“They’re bringing this war to us, when they don’t have to,” she went on coldly. “Bringing it to us when we’ve warned them they’re being played by Mesa. When we’ve specifically warned them they’re sending their superdreadnoughts into an effective deathtrap! There’s a limit to what we owe them, how far over backward we’re required to bend to keep from killing people who’re here for the express purpose of invading and conquering our star system and our homes. I support Hamish on this one. Don’t let them off. Don’t let them ‘magnanimously’ step back. Smack them down in a way that forces them to admit the stupidity of sending Filareta out here in the first place, and then see how well Kolokoltsov and his Mandarins deal with the fallout!”

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Massimo Filareta stood in one of his favorite “thinking” poses, feet spread, hands shoved deep into his tunic pockets, and brow knitted while he gazed down at the detailed star system schematic. At the moment, that schematic showed both components of the binary system which was his objective, but he wasn’t really interested in the secondary component. Not yet.

Although John did have a point, he reflected. They’re bound to be expecting anyone who comes calling to hit Sphinx or Manticore, especially after what happened to them in February. That’s where they’re going to have their fleet strength concentrated. And the bulk of any system-defense missiles they have left have to be deployed to cover Manticore-A, too. They can’t really afford to lose any of their home system planets, but they could afford to lose Gryphon a lot more than they could either of the other two. And they have to know that if they spread themselves too thin…

He grimaced. The notion of hitting Gryphon first, of starting by attacking their weakest point, had an undeniable appeal. Part of that was the “dipping a toe in” aspect of not getting any deeper than he had to before he’d tested the waters. That was scarcely the stuff of military derring do; then again, professional naval officers were supposed to avoid derring do whenever possible. “Derring do” was usually what happened only after someone had screwed up by the numbers and had to figure out how to save his ass from his own mistakes. And given that he’d been forced to accept that he really was facing the wrong end of a tech imbalance, seizing an objective the Manties would be forced to retake, compelling them to come to him on his terms, had a lot to recommend itself in terms of cold military logic. Especially if they really were depending on pod-launched system-defense missiles—which were effectively fixed defenses—to make up the combat differential against the League’s superior numbers.