to us, we can't tell them that.

"So, it's either surrender, or go for outright victory."

"And which of those two options would you prefer?" she asked softly.

"In a lot of ways," he admitted, "I'd almost prefer surrender. I've been fighting the Manticorans for a long time now, Eloise. Hell, I started fighting them in Yeltsin, before the first war ever began! My emotions where they're concerned are probably as tangled up and knotted as those of anyone else in the Republic, but I'm tired of seeing men and women under my command, men and women who follow my orders because they trust me, killed. Especially when they're being killed because of a stupid fucking misunderstanding.

"But I'm an admiral; you're the politician. Is a surrender to them possible?"

"I don't know." She inhaled deeply, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "I just don't know. I could carry the Cabinet with me, but I don't see how I could possibly carry the Senate, even if I told them everything we suspect about Arnold at this point. And I don't have the power, as President, to declare war or conclude peace-or surrender-without the advice and consent of the Senate. God only knows what would happen if I tried. Our legal system and chains of authority are still so new, they might shatter outright if I ordered a surrender and Congress repudiated my orders. Everything we've worked for could collapse. Even your navy could come apart. A lot of it would probably obey the order if you endorsed it, but other parts might ignore it and try to keep prosecuting the war. We might even wind up with another round of civil war!"

"Can we send a private message to Elizabeth, then?" Theisman was almost pleading. "Can we tell her we want another cease-fire. A stand down in place of all units while we send a diplomatic mission direct to Manticore?"

"Do you really think they'd listen after all that's happened?" Pritchart said sadly. "That's exactly what I proposed before, Tom! And they're convinced it was only a ploy. That I set it up for some Machiavellian reason of my own, and then tried to murder two teenaged girls to sabotage my own summit. If I try it again now, they're going to see it as an exact replay of the way Saint-Just derailed their Buttercup offensive. It would only 'prove' to them that their new weapons have us panicked."

A single tear tracked down her cheek, and she shook her head.

"I want this war ended even more than you do, Tom. I'm the one Arnold got to with his goddamned forged correspondence. I'm the one who started this entire fucking mess. And now look at it. Hundreds of thousands of men and women dead, star systems wrecked from one end to another, and even Javier."

"Eloise, it wasn't just you." Theisman leaned forward, reaching across the desk, and captured her hand and gripped it fiercely. "Yes, he fooled you. Well, he fooled me, the rest of the Cabinet, and the entire goddamned Congress, as well! You just said it yourself-you didn't have the power to declare war without advice and consent, and you got both of them."

"But I asked for them. It was my policy," she said softly. "My administration."

"Maybe it was. But the way we got here doesn't change where we are, or the options we've got. So, if we can't negotiate, and we can't surrender, what can we do except launch Beatrice? It's an 'all-costs' situation, Eloise, and Bravo was specifically designed to take out Eighth Fleet, as well. If we manage that, we knock out the only force we know is equipped with the new missiles, but even that's pretty much beside the point if the main op succeeds. That's really what it comes down to, now. If we wait, we lose; if we attack and I'm wrong about their deployment status, we lose; but if we attack and I'm right, we'll almost certainly win. It's that simple."