“There are some differences, Sir,” Tourville said mildly, hiding raised mental eyebrows. Honeker’s openness had just escalated his own probe by a few thousand percent, and he leaned back in his chair to consider how best to respond to it. The good news was that the two of them sat alone in Tourville’s flag briefing room, and he had to assume Honeker would never have voiced his concerns unless he’d either disabled the bugs or else had complete confidence in his ability to control any access to the recordings.

Of course, the fact that he’s confident wouldn’t necessarily mean he has reason to be. And I suppose I still shouldn’t overlook the possibility that he’s trying to set me up, get me to say something he can use to nail my ass for StateSec. On the other hand, why wait this long or go to elaborate lengths when all he’d have had to do was remind someone back on Haven of just how splendidly Ransom and I had gotten along before her untimely departure? Besides, I’ve got to take some chances somewhere along the line.

The thoughts flicked through his brain in a heartbeat, and he smiled at Honeker.

“First of all, Sir, there are some substantial differences between Zanzibar and Yeltsin’s Star. Zanzibar has a much larger population, but it’s a largely agrarian world. The system’s asteroid belts are richer than most, and it’s developed a respectable extraction industry in the last thirty or so T-years, but it’s primarily an exporter of raw materials—definitely still a third-tier economy. By this time, Yeltsin is at least second-tier, and I think an argument could be made for its rapidly approaching first-tier status. More to the point, the Zanzibar Navy is still essentially a sublight self-defense force which requires a substantial Manty picket for backup, whereas the Grayson Navy has turned Yeltsin into some kind of black hole for our ships.”

He paused again, and Honeker nodded. But the people’s commissioner still looked unconvinced, and Tourville couldn’t really blame him.

“There are also differences between both the operational planning and the leadership of Dagger and Icarus,” he went on, “and that’s probably even more important than the inherent toughness of the objectives. I never served with Citizen Admiral Thurston, but I knew his reputation. He was a fairly good strategist on paper, but he was pretty much a headquarters type. A ‘staff puke,’ if you’ll pardon the expression. Citizen Admiral Giscard is a shooter, not a chip-shuffler, and he and Citizen Secretary McQueen between them have avoided the weakest parts of Thurston’s strategy for Yeltsin’s Star.”

“Which were?”

“Which were his elaborate maneuvers to draw the Manties and Graysons out of position prior to the attack,” Tourville said without hesitation. “He got too clever and tried to manipulate them—to suck them out of his way so as to give himself a virtually unopposed shot at his objective. Worse, he seems to have fallen in love with his own plan. When he finally hit Yeltsin, he’d spent so much time convincing himself his preliminary operations had worked perfectly that he came in fat, dumb, and happy. Granted, he was up against an opponent with better electronic warfare capabilities, which contributed materially to his misappreciation of the enemy’s forces when he finally saw them, but the mindset to be misled was implicit in his entire approach. So he walked right into the concentrated firepower of six superdreadnoughts at minimum range.”