Read Online Singularity: Star Carrier: Book Three by Ian Douglas - Free Book Online

to match courses with him and drag him back to be sure.
    He watched as Jeanne d’Arc continued to bleed water into space.
    How, he wondered, was Koenig going to handle this one? . . .

Chapter Four
     
    11 April 2405
    CIC
    TC/USNA CVS America
    Kuiper Belt, HD 157950
    98 light years from Earth
    0940 hours, TFT
     
    “A dmiral Giraurd,” Koenig said, standing. “Welcome aboard.” He kept his voice and his expression pleasant, even mild. It was important at this point to avoid any sense of drama.
    Testosterone-laced posturing would not help at all at this point.
    “Koenig,” Giraurd replied with a curt nod. “You still have the option of surrendering.”
    “I think, sir, that I will decline that privilege.”
    They were meeting physically instead of through virtual communications, within the spacious officers lounge in America ’s hab modules. Present were Captain Buchanan and most of Koenig’s command staff and, just in case, several Marine guards flanking the doors as unobtrusively as they could considering that they were in full combat armor. Koenig and the other USNA officers wore full dress; Giraurd wore his command utilities, a blue jumper with the gold emblems of his rank on the shoulders and down the left sleeve.
    “You are making an enormous mistake,” Giraurd said, taking an offered seat.
    “Perhaps.” Koenig sat down as well, watching Giraurd across a low table grown from the deck. “But if so, I risk losing my command and, possibly, my fleet. If you and the Conciliationists are wrong, however, we could lose all of humanity. Our species could become extinct. Can you understand my point of view?”
    Giraurd hesitated, then gave another nod. “I suppose so. But it is not for the military to make political decisions of this magnitude. You, of all people, should know that .”
    Giraurd, Koenig knew, was referring to the peculiar political baggage the USNA derived from two of its predecessors—Canada and the United States of America. In those nation-states, the military had been expressly forbidden to participate in political decisions. While military coups had not been unthinkable, certainly, they’d been extremely unlikely when the military’s commander-in-chief had been the civilian president.
    It was a tradition not all members of the Terran Confederation shared. Giraurd was chiding him for breaking that tradition, for making what was essentially a political decision without going through a democratic process.
    “Out here,” Koenig said quietly, “we have to make our own decisions. They don’t see what we see, not from a hundred light years away.”
    “And suppose your little raid behind the enemy lines backfires, Koenig? Suppose it brings down upon us the full weight of the Sh’daar?”
    “In other words,” Koenig replied gently, “what if we make them angry? Earth lost sixty million souls during their last foray into the Sol System. It’s hard to see how they could be any madder.”
    During the Defense of Earth, in October of 2404, a twelve-kilo mass traveling at a significant fraction of c had skimmed past the sun and slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, 3,500 kilometers off the North American seaboard. The resultant tidal waves had scoured the coastlines of North and South America, Africa, and of Europe, killing an estimated 60 million people.
    “Perhaps,” Giraurd said. “We might not be so lucky with another direct attack on Earth. That impactor might have simply been a demonstration of their power. We would not survive a determined attack.”
    “I agree,” Koenig said. “And that’s why we’re out here. Even the Sh’daar don’t have unlimited resources. If we pose a threat to their worlds, to their star systems and the systems of their allies, we’ll draw them away from the Confederation.”
    “You are a fly attacking an elephant, Koenig.”
    “Perhaps. But elephants, I will remind you, are extinct. Earth still has lots of flies.”
    “Listen to what I am saying! My point