Free Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion Book 1) by Dietmar Wehr Page B

time to get
them all here in order to execute a coordinated attack. In terms of what we
could use them against, my staff has assumed that we’re not yet prepared to
escalate this war to the point of attacking civilians.” She paused to see if
Belloc either confirmed or denied that assumption. He nodded. Good. If he was
ready to go that far, she was prepared to resign in protest. “With civilian
targets off the list, the military targets that are defended lightly enough to
minimize our own casualties are few. It’s my staff’s opinion, which I share,
that the best target in terms of vulnerability AND impact on the FEDs is their
Navy base orbiting around Xanadu. Its strategic location and repair and
maintenance capability make it very valuable to the FEDs, and because it’s not
on a planet or moon, it’s vulnerable to a high speed fly-by missile strike.”
She paused to let that information sink in before continuing.
     
    “The size of our strike force depends on how quickly our
cruisers can get here. We can launch a strike with two ships within four weeks.
That would be risky. If we want to use three cruisers, we’ll have to wait seven
weeks, and all four will take 13 weeks. After careful consideration, I’m
recommending waiting the seven weeks and going with the three-ship strike.”
     
    Belloc nodded. “Thank you, Mandy. Everyone here will get
a chance to comment on this proposal, and then I’ll make a decision. Frank? How
about you go next?”
     
    “Thank you, Chancellor. I thought our first priority for
our captured cruisers was to capture freighters, not engage in tit for tat. We
need those freighters badly. I can’t emphasize that enough. Even if we start
right now, it’ll take time to find them, capture them, bring them back and then
start using them. In the meantime, inter-planetary trade between members of the
SSU will be dropping. How low it drops and for how long depends on how quickly
we get our own freighters going. I have a question for Defense Secretary
Sorensen. Will taking out the navy space station at Xanadu win the war?”
     
    Sorensen looked at Belloc and saw him shrug. She looked
back at Shaw and said, “No, that by itself won’t win the war.”
     
    Shaw returned his gaze to Belloc. “Exactly. However, I’m
not exaggerating when I say that we could ultimately lose this war if we allow
our collective economies to run down so low that it’ll take years to get them
back up again. My recommendation is that we use our cruisers to catch some
freighters first, and when we have another dozen freighters in our hands, then
we go on the offensive. There’s a good chance we’ll have a couple of our own,
newly built cruisers operational by then too. With their armor, they should
have a better chance of surviving the strike mission than the ones we have
now.” Shaw leaned back in his chair to indicate that he was finished.
     
    Before anyone else could jump in, Sorensen said, “We’ve
already captured one freighter here on Sparta, and there’s a good chance that
we can snag a few more before the shipping companies have a chance to pull them
all back. It’ll take months for our cruisers to travel to FED star systems and
then find and capture outbound freighters, with even more months before those
freighters arrive here. In the meantime, the FED Navy will be gathering its
forces in preparation for another shot at us. The Xanadu station is in the best
position to support any new hostile moves against us. Taking it out now, while
it’s still relatively undefended, will delay their efforts to get themselves
organized. We need that extra time to compensate for the fact of news about the
SSU leaking out sooner than expected. It’s also possible that the damaged
cruiser that escaped will be docked with the station for repairs. If we can
launch a strike quickly enough, we may be able to get both the station AND that
third cruiser.”
     
    Belloc sighed. Clearly his hope that this would be a
short