“If I may, Admiral Giscard,” Captain Anders said quietly, “I do have one additional concern I haven’t heard anyone address yet.”

“What sort of concern, Captain?”

“Grayson, Sir.” Several people glanced at one another, and Anders produced a brief smile. “I’ve been looking at NavInt’s most recent estimates of their SD(P) strength,” he continued. “I don’t know if the Staff’s planners are making sufficient allowance for what they might do with that strength.”

“At the moment,” Captain Gozzi replied before Giscard could speak, “they’ve sent a substantial chunk of that strength off on a training cruise, Five. And even if they hadn’t, it’s going to take them some time to figure out what’s happening. Even assuming that their navy and the RMN were still on the same sort of terms they were before the cease-fire, there ought to be more than enough delay before they could respond for us to be in possession of Trevor’s Star and all of the rest of our objectives.”

“I know that’s the analysts’ conclusion,” Anders acknowledged. “And they may well be right. But given the Graysons’ performance to date, I’d prefer something a bit more definite than ‘may well be right’ where they’re concerned. Admiral Foraker mentioned letting sleeping dogs lie in Silesia. My own preference would be to keep Second Fleet closer to home to cover against the possibility that the Graysons are quicker off the mark than we think they’ll be.”

“That thought certainly has merit,” Giscard said, waving Gozzi off when his own chief of staff started to respond once again. “But Grayson’s possible reaction is another one of those risks we’re simply going to have to accept. I think NavInt’s analysts are almost certainly right about how quickly Grayson will be able to respond once they realize an attack is underway. I think they’re also right about Janacek’s attitude towards Grayson. He resents and loathes them as uppity neobarbs with no respect for their betters, so the last thing he’s going to want to do is call them in to reinforce his own forces. Hell, he probably hasn’t even done any contingency planning with them for how they might respond to an attack if we launched one! Which doesn’t even consider the possibility that he and High Ridge have managed to alienate Grayson to an extent which would make Mayhew hesitate to respond in the first place.”

“With all due respect for NavInt, Admiral, I don’t think I’d put too much reliance on that last point. It’s certainly legitimate to think in terms of the physical limitations on how quickly they can respond, but Grayson and the Manties have been through a lot together. I don’t see Mayhew cutting his allies adrift. Especially if we’re the aggressor.”

Giscard gazed at Foraker’s chief of staff thoughtfully for several seconds, then shrugged.

“I wasn’t going to bring this up,” he said. “And what I’m about to say doesn’t leave this compartment.”

He paused until all of them had nodded.

“All right. Captain Anders may very well be entirely correct in his estimate of the relationship between Grayson and the Star Kingdom. To be perfectly honest, Secretary Theisman tells me that the analysts at NavInt and ForInt are pretty badly divided over exactly how bad relations between the Protector and the High Ridge Government have actually become. However, there are at least some strong indications that the Manticoran Alliance is no longer as… solid as it was. Specifically,” he continued as eyes narrowed speculatively around the conference table, “we’ve been in contact with the Republic of Erewhon. Obviously, no one has discussed Case Red Alpha with the Erewhonese, but last week the Erewhon Ambassador initialed an agreement in principle for a defensive military alliance with us.”