On the other hand, there was something to be said for letting the other side sweat. The ancient term “swinging in the wind” came forcibly to mind, as well, and he’d decided to let the Manties worry about opening communication. Four hundred-plus superdreadnoughts ought to be enough to get their attention…especially when the superdreadnoughts in question were headed straight for their capital star system’s hyper limit. The psychological advantage in forcing the other side to initiate contact might seem like a small thing, but at this point Massimo Filareta was prepared to go for any edge he could beg, borrow, or steal.

“We’re over a light-minute from Sphinx,” he continued out loud, “and whether or not this FTL communicator they’re supposed to have actually exists, we sure as hell don’t have it. Give them four or five minutes to kick the original sighting report upstairs and their superior officers to stop crapping their drawers, then another couple of minutes for them to kick it over to the civilians. Three or four minutes for the civilians to get back to the uniforms, and then a minute of light-speed lag to get the challenge to us.” He shrugged. “To be honest, I’ll be surprised if we actually hear anything from them in less than ten minutes or so.”

Burrows nodded slowly, his own expression thoughtful, and Filareta climbed out of his chair and strolled across to Admiral Daniels’ station. The operations officer was monitoring CIC’s data and seemed unaware of Filareta’s approach for a moment. Then he looked up quickly with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, Sir. Didn’t notice you.”

“If it’s a choice between noticing me and keeping your eye on the Manties, I’d just as soon you kept your eye on the Manties,” Filareta replied dryly, and Daniels’ smile broadened for a moment. “I know it’s early, Bill,” the fleet admiral went on, “but is there anything you can tell us yet?”

“Not really, Sir.” Daniels shrugged. “The recon platforms are headed in-system, but we haven’t been here long enough to pick up anything from our light-speed systems. We’ve got quite a few impeller signatures on the gravitics, but they’re scattered around the inner system—or moving back and forth between the inner system and the Junction, it looks like, which takes them well clear of our approach vector—and all of them appear to be civilian traffic. We are picking up a scattering of gravitic pulses, though.”