LITMIR.BIZ

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since America’s commanding officer was on the ship’s bridge, forward from the Combat Information Center, which was the central brain for the entire battlegroup. Koenig was looking down into the tactical display tank, where a cloud of green, amber, and red icons drifted toward a seemingly inevitable collision.

      “I don’t know, Randy,” Koenig said. “I don’t know Giraurd. Can’t get a handle on him.”

      He’d called up every bit of biographical data on Francois Giraurd that he could find in the Fleetnet database, but found little that was useful. Giraurd was only fifty years old, remarkably young for a grand admiral. Born in 2344, he’d been twenty-three, an engineering major at the Sorbonne, when the Sh’daar Ultimatum had come down through their Agletsch proxies. He’d entered the French Acádemie d’Astre as a midshipman cadet in 2368, the year of the disaster at Beta Pictoris, the opening round in the Sh’daar-Confederation War.

      His first command had been the gunship Pégase in 2374, and on his promotion to capitaine de frégate five years later he’d been given the command of the De Grasse, serving with the Terran Confederation’s Pan-European contingent.

      He’d never commanded a ship in battle, however, for either Pan-Europe or the Confederation. He’d made contre-amiral in 2389, at age 40, then vice-amiral in 2394, and vice-amiral d’escadre in 2397, a spectacularly swift rise up the hierarchy of flag rank. His final promotion to grand-amiral had been conferred in 2403. He’d been in command of a joint Franco-German-Russian fleet in Earth Synchorbit, Koenig noted, during the Defense of Earth, but that fleet had not seen combat.

      An uncle of Giraurd’s had been the French prime minister from 2385 through 2397, which just might explain his lightning rise through the ranks. He also had a cousin, General Daubresse, currently on the Confederation Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Giraurd family was one of the wealthiest in Pan-Europe. Family, political, and financial connections weren’t supposed to have any influence on promotions within the Confederation military, but everyone was all too aware of the reality. Both Pan-Europe and the UNSA had families who’d rotated between politics and the military going back for generations.

      “I think he’s more bluff and bluster than anything else,” Buchanan said. “The real problem is going to be DuPont and the politicos back in Geneva. I’d like to know exactly what Giraurd’s orders are right now.”

      Koenig had been thinking the same thing. Clearly, the Confederation government had hoped that Girard’s arrival would overawe Koenig enough that he would meekly return to Earth—coupled, carrot and stick, with the promise of being made president of the Confederation Senate.

      “Admiral? This is fleet communications,” Lieutenant Julio Ramirez said, interrupting electronically.

      “Excuse me, Randy. Go ahead, comm.”

      “Incoming transmission from Jeanne d’Arc. Time lag … seven minutes, twenty seconds.”

      “Very well.” Koenig opened the channel to include Buchanan. “Captain? You might want to listen in on this.”

      “Of course, sir.”

      A window opened in Koenig’s mind, static-blasted, then clearing. Giraurd’s face peered out at him. “Admiral Koenig, this is Grand Admiral Giraurd, on board the Confederation star carrier Jeanne d’Arc. I must inform you that I have the authority of the Terran Confederation Senate to place you under arrest if you do not comply with their orders.”

      “He followed us for a hundred and fourteen light years to tell us that?” Buchanan asked.

      “He probably can’t go back empty-handed,” Koenig replied, as Giraurd continued talking in the background. The transmission was strictly one-sided, a monologue. It would take another seven and a half minutes, nearly, for any response to get back to the approaching Jeanne d’Arc.

      “My orders,” Giraurd was saying, “are to take command of CBG-18 and organize its immediate return to Earth. …”

      “So what are we going to do about it?” Buchanan asked.

      “What am I going to do about it,” Koenig replied. “No sense in your career getting fried too.”

      “Admiral, we’re long past that point. If they hang you, they’re going to hang every senior officer in the battlegroup.”

      Giraurd kept speaking. “You are hereby directed to shut down your maneuvering drive and your weapons systems and prepare to receive the Jeanne d’Arc alongside. I am awaiting your immediate reply. Giraurd, Jeanne d’Arc, out.”

      “Well,” Koenig said. “Short and to the point.”

      “We’re going to have to make a fight-or-flight decision in another … call it three hours, sir.”

      “I know. Ramirez?”

      “Yes, Admiral.”

      “Can you patch through a high-focus laser on Illustrious?”

      There was a brief delay. “Yes, sir. No problem. We have a clear shot. The time lag is … make it seven thirty-five.”

      “Do so. I want Captain Harrison on the link, personal and private.”

      “Aye, aye, Admiral.”

      Koenig knew Captain Ronald Fitzhugh Harrison, the skipper of the British assault carrier Illustrious. If Giraurd was bluff and bluster, Harrison was the real deal. He was a veteran of a number of actions, including both Sturgis’s World and Everdawn against the Turusch; Cinco de Mayo, against EAS; and the Chinese Hegemony and Spanish rebels, and he included among his service medals both the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross and the Distinguished Service Cross.

      “Jeanne d’Arc has tagged their transmission with an immediate response requested, Admiral.”

      “Ignore them.”

      “Aye, aye, sir.”

      Koenig thought for a moment, then began recording his transmission to Harrison.

      “Hello, Ron. This is Alex, on the America. I’m sure you’re under orders not to receive transmissions from us, but before you cut me off you’d better have a look at the attached intel. They might not have told you everything.

      “If you’d care to chat, tag me back. Koenig, awaiting your reply. Out.”

      He attached a file with the name “Operation Crown Arrow” and uploaded it to Fleet Communications. It would be on its way down a laser beam aimed at the Pan-European carrier Illustrious within seconds.

      It would be more than fifteen minutes before he could expect a reply.

      For almost four decades, since the Sh’daar Ultimatum, the Terran Confederation had been shrinking, its borders on several fronts relentlessly pushed back by the encroaching Sh’daar Alliance. They’d taken Rasalhague, forty-seven light years from Sol, in 2374. Twenty-three years later, they’d hit Sturgis’s World, at Zeta Herculis, thirty-five light years out.

      And a few months ago, just before CBG-18 had left the Sol System, they’d taken the colony at Osiris, 70 Ophiuchi AII. That was just sixteen and a half light years away, practically on Earth’s doorstep, astronomically speaking.

      The Sh’daar and their subject races were closing in.

      Operation Crown Arrow had been devised to buy the Confederation time, a raid deep, deep into Sh’daar-controlled space, striking at fleet assembly points, manufactory centers, and staging areas. WHISPERS, the Weak Heterodyned Interstellar Signal Passband-Emission Radio Search, had detected a number of sources of faint, intelligently directed radio signals and identified them as probable sites of Sh’daar or Turusch activity. The immense manufactory at Alphekka, sucking in debris from the star’s protoplanetary disk and building Turusch warships, had been one of the loudest of these, but there was a list of more distant sites as well.

      And with the capture

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