“Um.” High Ridge frowned, and Janacek waited, his expression calm, while he pondered. Then the Prime Minister nodded slowly.

“I’m not certain I entirely agree with you, Edward,” he said pontifically, “but the Admiralty is your shop. And certainly your loyalty to your subordinates is commendable. I would advise you not to allow that loyalty to blind you to realities. Or to create a situation in which someone else’s incompetence destroys your own career. But I’m not prepared to overrule you where Jurgensen is concerned at this time.”

“Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that,” Janacek said gravely, and it was true. He especially appreciated the fact that keeping Jurgensen around offered him a ready made scapegoat he could blame and—regretfully, of course—sack after all if any other disasters came home to roost.

“In the meantime,” the First Lord continued, “and having admitted that, for whatever reason, we’ve suffered an Intelligence failure of the first magnitude, I would like to point out two things. First, the only source we have for the number and capabilities of the Peeps’—I mean, the Republic’s—new ships is Theisman’s own news conference. There is absolutely no independent confirmation of any of his claims at this time. Second, the mere fact that they may possess pod-superdreadnoughts doesn’t necessarily equate to anything like equal capabilities in combat.”

“Are you suggesting that the Republic doesn’t, in fact, have the ships it claims it does?” New Kiev managed not to sound overtly incredulous, but her automatic distaste for and distrust of all things military still colored her voice.

“I’m not suggesting anything where numbers of hulls are concerned,” he replied, his eyes hard. “I’m simply pointing out that the only numbers we have are the ones Theisman supplied. It’s certainly possible he exaggerated those numbers. By the same token, it’s equally possible that he under represented them, instead.”

“Why would he do either of those?” Descroix asked.

“I haven’t said he did do either of them.” Janacek heard an edge of exasperation creeping into his voice and made himself stop and draw a deep breath. Then he continued. “What I said was that he might have done either of them, and that we wouldn’t have any way of knowing which—if either—it was. As to why he might have announced inaccurate numbers, I can think of at least a handful of reasons to go either way. If this is the first step towards a more aggressive and assertive foreign policy, then obviously it would be to the Republic’s advantage for its opponents to overestimate its military potential. In that case, telling us that they have more ships than they actually do would be a reasonable piece of disinformation for them to throw out. That might also be true if they’re concerned about the possibility of preemptive action on our part. On the other hand, if their objective is to lull us into a sense of false security, then it would make sense for them to understate their actual strength in order to avoid alarming us. For that matter, they might also believe that understating their true strength would cause us to feel less alarmed and so be less likely to act preemptively. The problem, of course, is that we have absolutely no way to know which, if any, of those possibilities might actually be true. That’s why I raised the point in the first place. We need to be aware-all of us need to be aware—of exactly how limited our current information really is. Not only about these new ships of theirs, but about their possible intentions, as well.”