SoV wrote:He would have been much happier if that evidence had been conclusive and not simply the best available. Unfortunately, he had a dearth of combat reports from ships which had faced the Manticorans in combat, since none of those ships had returned to base to make the aforesaid reports. They did have Admiral Liam Pyun’s report from Zunker, though, and the survivors of the Saltash debacle seemed to back Pyun’s account, although no hard sensor data had been available to support their account of events. For that matter, the limited information from Spindle pointed in the same direction. And if Pyun’s report was accurate, the Manties had launched their “demonstration salvo” at thirty million kilometers.
snip
If we run into one of those damned pod-laying wallers of theirs, we’re going to get hammered with one hell of a lot more damage per hit than they are. But against cruisers and destroyers, we should be able to go toe-to-toe if we have a big enough advantage in tubes.
snip
Vangelis found it difficult to credit the missile velocities which had been reported, although he couldn’t quite decide whether that was because they seemed so ridiculous they couldn’t be true or because he so desperately wanted them not to be. If they were true, he was none to confident the software tweaks would be enough, although at least the computers weren’t likely to simply reject the solutions because they were so far outside the programmers’ assumptions.
According to a friend of his in Fleet Acquisitions, simulations at System Development had confirmed Keeley O’Cleary’s contention that the missile-defense systems aboard Sandra Crandall’s ships had done just that. And according to the same friend, Admiral Polydorou had carried out those simulations—under protest, since they were so “obviously unnecessary”—only at the direct orders of Fleet Admiral Kingsford when he replaced Rajampet Rajani as CNO.
Vangelis found it difficult to decide which of those reports were more depressing.
“Five hundred and eighty gravities sounds to me like they’re pushing it pretty hard,” the chief of staff said. “Dropping the freighter probably wouldn’t help much.”
“Probably not enough for them to overhaul us, no, Sir,” Levine agreed. “But if the wilder reports we’ve had are accurate, they should easily hit six hundred or even six-fifty. In fact, even that would be fairly low for Manties.”
“Low?” Yountz’ eyebrows rose, and Levine shrugged irritably.
“I did say they were ‘wilder reports,’ Sir. But according to the only Solarian report we have from New Tuscany, their battlecruisers were pulling over six-ten before they took out Jean Bart. And Admiral O’Cleary’s debrief after Spindle suggests the same sort of accelerations.”
“The report from New Tuscany’s hardly conclusive. And with all due respect,” Yountz didn’t sound particularly respectful, “there’s bound to be some CYA in Keeley O’Cleary’s debrief. I’d take anything coming out of Spindle with a grain of salt.”
“Which, unless the term ‘wilder reports’ means something different to you than it does to me, is precisely what Bradley just did,” Tamaguchi pointed out with an edge of frost. “He also brought it to our attention, however…which is precisely what he was supposed to do.”
“I know, Sir. And I didn’t mean to sound like I was biting your head off, Brad.” Yountz smiled crookedly at the ops officer. “I just find it a teeny bit hard to accept that a Manty battlecruiser can out-accelerate one of our destroyers. I’ll grant ONI’s badly underestimated their capabilities, but that’s still a mighty steep leap in compensator tech.”
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