“What about what you and Niall managed at Trevor’s Star?” she challenged.

“What we managed there was a negative event,” he replied. She started to say something else, and he shook his head. “I’m not trying to be falsely modest, Honor. And I’m not trying to downplay what we accomplished, or to pretend that the public as a whole and the San Martinos in particular don’t realize that what we staved off would have turned the Peep offensive into a total and complete disaster for the Alliance. But the fact remains that the fleet we had a shot at escaped intact, with nothing worse than the loss of a few LACs. The fleet that you had a shot at didn’t just retreat—it was destroyed. I’m prepared to admit that in a strategic sense Sidemore is infinitely less vital to the Star Kingdom than Trevor’s Star, and even that the ships they committed to the attack there seem to have included a higher percentage of obsolescent types which, in the final analysis, they could afford to lose much more readily than they could have afforded to lose the ships they committed to Trevor’s Star. All of that may be true, but it’s also beside the point.”

“Given the increases in their technical capabilities, especially now that Erewhon is on their side of the line, the moral ascendancy we established before the cease-fire is even more vitally important. Frankly, they’ve just demonstrated that we don’t have a right to that ascendancy any longer, but they may not realize it. For that matter, our people may not realize it… if we’re lucky. The fact that you defeated them so decisively in the one place where effectively equal forces stood and fought is what we want them to remember. It’s what we want our own people to remember, too, but it’s even more important where the Peeps are concerned.”¡

“The fact that they refused to engage at roughly equal odds at Trevor’s Star is also going to loom in their thinking, I hope, of course. But that refusal takes on an entirely new light in the wake of what happened at Sidemore. Now it could be seen not simply as prudence—which, between you and me, is precisely what it actually was—so much as cowardice. Or, at least, an admission of their continued inability to meet us on equal terms.”

“I suppose I can follow your argument,” Honor said a bit dubiously. “It all seems very thin to me, though.”

“Oh, it’s certainly that,” White Haven agreed with feeling. “But there’s a second string to our bow, as well. And, to be honest, you created the preconditions for it, as well.”

“I did? And what sort of ‘second string’ are you talking about?”

“Sir Anthony has already been in touch with the Andermani,” White Haven told her. “Given the Gregor terminus, we can communicate back and forth with New Berlin faster than the Havenite fleet could retreat from Trevor’s Star to the Haven System, and Willie and Elizabeth didn’t lose any time taking advantage of that.