All of which meant the Zunker Space Navy consisted of little more than a double handful of LACs, suitable for policing the traffic which flowed through the star system’s freight-handling and servicing facilities. The ZSN certainly didn’t possess anything remotely like a true warship, although it did assign a squadron of its LACs to Zunker Terminus Astro Control, where it worked in concert with a similar force of Idahoian vessels.

Which was how Lieutenant Tilborch and the crew of ZSNS Kipling came to have a ringside seat for what promised to be a most unhappy day in near-Zunker space.

“What do we do, Jannetje?” he asked now, never looking away from the display where a single Solarian merchant ship headed directly towards the terminus, escorted by six Solarian League Navy battlecruisers. “What we do is get the hell out of the way and com home to Effingham.”

“But what about—?” van Calcar began.

“The Manties are the ones who announced they were closing the terminus to Solarian traffic, and Idaho backed them,” Tilborch replied, cutting her off. “You know where my sympathies lie, but we’ve got no official business poking our noses in. Besides”—he smiled humorlessly—“it’s not like Kipling was going to make any difference, is it?”

* * *

Captain Hiram Ivanov watched his tactical display and frowned as he considered the odds and how they must look from the other side. His division of Saganami-C-class heavy cruisers was one ship understrength, leaving him only three to confront the oncoming Solarian battlecruisers. He also had four Roland-class destroyers, however, which actually gave him the numerical advantage, although destroyers and heavy cruisers were scarcely in the same league (nominally, at least) as battlecruisers. On the other hand, all of his ships had Mark 23-stuffed missile pods tractored to their hulls, which put rather a different complexion on traditional calculations combat power. Unfortunately, it appeared these particular Sollies still hadn’t worked through the implications of the Battle of Spindle.

“How do you want to handle it, Sir?” Commander Claudine Takoush asked softly from his command chair com display. Ivanov looked down at her image and raised his eyebrows, and she shrugged. “I know what we’re supposed to do, Sir. I’m only wondering how much talking you plan to do first? I mean, this”—she twitched her head in the direction of her own tactical plot—“is just a bit more blatant than we expected.”

“Blatant isn’t precisely the word I’d choose, Claudine,” Ivanov replied in a judicious tone. “In fact, on reflection, I believe ‘stupid’ comes a lot closer to capturing the essence of my feelings at this moment. ‘Arrogant’ and ‘pigheaded’ probably belong somewhere in the mix, too, now that I think about it.”

“Do you think it’s the local Frontier Fleet CO’s idea? Or that it represents orders from their admiralty?”