Seas of Venus(38)

Johnnie slid cautiously into the seat nearest the door. It was plainer than the units in his father's office, but the data bank/hologram projector linkage was state-of-the-art.

"Sorry, sir," muttered Captain Haynes. "I'm—"

He grimaced. There was a visicube of his wife on the console of his seat. His hands revolved it. "We're all upset."

"Perhaps," Uncle Dan suggested quietly as he too sat, "Koslowski, Molp, and Randleman should be present?"

Bergstrom shook his head. "We'll need the other squadron commanders when it's time for detailed planning," he said. "But first we have to decide what to do . . . and that's a matter for the three of us, isn't it, gentlemen?"

He nodded ironically toward Johnnie. "And for Senator Gordon's representative, of course."

"There's no certainty in battle," Haynes said, speaking distinctly but toward the image in his hands. "Sure, we're outnumbered, but that doesn't mean we can't engage and win."

"If we met the others one at a time," said the Commander in Chief, "we could possibly defeat them all in detail. But—"

"If we station ourselves in the Kanjar Straits," Haynes said eagerly, "if we do it right away—they can't use their full strength against us. Then—"

"Then they put out a screen of subs and light forces on the ocean side of the Straits and let us rot until our hulls are foul and we have to return to base to refuel," Uncle Dan broke in without raising his voice. "When we attempt to do that, their combined fleets sail from base—clean and fully prepared—run us down while we skirmish with their screen, and send us to the bottom."

"Are you saying we should surrender now?" Haynes demanded. "Are you saying that?"

Dan didn't speak. Admiral Bergstrom played with a piece of rusty shell casing on his desk, then looked directly at Haynes. "Frankly, Walter," he said, "I don't see much point in fighting a battle we're certain to lose, either. Lose badly."

"Sir," said Haynes, "honor demands we fulfil our contract to the best of our abilities."

"Honor won't win a battle against overwhelming strength," Uncle Dan said.

He ignored Johnnie completely. The other senior officers kept flicking their eyes toward the man they thought was the political envoy from Wenceslas Dome.

"Honor won't even bury us," Dan continued calmly. "Though of course that won't matter so long as the fish are on the job. I could not in good conscience recommend we engage if I didn't think we could win."

Captain Haynes opened his mouth—and closed it without speaking.

"Daniel," Admiral Bergstrom said. "This isn't a time for games."

"Sorry," Dan said; sounding for the first time in Johnnie's hearing as though he felt he'd made an error.

Dan's fingertips worked the projector controls of his chair. He cleared his throat and resumed, "My aide, Ensign Gordon, reconnoitered Paradise Base for us during the negotiations. John, will you sketch in the location of the Angel units for us now?"

A holographic representation of Paradise Base, plucked from the BOC's data banks, glowed in the air of the office. Johnnie snapped open the cover of his own controls, slid the magenta cursor along the docks with his joystick, and began tapping a function key. The software was the same as that he'd trained on. . . .

"Twelve destroyers here," Johnnie said crisply. His pulse slowed and the nervous flush left his face now that he had a task to perform. "Two cruisers, bow inward, on the west side of this dock—"

He hit a different function key twice, then used his joystick to adjust the attitude of the holographic images. "They appeared to be combat ready, but I have no hard evidence on the subject. Here—"

Tap—

"—was a mothership with five submarines. Six, actually, but one had floats attached for buoyancy and I can't imagine that she's serviceable."

"It's not their bloody subs that we're worried about," muttered Captain Haynes as he stared at his wife's picture. "I only wish it was."

"The dreadnought St. Michael here in drydock," Johnnie said, ignoring the comment. "Local personnel believed that she'd be combat ready shortly, perhaps as soon as twenty-four hours. The Holy Trinity—"

He toyed with the joystick to align the huge ship's image correctly near the harbor's jungle margin to the north.

"And three more dreadnoughts, which I believe to be the Azrael—"

Tap—

"—the Spiritus Sancti—"

Tap—

"—and the Elijah, though with these three I'm going by silhouette matching, not local information."