“With all due respect, Captain,” Clapp put in diffidently, “we’re not actually planning doctrine around this specific response. We simply anticipated it for the first few engagements.”

“Granted,” Anders acknowledged. “But I can’t help feeling that ‘the first few engagements’ are going to set the pattern for our doctrine. All I’m saying, Mitchell, is that we need to be aware that they’re going to adjust their operational patterns as soon as they realize what we’ve got. Which means what we really ought to be modeling at this point is not only how we expect them to react the first time they see the Cimeterres, but also what we expect them to do to adapt to the new threat.”

“No one’s disagreeing with you, Five,” Foraker intervened mildly. “Obviously they’re going to adapt, just like we’ve done in introducing the Cimeterres in reaction to their LACs. But the only thing worse than not allowing for adaptation on their part at all would be to project too far ahead with too little data. We believe we know more about their hardware and capabilities at the moment than they know about ours, but there are still a lot of things we’re only guessing about. Without a more definite idea of what their options are, we could easily doublethink our way into a complete misestimate of the ones they’ll choose.”

“I know.” Anders glowered at the plot for a moment, then puffed his cheeks, exhaled, and gave his admiral a slightly sheepish smile. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I guess it’s the engineer in me. I know we live in the real universe, where we can’t nail things down the way we would in an R&D program. Especially not when the one thing we can count on a potential enemy doing is whatever it is we didn’t want him to do in the first place.” He grimaced and nodded to Clapp. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was carping, Commander. It’s just—”

“Just that one of a chief of staff’s jobs is to play Cassandra, especially when everyone else seems to be feeling overly optimistic,” Foraker completed for him with a smile. “Not that you’d make a very good Greek princess, Five,” she added, and her smile turned into a grin as she contemplated the shininess of his hairless pate.

“Thanks… I think,” Anders replied.

“They’re about to enter missile range,” Lampert put in. Sovereign of Space’s tactical officer was not a student of Old Earth mythology at the best of times, and, unlike the other three, he’d never taken his eyes from the onrushing wavefronts of icons in the plot. Now his announcement pulled their attention back to it, as well.

He was right, and as Foraker’s eyes sought out the tactical sidebars, she saw the icons of the Manticoran LACs double, then redouble, then redouble yet again as the combination of their hellishly effective onboard EW and even more frustrating drones and remote platforms came online.

“Right on schedule,” Clapp murmured to himself at her elbow, and she glanced at him. The commander was clearly unaware he’d spoken aloud, and Foraker hid a smile as she recognized an echo of her old self in him.