[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(113)

“You see, the quality ratings for Black Fifteen had nothing to do with the engineering staff or the foremen and everything to do with the Yevethan guildsmen. They’ve got the gift of understanding how a thing is put together practically on a first glance. Then they draw it from memory the next day, and by the third they’ve figured out everything that’s wrong about it and started making you a better one.”

Oh, my stars, Leia thought, hearing it for the second time. The droids at the Imperial factory farm-“Did you see that for yourself, too?”

Sconn nodded. “That number four power cell we were in for? It was replaced by one the Yevetha had rebuilt—and the replacement ran twenty percent over rated capacity at a hundred degrees below the redline, with absolutely no start-up surge. The chief engineer used to say that he expected it’d still be running when the rest of the ship was rust dust.”

“Did the Yevethan conscripts work on every part of the ships in the yard? “

“No, of course not,” Sconn said. “The Empire was very fond of secrets.

Stang, there were systems on board the Moff Weblin that I wasn’t cleared to know the details of. Conscript workers were never let near anything on the secure list—that was true anywhere. And the yard boss at Black Fifteen was especially careful about not letting the Yevetha near the sensitive stuff— hyperdrives, turbolasers, shield generators, reactors.”

Then Sconn smiled with wry amusement. “At least, you’d better hope he was. If you end up having to fight the Yevetha, and what they have looks anything like what we had—well, all I can say is I wish I was going to be there to see it. Nothing personal, mind you,” he added.

“Just an old rooting interest I haven’t quite managed to shed.”

“General A’baht.”

The Dornean’s gaze was level. “Madame President.”

“General, before you start, I have some information to pass along to you. Within the hour, the Gol Storn and the Thackery will be en route to Galantos. Lantol and Farlight will be detached from the Third Fleet no later than twenty-two hundred for duty at Wehttam. And the Fourth Fleet will be sending two cruisers to Nanta-Ri by the end of the day.”

“All welcome news, Madame President. So far, I have no reports of any Yevethan incursions in those systems.

I hope we will be able to keep it that way.”

“Yes,” Leia said. “General, what do you need from US?”

“That depends entirely on what you want me to accomplish. But before we can even contemplate a course of action, I must have better information about the enemy. Can I assume that Admiral Drayson is not in a position to expand his assistance?”

“I’m afraid that’s correct. Drayson tells me that his assets inside Koornacht Cluster have been ‘extinguished,’” Leia said.

“Then I need authorization to send in my own,” A’baht said.

“Tell me what you propose.”

“There are eleven members of the Duskhan League.

We know of thirteen habitable worlds which the Yevetha may have attacked. I want to put a ship within a thousand kilometers of every one of them, on a flash pass.”

“Do you have enough drones?” The pilotless ferrets were the first choice for forays into hostile territory.

“No,” A’baht said. “I have to commit all my prowlers as well—and put X-wing recon fighters out on patrol to replace them. Or I can send the recon fighters themselves into the Cluster. I would prefer to do the latter.”

“Why is that?”

“A recon-X is somewhat faster than a prowler, which I hope will increase their chance of survival. And a recon-X has a smaller crew than a prowler, minimizing any losses.”

“Well—you’ve obviously had your tactical staff working on this already,” Leia said. “Do you have any projections?”

“The only reasonable way to go is to synchronize all the contacts.

Stagger departures so everyone jumps in-system at the same time—five minutes later, everyone jumps out—” “Five minutes! That’s a long exposure for a flash pass.”

“It’s necessary to get maximum coverage of the primaries,” A’baht said.

“We have to be able to see what’s in orbit on the back side.”

“What does the estimate look like, then?”

“Seventy-five percent getting at least a one-minute partial report out.

Forty percent overall mission survival.”

“My word—” “That’s under the least-risk mission profile, without direct return. Most of the scouts would continue more or less straight through to the other side of the Cluster and return the long way around. That’s another reason to use a recon-X instead of a prowler—fewer hours without that detection capacity on our perimeter.”