There was a sudden, profound silence in the conference room as all of them were brought face to face with the unpalatable numbers. Janacek was hardly surprised, although nothing he’d said should have come as a shock to them. The time lag was an inevitable consequence of their decision to suspend construction in the first place, and he and Houseman had both warned the others about it. They hadn’t exactly dwelt on it, of course, but they had mentioned it. It was right there, in black and white, in their initial budgetary analysis, which at least meant no one who felt surprised now could blame them for it.

“That’s a wider period of vulnerability than I like,” High Ridge said finally. He did not, Janacek noticed, ask what the Republic of Haven’s shipyards might be producing during that same period. That was a point which had exercised a considerable influence on the First Lord’s own thought processes over the last day or so, but if no one else was going to bring it up, he certainly had no intention of doing so.

“I don’t much care for it myself, Michael,” he said instead. “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do to narrow it. Not by simply increasing our own forces, that is.”

“What are you suggesting?” Descroix asked.

“I’m not suggesting anything… at this point,” Janacek replied. “But we have to be aware of all of our alternatives, Elaine.”

“And which alternative haven’t you already mentioned?” she inquired, gazing at him intensely.

“We could always opt for a preemptive strike on their new ships,” he said flatly.

“That would be an act of war!” New Kiev protested instantly, and Janacek ordered himself not to let his contempt show.

“Yes, it would,” he acknowledged with massive restraint. “I’d like to point out, however, that legally we’re still at war with the Republic of Haven. If you’ve read the transcript of Theisman’s news conference, then you know he made that point himself, when one of the newsies asked him why the Pritchart administration had been so secretive about its own naval budget. He was right, too. So to the best of my knowledge, there’s absolutely no domestic or interstellar legal obstacle to our resuming military operations at any time we choose.”

“But we happen to be in the middle of a truce… and negotiating to extend that truce into a permanent treaty!” New Kiev pointed out sharply.

She glowered at Janacek, her nonconfrontational attitude clearly in abeyance as her maternal pride in the truce agreement she had negotiated during her own tenure as Foreign Secretary roused.

“I’m fully aware of that, Marisa,” he told her. “And I’m not proposing any sort of attack at this time. I’m simply enumerating all of our potential responses. Personally, I find the notion of resuming active operations the least appetizing of any of them, but I don’t think we can afford to overlook it.”

“Especially not when it’s the Havenites, not us, who have seen fit to destabilize the existing military balance,” Descroix put in virtuously. New Kiev turned her attention to the Foreign Secretary, who shrugged. “They can’t reasonably expect us to negotiate in good faith under threat, Marisa!”