“I don’t think I like what I’m hearing, Benjamin,” Honor said quietly. “And not just because it’s insulting to every officer in a Grayson uniform. Tell me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me as if what you’re saying is that the reports Jurgensen is sharing with you are not only incomplete but… slanted.”

“I think that’s exactly what they are,” Benjamin told her flatly. “I don’t know if his people are going as far as deliberately falsifying information, but it seems very evident to me and to Greg that at the very least they’re disregarding evidence which doesn’t support the conclusion they wanted to reach from the beginning.”

“Do you have specific examples of that?” she asked very seriously.

“Obviously, we can’t show you a smoking gun when we’ve never seen the original data in the first place. But I’ll give you two possible examples, both of which I find particularly disturbing.”

“First, Silesia. Everything in the official ONI reports suggests that Emperor Gustav is still in the process of deciding what policy to pursue towards the Confederacy. At the same time, until the last month or so, ONI showed absolutely no concern about possible increases in the Andermani’s naval tech base. But according to our sources in the diplomatic community, both in the Confederacy and on New Potsdam, the Emperor made his mind up months ago. Possibly as long as a full T-year ago. We can’t positively confirm that, of course, but the aggressive moves they’ve been making and the generally more confrontational attitude of their naval forces in and around Marsh all seem to us to confirm that thesis.

“Greg’s conclusion, and mine, is that the Empire has decided this is the time to push in Silesia. The Andermani haven’t issued any formal demands or ultimatums to the Silesians, and they certainly haven’t sent any formal communiques on the subject to Lady Descroix, but we think that’s because they’re still testing the waters and getting themselves positioned. Once they’re satisfied the Star Kingdom won’t push back—or isn’t in a position to do any pushing—they’ll make their demands clear enough. And they’ll be prepared to use military force to support them.

“Which brings us to our second concern about Silesia, which is the fact that we believe ONI is seriously underestimating the extent to which the Andermani have improved their naval capabilities. Our hard and fast observational data is pretty thin, but there’s enough to convince us that we’re looking at a major increase in their compensator efficiency, that they’ve made substantial improvements in the range and targeting capability of their missiles, and that they’ve been experimenting with their own LACs. We don’t think their LAC technology, in particular, is anywhere near our own—not yet—but we can’t rule out the possibility that they’ve been putting the LACs they do have onto carriers. The thing that makes this particularly disturbing is that we know they’re fully aware of what Eighth Fleet did to the Peeps, and one thing the IAN isn’t is stupid. They wouldn’t be picking a fight with someone they know just kicked the Peeps’ butts if they didn’t think their own hardware was good enough to even the balance. And unlike us, they have a pretty good idea of exactly what kind of hardware they’d have to go up against, because their observers have seen ours in action.”