“So what happens, what do they do, if the fleet they’ve sent after us turns around and goes home without anyone firing a shot?” he went on. “Do they suddenly decide to admit their entire so-called strategy was a recipe for disaster that they walked straight into with their eyes wide open? For that matter, do they admit they pulled back because they’ve figured out they can’t take us out? Do they even admit we let them back off instead of blowing their entire fleet into dust bunnies? No. What they’ll do is try their damnedest to pass it off as another example of their ‘restraint’ in the face of our belligerence. They didn’t turn around because they knew they’d get their ass kicked if they kept coming; they turned around because they realized our leadership was so hopelessly stupid and bloodthirsty it was really going to fight, despite the fact that we couldn’t possibly win, and they weren’t prepared to slaughter all our personnel. After all, none of our spacers are responsible for our government’s hopelessly corrupt and imperialistic policy. Isn’t that the way they’ve already been selling all this? Of course it is! So rather than press matters, once they realized Her Majesty here was perfectly prepared to throw away all of those lives, they’ve decided to exercise restraint.”

“That’s—” Grantville paused for a moment, looking at his brother, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ham, but that’d be too much for even the Solly public to swallow!”

“Maybe,” Vice Admiral Trenis said, her expression thoughtful. “In fact, probably. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try it, though, Mr. Prime Minister. As Earl White Haven says, it’s certainly compatible with the propaganda the Mandarins already have out there, anyway. And let’s face it, they’ve managed to sell their public a lot of things that were almost equally preposterous.”

“Tester knows that’s true enough,” Benjamin agreed. “I’d really prefer for Hamish to be wrong, too, Willie, but I’m very much afraid he isn’t.”

“And even if they couldn’t hope to sell it in the long run,” Mikulin said with a scowl, “they might figure they could make it stand up in the short run as long as all of them lied loudly enough with straight enough faces. Long enough for them to get a formal declaration of war through the Assembly, say.”

“All right, I’ll accept that they may be thinking that way, even if I don’t think they’d be likely to get away with it,” Grantville said, although his tone was still doubtful. “Having said that, though, what do you propose we do about it, Ham?”

“We don’t give them the choice,” White Haven said flatly.