Honor Harrington #03 - The Short, Victorious War by David Weber

Honor Harrington #03 - The Short, Victorious War by David Weber

Author:David Weber [Weber, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-13T02:04:18+00:00


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Admiral Parnell gazed out a view port as his shuttle touched down at DuQuesne Central, the main landing facility for the PRH's third largest naval base. The sprawling military facility named for the master architect of the Republic's march to empire was the primary—indeed, the only real—industry of Enki, the Barnett System's single habitable planet. Well over a million Marines and navy personnel were permanently stationed on Enki, and the system seethed with warships of every size, all guarded by massive fixed fortifications.

Parnell had studied those warships from the bridge of the heavy cruiser which delivered him to Barnett, and he'd been impressed. Yet that wasn't all he'd been, for he recognized the risk he was committing his navy to accept, and he didn't like it.

As he'd told President Harris months ago, he didn't really want to take Manticore on at all. Unlike Haven's other victims, the Star Kingdom had had both the time and the leadership to prepare. Despite the confused pacifism of some of its politicians, its people were generally united behind their stiff-necked, almost obsessively determined queen, its wealth had let it amass a frightening amount of firepower, and the sheer breadth of its alliance system faced the People's Navy with a whole new dimension of threat. Unlike Haven's past, single-system conquests, there was no quick, clean way to take the Alliance out, short of a direct thrust to its heart, and driving clear to Manticore without protecting the Fleet's flanks and rear invited catastrophe.

No, if they wanted the Star Kingdom, they had to fight for it. And, as the very first step, they had to break its frontier defenses and annihilate a sizable chunk of its navy in the process.

The admiral climbed out of his seat as the landing gear engaged. He scooped up his briefcase, nodded to the security team which accompanied him everywhere, and made his way down the shuttle ramp with a smile that hid his inner apprehension.

* * *

DuQuesne Base's huge war room was even more lavishly appointed than Central Planning back home in the Octagon, and Parnell's staff stood in a silent arc behind him as he studied the status boards. It was a habit of his to absorb the raw data for himself. He knew it irked some of his staffers, but he didn't do it because he distrusted their competence. If he hadn't trusted them, they wouldn't be here in the first place, but even the best people made mistakes. He'd caught more than a few of them in his time, and while he knew he couldn't possibly assimilate that much detail, he'd trained himself over the decades to absorb a general overview.

The confirmed reports on Manty naval deployments were scantier than he'd hoped for, but what there were of them looked hopeful. There were signs of movement all along the frontier, and Operation Argus had done better than he'd ever expected when the notion was first proposed to him. Argus was hardly a speedy way to amass



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