David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"Should they be stupid enough to do that, Mr. President," Bardasano said, "I believe you'll be able to present them with an argument against pressing any launch buttons after they get here."

"Indeed?" He looked at her skeptically. "Such as?"

"After you've accepted the surrender of the Manty terminus picket, or blown it out of space, as the case may be," she said calmly, "a dozen or so Monican freighters will begin emplacing mines. Actually, courtesy of Mr. Levakonic, they'll be something new, something Technodyne developed out of the reverse flow of information from the previous Havenite regime."

Tyler looked at Levakonic, and the Technodyne rep smiled.

"We call them 'missile pods,' Mr. President," he said. "They have a great deal more standoff range than any conventional mine, and enough of them will blow any ship ever built out of space."

"And where do these 'Monican freighters' come from?"

"Oh, I imagine I know someone who could loan them to you," Bardasano said, gazing up at the ceiling.

"And the cost of all of this generosity-battlecruisers, freighters, missile pods…? I may not be Admiral Bourmont, but I have a pretty shrewd notion that what you're talking about would cost considerably more than the next ten or fifteen years of our GSP."

"Certainly it would be expensive, Mr. President," Anisimovna agreed. "But not any more than could be readily repaid by someone who had possession of a junction terminus. You could undoubtedly work quite a bit of it out by simply granting transit fee exemptions to Jessyk Combine shipping passing through."

"So." Tyler let his gaze sweep over all of his visitors. "And how long are these missile pods good for? What's their endurance?"

"No more than two or three weeks," Levakonic admitted. "A month, at most. After that, they have to be taken off-line for service and maintenance."

"But they'd be your hole card against an immediate, ill-conceived response from Manticore," Anisimovna said quickly.

"And while your freighters were placing the mines," Bardasano said, "your navy would be sweeping up all of the merchantships which were present awaiting transit at the time of your arrival. And, of course, the additional ships coming in through hyper and unaware of the change in ownership. I'm sure you'd feel enormous remorse if you allowed any of those vessels to pass through the terminus before the situation with Manticore was fully resolved. After all, accidents happen, and it's entirely possible that a merchantship coming through from Lynx might be mistaken for a hostile warship and destroyed by the Manties before they realized their error. It would therefore be your responsibility to hold all of those ships under the close, protective escort of your own naval units."

"Where," Levakonic said softly, "any errors in targeting by attacking Manticoran warships might, regrettably, of course, kill hundreds of innocent merchant spacers. Solarian spacers, whose government would be… most unhappy over their deaths."

Tyler looked at them again, shaken by the ruthlessness they were prepared to employ.

"All right," he said finally. "I'll concede that everything you've said so far is at least possible. But it's all ultimately short term. Simply manning that many battlecruisers would stretch my trained manpower to the limit. I don't even know if it would be possible out of our current manpower. Even if it were, I don't have the trained technicians to provide the maintenance your missile pods are going to require, and I doubt very much that you could afford to provide me with enough of them. Not to mention the fact that even if you were able to do so, it would only make it painfully clear where 'my' ships and missile pods actually came from. And I can't hold dozens of merchantships indefinitely, either. The Solarian shipping lines would be screaming for my head within weeks, months at the outside, and then I'd find the SLN and the RMN coming after me."

"No, you wouldn't." It was the first time Hongbo had spoken in several minutes, and Tyler's eyes snapped over to the Frontier Security official.

"Why not?" he asked tautly.

"Because, Mr. President," Anisimovna said, "you will have contacted the Office of Frontier Security through its offices in the Meyers System before you dispatch your naval units to the Lynx Terminus. You'll explain to OFS that you can no longer sit by and watch the deteriorating situation in the Cluster. Obviously, the citizens of the Cluster's star systems are violently opposed to their annexation by the Star Kingdom of Manticore. You, as the head of state of the most powerful local star nation, with your legitimate interests-humanitarian, as well as those related to your own security-have seen no option but to intervene. And, as the first step in ending the bloodshed and restoring domestic tranquility and local self-government, you have seized control of the Lynx Terminus in order to avoid further destabilization by outside interests."

"'Deteriorating situation'? 'Bloodshed'?" Tyler shook his head. " What deteriorating situation?"

"I have it on the best of authority that violent resistance to the imposition of Manticoran rule is already brewing," Anisimovna said somberly. "The freedom-loving citizens of the Cluster are awakening to the cynical way in which the plebiscite vote was manipulated to create the appearance of an overwhelming mandate for annexation by the Star Kingdom. And as they awake, they are preparing themselves for an armed struggle against the interlopers and their local collaborators."

Tyler felt his eyes trying to boggle. That was the most preposterous load of-

Wait, he thought. Wait! That report from Alfonzo. Anisimovna and Bardasano met with Eichbauer and some Gendarmerie captain right here in Estelle. And Eichbauer and what's-his-name were in uniform. Which means Anisimovna wanted me to know about the meeting. But Hongbo hasn't said a thing about it. So there's something here that officially isn't happening but Hongbo knows about anyway, and they want me to know he does.

"I see," he said, very slowly, after a moment. "And, of course, Frontier Security would share my concern over the bloodshed and unrest in the Cluster."

"We'd have no choice but to examine your allegations most carefully, Mr. President," Hongbo agreed gravely. "After all, our fundamental mandate is to prevent exactly this sort of imperialistic adventurism on the frontiers of the Solarian League. And, of course, to safeguard the personal liberties of the citizens living in the regions under our protection."

"And how- hypothetically speaking, of course-do you believe Frontier Security would eventually rule in this case?" Tyler asked, watching Hongbo's expression very carefully.

"Well, you understand, Mr. President, that anything I was to say at this point would have to be just that-hypothetical?" Hongbo looked at Tyler until the Monican nodded. "On that basis, then, I should think Commissioner Verrochio's first action would be to dispatch an SLN task force to stabilize the situation at Lynx. The task force's commander's orders would undoubtedly be to take control of the terminus in the League's name until such time as the competing claims to it could be adjudged. Your ships would, of course, be required to withdraw from the area, as would any Manticoran military units. Anyone who attempted to defy his instructions would find himself-briefly-at war with the Solarian League.

"Once that situation was stabilized, our investigation and verification teams would spread out through the Cluster. We'd interview all parties, including the freedom fighters, in order to make a determination on the true representativeness of the annexation vote.

"I must confess that I personally harbor some fairly profound personal reservations about the validity of that vote." He met Tyler's gaze levelly and allowed himself a thin, fleeting smile. "Obviously, though, we'd have to wait for our careful and painstaking investigation to confirm those reservations. If, however, they found what I suspect they might, I don't believe we'd have any choice but to set aside the sadly flawed initial annexation vote and hold a second plebiscite, under strict League supervision and poll monitoring, to determine the true desires of the Cluster's citizens."