“Which won’t do you personally a great deal of good if my admittedly inferior missiles blow you and every damned superdreadnought in company with you into plasma,” Filareta heard his own voice say harshly.

“No, it wouldn’t. But that’s not going to happen, Admiral. First of all, we’ve had the advantage of examining Sandra Crandall’s units in some detail. On the basis of that examination, we know your fire control is capable of managing salvos of no more than seventeen to eighteen thousand missiles. Each of my superdreadnoughts, on the other hand, can manage more than two hundred missiles apiece…in real-time, without transmission lags. I’ll let you do the math.”

She looked at him coolly.

“Bearing in mind that capability, do you really think we haven’t developed a defensive doctrine to deal with far heavier volumes of fire than your fleet can possibly lay down or control? I’m sure you’ve observed all of the LACs screening my forces, for example. I’m also sure you dismissed them as ‘only’ LACs. Before you do that, however, you might want to remember just how badly you’ve underestimated the rest of our hardware.”

She showed her teeth in another of those icy smiles as she let that sink in, then continued with the same, cold dispassion that was more terrifying than any rant could ever have been.

“Each of those LACs has more missile defense capability than one of your Rampart-class or War Harvest-class destroyers,” she told him. “In fact, they probably have more antimissile capability than one of your cruisers. And at this moment there are two thousand of them deployed with each of my forces. Which doesn’t even consider what our onboard defenses and EW will do to your birds.” She shook her head. “Your fire isn’t getting through my defenses, Admiral. Not enough of it to do you one bit of good.”

Filareta’s jaw tightened. He wanted, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life, to believe she was lying. That it was all still an elaborate bluff. But he knew better. There was too much certitude, too much confidence in those frozen brown eyes. And her body language—for that matter, the body language of every officer and rating in her pickup’s field of view—was just as confident as her eyes.

Silence lingered for several seconds, then he drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

“And your point in explaining all of this to me is—?”