“One possibility is that we might scare them back underground,” she said finally, choosing her words with care. “Presumably, they’re up to something fairly involved, and certainly what we’ve seen so far suggests some very long-term planning. While our immediate objective has to be to prevent casualties and limit damage, a deterrent that’s too effective may handicap our long-term objective of stopping them entirely, since we can’t do anything to derail their ultimate intentions until they come into the open and try to implement them.” She started to add something more about her own possible time constraints, then decided against it.

Papadapolous watched her face with an attentive frown. He seemed quite aware that there was something she hadn’t said, but she’d said enough to give him plenty of food for thought.

“I see,” he said after a moment. He gazed at his holo, eyes thoughtful, then looked back at Honor. “Would you care to offer any suggestions, Ma’am?”

“Only one,” she said, and turned to McKeon. “We’ve just agreed we can cut down on the inspection flights. Can we restrict them to just the boarding shuttles?”

“I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t,” McKeon said after a moment’s consideration. “It’s what they were built for, after all.”

“In that case, I want all three of those pinnaces reassigned from the Government Compound to Fearless,” Honor told Isvarian. “With all three of them available, we can land Major Papadapolous’s entire force in a single assault drop.”

“And retain them all aboard ship without giving away our deployment plans in the meantime,” Isvarian said with a nod.

“Precisely. Major?”

“Well…” Papadapolous seemed unaware he’d spoken as he peered back down at his display with puckered eyes, and she could almost see the thoughts racing through his brain. He started to speak again, only to pause once more, then nodded slowly.

“It’s going to be messier, Ma’am,” he warned, “and with all my people up here, there’s going to be a lot more room for us to pick up on an incident late or bobble our coordination and let something through into the enclaves. That’s what concerns me most, but we’re not going to be able to integrate my squads with NPA formations without time for them to train in coordination with their parent units, either, so we’re going to lose a lot of flexibility and responsiveness once we’re down, too. Still, I think we can probably work something out.” He rubbed his jaw, still staring at the holo, then looked up at Isvarian.

“Can you stay aboard another day or so, Major? We’re going to have to rethink the entire ops plan, and I’d really value your input.”

“I’ll be happy to, Nikos.” Isvarian rose to join his study of the holo. “And I’m not sure we’ll lose quite as much flexibility as you think. We can still plan my people’s original positions to tie into your eventual deployments, and maybe we can use First and Second Platoons as squad level reaction forces rather than trying for unit-by-unit integration.”