31

More Than Force

Our patience will achieve more than our force.
—Burke

TRNS Taconic, Allied Fleet, Demeter System

Ian Trevayne remembered his reaction, years before, on his first sight of TRNS Taconic. Now he could only chuckle as he recalled the awe he had felt at the first of the devastators as he watched the first of the superdevastators emerge from the newly dredged Hera warp point into the light of Demeter’s G5v sun.

“Twice the tonnage,” he heard Adrian M’Zangwe breathe. The voice of Taconic’s captain held decidedly mixed emotions.

Li Magda said nothing. But Trevayne knew her emotions were also complex.

They stood in the flag observation lounge of Taconic, which had once again become Trevayne’s flagship when he had returned to Demeter after the campaign against the Tangri was well enough in hand to entrust it to subordinates. Li Magda had also returned, for the same reason. Now Trevayne was about to transfer his flag once again.

“We probably ought to be going,” said Li Magda.

“Yes,” nodded Trevayne. “After all, we have a special visitor.”

They departed and went to the shuttle that would take them to TRNS Li Han.

* * *

Trevayne had never met Magda Petrovna Windrider. And he stayed in the background while she and Li Magda fell into each others’ arms. The older woman whispered words he could not hear into her goddaughter’s ear, and he caught sight of a glint of tears on Mags’s cheek.

After a time, they released each other, and Trevayne thought the moment right to step forward. “Welcome to Demeter, Admiral. It is an honor and a pleasure to meet you.”

“Retired Admiral, to be precise—and please call me Magda, even though it could get confusing. I, too, am privileged to finally meet you, Admiral Trevayne—although in a sense I almost feel I know you already, if only from a distance, having studied you with great care during the…the…”

“The late unpleasantness,” Trevayne supplied.

“Which isn’t nearly as late for you as it is for the rest of us, is it?” The warm but sharp brown eyes in the quintessentially Russian face grew even sharper.

“You’re most understanding…Magda. As was she for whom this tremendous ship is so appropriately named.”

For a moment, they regarded each other in silence. And the last wisps of tension and awkwardness evaporated and were gone.

“Well,” Magda said briskly, “you’re probably wondering why I came out here to the Bellerophon Arm—aside from wanting to see my goddaughter. And why I asked for this private meeting.”

“I admit to more than a little curiousity about it,” Trevayne acknowledged.

Magda regarded him levelly. “I hope to persuade you to delay your offensive into Charlotte.”

Trevayne met her eyes squarely. “You realize, of course, that the longer we delay, the longer the people of Bellerophon—all two hundred and thirty-five million of them, or however many of those are left by now—will have to continue to live under the Baldies’ occupation.”

“I’m only too aware of that. And yes, if you attack Charlotte, using existing Kasugawa generator applications, you may win through and shorten the war. But given the tactical problem you face—that you must first enter Charlotte with nothing larger than a supermonitor, before you can bring in the generator that will allow transit by devastators and superdevastators—the possibility also exists that you will fail, and by your failure lengthen the war.”

Trevayne didn’t reply directly, and his momentary silence was acknowledgment of the truth she spoke. “You said ‘using existing Kasugawa generator applications.’ Does that imply that there’s another kind?”

Magda nodded and briefly outlined the concept of supermonitor-concealed Kasugawa generators.

“So,” Trevayne said in tones of grim satisfaction, “we wouldn’t have to use our smaller ships to defend a helpless generator in the teeth of a counterattack by SDSs and hordes of their other craft.”

“And,” Li Magda added excitedly, “the Baldies’ tactical calculations are now based on that assumption. So this will catch them completely off balance.”

Trevayne gave a quick nod. “All right. We’ll wait until we have these new units. But in the meantime, we’ll use the generators we already have to continue dredging the warp lines we already control.” He rose eagerly to his feet and smiled at Magda. “Let’s get the staff together and work out the details while we have the benefit of having a recognized expert here!”